Editing Roger Williams (section)

==Death and memorialization==
Williams died sometime between January 16 and March 16, 1683<ref>{{Cite web |title=Roger Williams Biography |url=https://www.rogerwilliams.org/biography.html |access-date=2023-07-12 |website=www.rogerwilliams.org}}</ref> and was buried on his own property.<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Today in History - February 5 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/february-05/ |access-date=2023-07-12 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref> Fifty years later, his house collapsed into the cellar and the location of his grave was forgotten.<ref name=":6" />

Providence residents were determined to raise a monument in his honor in 1860; they "dug up the spot where they believed the remains to be, they found only nails, teeth, and bone fragments. They also found an apple tree root," which they thought followed the shape of a human body; the root followed the shape of a spine, split at the hips, bent at the knees, and turned up at the feet.<ref name="nps">Sparkle Bryant, [https://web.archive.org/web/20180408144524/https://www.nps.gov/rowi/learn/news/the-tree-root-that-ate-roger-williams.htm "The Tree Root That Ate Roger Williams"], National Park Service website, archive date April 8, 2018; access date April 3, 2025.</ref><ref>[https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2210 "The Tree Root That Ate Roger Williams"], ''Roadside America'' website, accessed April 8, 2018.</ref>

The [[Rhode Island Historical Society]] has cared for this tree root since 1860 as representative of Rhode Island's founder. Since 2007, the root has been displayed at the [[John Brown House (Providence, Rhode Island)|John Brown House]].<ref>Rhode Island Historical Society, "Body, Body, Who's Got the Body? Where in the World IS Roger Williams", ''New and Notes,'' (Spring/Winter, 2008), pg. 4.</ref>

The few remains discovered alongside the root were reinterred in [[Prospect Terrace Park]] in 1939 at the base of a large stone monument.