Namesakes and Gravesites at North Burial Ground

13 Locations | Curated by Rhode Island College Associate Professor of History Erik Christiansen

Rhode Island’s landscape is marked by numerous named places, from a world-renowned university to obscure public squares and forgotten ruins. Neighborhoods and towns bear the names of people who made their contributions to the region’s development centuries ago. Locals and visitors alike enjoy recreation in area parks, rivers, and natural areas that memorialize the people who built our community.

Providence’s oldest public cemetery, the North Burial Ground, contains the remains of many of the individuals whose names still mark the local landscape. Established in 1700, the burial ground’s 110 acres are similarly marked by names, familiar because of their association with named places around the state. A stroll through the various sections of the cemetery, added piecemeal to the original colonial burying ground, takes visitors past tens of thousands of graves and through more than three centuries of local history. Thus, the North Burial Ground remains a hub of recognizable Rhode Islanders.

If you can, visualize a map that shows Fort Barton in Tiverton, Goddard Park in Warwick, Olneyville in Providence, and Allendale Mill in North Providence. Though miles apart, the historical figures for whom these places were named lie within yards of each other in the burial ground. While these public memorial spaces seem disconnected from each other because of the distances between them, the proximity of the men’s graves to one another points to certain connections. We see that these famous individuals belonged to a community, located in a particular space and time, and achieved their remembered feats within and because of that community, rather than as isolated or exceptional individuals.

The landscape of the burial ground thus compliments and complicates the broader landscape. The familiar namesakes of Rhode Island link to the names etched on gravestones, which are themselves a sort of namesake -- and the only sort that awaits most of us upon our death. By linking the two landscapes and reuniting name and namesake, this is a tour that operates on two different planes but nevertheless encourages you to look for points of intersection.

On the night of July 9, 1777, a Continental Army major stationed at Fort Tiverton Heights quietly sailed with a regiment of 40 or so men towards Newport, to a private residence occupied by British High General Richard Prescott. Sneaking around three British frigates, and without any shots fired,…
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One famous feature of Providence is the great age of many of the houses. Walking around downtown Providence or the surrounding neighborhoods and towns, we commonly see houses and buildings that are over 100 years old. Well, the house built by Jeremiah Dexter is more than double that age. Built in…
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Goddard Memorial State Park is more than a simple plot of land. A state recreation area with 490 acres of land in Potowomut Neck, Warwick, the park has a lot of history behind it. In 1792, Nicholas Brown acquired this land. He later passed it on to his daughter, Hope Brown, who married Thomas…
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Born in 1738, Moses Brown was the youngest of the five brothers born into the prominent Brown family. He became an abolitionist, and manumitted his slaves in 1773; he did this although other members of the Brown family were slave traders. He was also a merchant, working for his uncle Obadiah at…
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Despite the popular misconception, the figure that hangs under the arch as you ascend Atwells Avenue onto Federal Hill is not a pineapple, but a pinecone. A symbol for abundance and quality, the pinecone, or, La Pigna, is a nod to the rich Italian culture that has dominated “The Hill” since…
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There are a few things that Rhode Island lacks: adequate parking at the beach, pothole-free streets, and enough Del’s to go around. One thing it does not lack however is prominent figures with the last name “Brown.” To be fair, it was a Brown that co-founded Providence; it was the Brown family that…
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The pins on this tour were researched and written by Rhode Island College students in "Introduction to Public History," Spring 2018.

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