Tracey Miller is a veteran when it comes to running parades. Well, sort of. She chaired the Gaspee Days parade in 2018 so she had a good idea of the planning it would take to run this year’s parade, although it was not what she thought she would be doing.

Tracey stepped in to the leadership position with the unexpected departure of the person chosen for the post. And making it all the more difficult, she was in the process of recovering from back surgery performed in December.

But that didn’t dampen her passion to run one of the largest, if not the largest parade in the history of Gaspee Days celebrations. Thirty-nine colonial and 50 community units marched Saturday. The parade stepped off from Spring Green and Narragansett Parkway at 10 a.m. and it wasn’t until 1:30 p.m. before the Mummers brought the line of march to a close at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet.

Tracey who perched on a cushion on the back of a convertible with her husband, Steve, president of the 2022 Gaspee Days committee, found people two and three deep and packed into the village as they drove the route. She guessed spectators numbered around 25,000.

What surprised and heartened her was the response of the crowd.

“They were hooting and hollering; everyone was happy, excited,” she said.

As the tradition, the Pawtuxet Rangers — celebrating their 250th anniversary this year — led the first division. Col. Ron Barnes, who is retiring after 20 years in command, followed Lt. Col. Phil Rowell who carried the mace made from wood from the HMS Gaspee that colonists burned when it ran aground on Namquid Point shoals on June 9, 1772. The Gaspee was in pursuit of the colonial ship Hannah that cleared the shoals on an ebbing tide and sailed on to Providence to alert merchant John Brown who had no love for the tax collecting British. Brown rallied men to row down to the stranded Gaspee.

There were several versions of the Gaspee and Hannah in the parade, but none as creative as the portrayal of the burning ship — a theatrical smoke machine must have been at the heart of the vessel — on the Hoxsie School trailer, or the chase reenacted by the Rhode Island Yacht Club. Club members wearing cardboard cutouts of the Gaspee and Hannah chased each other to the amusement of spectators.

The real Gaspee — well, the one that is burned in Pawtuxet Cove the day following the parade to conclude Gaspee Day celebrations — was also in the parade. It had a new look. Its steel hull was wrapped in brown cloth giving it the appearance of wood. A Union Jack hung limply from its shrouds and white sheets from its masts.  As it turned out that’s where they will be for at least another year. With rain Sunday morning, launching of the display was postponed until the sun broke out. By that time, however, the tide had dropped and the water was too low for launching, explained Tracey.

This was the Gaspee incident redux, but instead of Namquid shoals, the Gaspee was stuck in the Aspray Boathouse parking lot.

Tracey was excited to have two descendants of colonists involved in the 1772 burning appearing in the parade: Ned Brown, the fourth great grandson of Brig. General John Glover, who owned the Hannah; and Robert Bucklin, a distant relative of Joseph Bucklin V, who shot William Dudingston, commander of the Gaspee. Dudingston was taken ashore by the colonists and treated. He went on to fight in the revolution for the British.

Tracey was also excited to have the Bishop Hendricken High School Band return to the parade after a 10-year hiatus. School president and pastor of St. Kevin Church, Father Robert Marciano led the Hendricken contingent.

Reflecting on all that went into the parade, Tracey said the work, much of it on her computer and corresponding with groups, kept her busy and her mind off her back pain. Running the parade also took some accounting. The parade cost $72,000, which all came from donations.

 “It was good medicine for me; a distraction,” she said of the job.

Come Saturday, however, pain gave her qualms of the long day ahead.

“That morning I said, okay, let’s go.”

She did and the parade took off.