In the Old Burial Ground is an odd grave maker. It reads, “In memory of Elizabeth, who Should have been the Wife of Mr. Simeon Palmer… died Augst 14th 1776 in the 64th year of her age.” A clue to the meaning of this inscription may lie in a 1901 account by a Little Compton resident of an eccentric belief held by local minister Richard Billings, who “firmly believed in cats as an article of diet, and fatted them for the purpose.”
Little Compton’s original proprietors set aside the land for the Burial Ground in 1678, and the oldest marker belongs to Mary Rouse Price, who died in 1698. Other stones mark the graves of children who died with alarming frequency in the early years of the town, victims of epidemics, and many of Little Compton’s most notable residents including Primus Collins and Betty Alden, whose stories are also available on Rhode Tour.
The story of Simeon and Elizabeth Palmer might be the Burial Ground’s most unusual. Lying next to the woman who “should have been the wife of Simeon Palmer” is the grave of Lidia Palmer, identified as the “Wife of Simeon Palmer.” According to one local legend, Simeon Palmer jilted Elizabeth during their courtship and married Lidia instead. In fact, Elizabeth actually was the wife of Simeon for 21 years. They married in 1755, after Simeon’s first wife, Lidia, died.
In 1901, Little Compton resident M.L.T. Alden offered another explanation for the perplexing stone. If his account is true, it is even more fascinating than the legend.
According to Alden, whose source was “the antiquarian of the village,” Simeon Palmer adopted Reverend Billings’ habit of including cat meat as part of his regular diet, perhaps because an attack of heat stroke left him “mildly insane.” Simeon attempted to force his wife and baby daughter to partake in his cat meat diet, but Elizabeth would not have it. She took their daughter and moved into her parents’ home.
Simeon and Elizabeth continued to maintain a semblance of a marriage. Simeon visited his wife and daughter on Sundays, and Elizabeth took care of her husband’s laundry and mending. But Simeon remained bitter about this arrangement, and when Elizabeth died he ordered her gravestone engraved with the unusual epitaph. The “should have been” referred to Elizabeth’s refusal to perform her duties as a wife by living with her husband.
Church records indicate that Simeon married a third time and moved to New York State. Whether he continued to eat cats is unknown.
]]>“In Memory of Duchess Quamino, A free black of distinguished excellence: Intelligent, Industrious, Affectionate, Honest, and of Exemplary Piety, Who deceased June 4, 1804, aged 65.”
Quamino’s weather-worn marker, along with nearly 300 others, comprise a section of Newport’s Common Burial Ground known as “God’s Little Acre,” one of the oldest and largest colonial African burial grounds in the United States. Dating from the late 1600s, “God’s Little Acre” offers insight into the lives of enslaved and free Africans such as Quamino through the commemorative words and images etched into stone.
Although described as a “free black” on her marker, Quamino was enslaved in the home of William Channing until she bought her freedom. Quamino also lived in her master’s house, which was customary in urban seaports where slaves worked in trades and crafts rather than on plantations. Many of the slaves brought to Newport were young children who worked alongside their masters to learn skills like rum making, rope braiding, stone carving, candle making, and chocolate grinding. Quamino used her culinary skills to run a catering business out of her master’s house. Her entrepreneurial success allowed her to purchase her freedom and earned her the title “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island.”
Quamino’s inscription praises her “Exemplary Piety” and includes a hymnal verse: “Blessed thy slumbers in this house of clay, And bright thy rising to eternal day.” With these words, William Ellery Channing, the founder of the Unitarian Church and the author of the epitaph, recognized Quamino’s involvement in the religious community of Newport. Quamino’s husband John was also a devout Christian. After gaining his freedom, he studied alongside a minister at Princeton in preparation for missionary work in Africa, but their plans dissolved when John was killed aboard a privateer ship during the American Revolution.
Like many slaves in colonial Newport, the Quaminos experienced the wave of Christian revival known as the Great Awakening during which Protestant America sought to convert the African population. In Newport, some slaves were provided religious education, converted to their master’s religion, and worshipped with the family in the home and at church. The burial ground reflects the breadth of religious diversity present in the city through carvings of angels, Biblical verses, and acknowledgements of those who lived with virtue and piousness.
The markers also tell about the origins of the deceased through the traditions of names. The prevalence of Anglicized or phonetically spelled versions of names from the African Gold Coast revealed the homeland of many Newport slaves to be Ghana. Upholding the naming tradition of the Akan people, the Africans often had names that identified the day of the week and order in which they were born. The name “Quamino” is given to boys born on a Saturday. In Duchess’ case, “Quamino” was her married name after her husband.
Walking through “God’s Little Acre,” the leaning, faded colonial stones are joined by the new markers of their descendants, a tribute to the resilience and preservation of African heritage in Rhode Island.
In November 2025, Duchess Quamino played a prominent role in “Life After Life,” a live performance developed through research and performed by 50 community members in Newport Common Burying Ground in November 2025. Actress Rebekah Acquah embodied Duchess, a transformative experience that gave her profound insight into Duchess’s character: “[This play] allowed me to honor not just [who the characters] were in the books, but also who the person was. It gave me the ability to give life to the dead.” As Rebekah noted, Duchess sparked opportunities for generations to come through her entrepreneurship, determination, and drive: “[Duchess] purchased her freedom and her children’s freedom and then bought a home next to the people who enslaved her. That’s a boss…If it wasn’t for someone like Duchess Quamino and so many others, I wouldn’t have been free to express [myself], to be sitting in this room right now.” You can see Rebekah portray Duchess in the Image Gallery below, and can learn more about “Life After Life” here: centeraquidneck.com/life-after-life-about
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