Indigenous Museum in Exeter Eyes Move to Bigger Location

A "Yes" vote on Rhode Island Question 5 will make the difference

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

Make the dream real. Vote YES to RI Ballor Question 5

As the Tomaquag Museum looks to move to a new location at the University of Rhode Island, the organization hopes funding from the state will help make it happen.

Rhode Islanders will vote on Question 5, which if approved would create a $10 million bond for arts and preservation efforts — $2 million of which would help fund the Tomaquag Museum and its planned relocation to a larger facility and research center in Kingston.

At a virtual meeting Wednesday, the museum’s executive director, Loren Spears, reviewed preliminary plans for the new museum and discussed how it will further the organization’s goals.

“Those that know me well know that I kind of grew up in Tomaquag Museum, but I’m not quite as old as when it was founded,” she said, smiling, at the start of the meeting.

The only Indigenous-run museum in the state focused on Native history and culture, the Tomaquag Museum started as a small enterprise in 1958.

Founded by Princess Red Wing, a member of the Narragansett and Wampanoag tribes, and Eva Butler, an archaeologist, the museum was a way to preserve and share the story of local Indigenous people.

“The museum has been busy over the years. It was very much a volunteer-run organization for more than 50 years,” Spears said, “If someone got paid, it was more like pin money, or a stipend, or a particular grant-funded project.”

It wasn’t until 1978, under the leadership of Spears’ mother, Dawn Dove, that the museum officially became a nonprofit. Then, in the early 2000s, Spears became the museum’s first paid employee.

“We have grown tremendously,” said Spears, explaining that it went from six employees in 2016, when the museum won the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, to 17 employees today (12 of whom are full-time).

While that has meant more programming and opportunities for the museum, the current site on Summit Road, owned by Spears’ mother and once the location of the famous Dove Crest Restaurant, is sentimental, but crowded.

The museum is currently made up of one exhibit room, teeming from top to bottom with belongings from different groups and time periods, with glass cases lining every wall. A smaller room off to the side of the building hosts a gift shop with a small space for employees in the back.

“Our site is so small and we’ve really outgrown it,” said Spears, noting that the museum has to rely on outdoor space it can only use for half the year for programming, and usually employees are jammed into the office space all together.

Showing renderings of the new location at URI, Spears said there will be more space to exhibit and store the museum’s belongings, including jewelry, baskets, clothing, and personal items that belonged to different leaders in the tribes. It has 12,000 pieces in total. A research space will make it easier to examine the more than 100,000 documents, including maps, photos, and writings, in the archive.

A new cafe and expanded gift shop will feature food and items crafted by Indigenous people.

“There are lots — maybe 50, 60, 70 — Indigenous businesses across the nation that we could be partnering with,” Spears said.

Those elements of the museum will also create more job opportunities, she added.

Unlike the current museum, which is most easily accessible by car, the new facility would be right off a bus line and near a bike path.

“We’re estimating that after a couple of years of being there, and [we] get settled in, that we have the capacity to serve about 150,000 people a year,” she said, “and create an economic impact of over $6 million.”

To break ground, Spears said the museum needs to raise $10 million, “which we’re hoping, fingers crossed and lots of good prayers out there, will be sometime in 2025. There is still some pre-construction work that needs to be finished, but we’re hopeful.”

So far, they’ve raised just over $6 million.

(“I have to admit, back in the day, I never would think I’d be talking in millions of dollars,” Spears said.)

The $2 million from the bond and the match the museum would have to procure to get the state funding would put it over the edge for that first milestone, she said. In total, the project will cost about $18 million.

“We have never, as an organization, we have never owned our own home,” Spears said. The museum has always borrowed, or in more recent history, rented a space. “We’re looking forward to having a little bit more space to do the work that we do, that we do for the public.”