The Dead Come To Life

On a late October day, 93 eighth-graders from Curtis Corner Middle School walked the bike path two miles and 200 years into Wakefield history. For many of the students, the Autumn 2010 field trip to Riverside Cemetery was their first exposure to the Historical Cemeteries of South Kingstown.

In an interdisciplinary project entitled “History Comes Alive in the Graveyard,” the students were accompanied by several parent chaperones and five outside-the-box educators who began brainstorming the concept nearly a year ago: Trish Labossiere, reading; Cindy Pinkerton, math; Kevin Poirier, science; Lauren Poirier, language arts; and Ashley Weeks, social studies.

“This was a good way to show that learning takes place in and out of school,” observed Ms. Labossiere, a sentiment echoed by Mr. Poirier who recalled that in the 1980s, URI Education Professor Dr. William Croasdale took Poirier’s class of young teachers-in-training to Old Fernwood Cemetery in Kingston to show them how to teach science in a graveyard.

Like the more than 200 Historical Cemeteries in South Kingstown, Old Fernwood Cemetery is ascribed an alphanumeric designation (SK006). You can learn more about all of the Historical Cemeteries in South Kingstown by visiting the Rhode Island Cemeteries Database, an online registry of cemetery locations.

Grave Concern

As if taking cues from a detective novel or fantasy game, the Curtis Corner Middle School students strategized their assignment at Riverside Cemetery (SK043) by selecting from 32 blocks of grave sites on a sector map the teachers provided.

Some 5,000 former residents are buried in Riverside Cemetery, and their passing is memorialized by 4,003 inscriptions dating from 1716 to 1993. The surnames carved in stone at Riverside Cemetery are a who’s who of prominent, local families - among them Curtis, Hazard, Tefft, Robinson, Whaley, Stedman, Sherman, and Holland.

The middle schoolers from Curtis Corner were equipped with clipboards and data sheets and asked to complete eight grave-marker surveys. Six of the graves were of the students’ own choosing from disparate blocks on the map. In addition, the students were required to survey the grave of Civil War veterans John K. Hull or William S. Peckham.

The final required survey was the grave of William J. Babcock, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient, who died on the very same day in 1897 as the 2010 Curtis Corner Middle School field trip - October 29th.

For each grave, the students sketched the headstone, while noting names, dates, symbols, proverbs, and the type of stone from which the memorial was made. Later they would analyze these data to determine, among other things, the deadliest time period and the age range with the highest frequency of death.

“Math is an aspect of every part of life,” noted Ms. Pinkerton. “The students had to decide how to best represent the data they were trying to display.”

Where the Bodies Are Buried

Many of the Historical Cemeteries in our town are located off the beaten path, as you might expect, because these were the final resting places of family members.

Occasionally, a beneficent member of society would provide burial plots for indigent citizens, as is the case with Historical Cemetery #SKA05, the Judge E. R. Potter - Criminals Lot. In a survey taken in 1880 the lot is described as being “On land of Judge E. R. Potter on plain about 20 rods southeast from farm house across a pond which borders yard.”

The transcript continues, "Those who had no place of burial and were too poor to afford one used formerly to avail themselves of their offer and inter here."

Other Historical Cemeteries in South Kingstown are hidden in plain sight. In fact, you probably drive by them every day. These include:

• SK134 - Walter Watson Lot - at the corner of Route 1 North and Torrey Road - inscriptions from 1807-1890
• SK095 - Quaker Lot - at the Wakefield Exit from Route 1 South - inscriptions from 1714-1870
• SK042 - Old Saint Francis - next to South Kingstown Town Hall - inscriptions from 1855-1905

Some Historical Cemeteries in South Kingstown serve as especially poignant reminders of tragic chapters in our town’s history. Two in particular are:

• SK127 - Small Pox Lot - 110 burials with no inscriptions - believed to be the graves of victims of a circa-1757 small pox epidemic
• SKA10 - Babcock Slave Lot

Honoring Our Ancestors

The written narrative accompanying the online description of one Historical Cemetery in Matunuck - SKA31 Jeremiah B. Hazard Lot - is tinged with twisted humor.

According to the published description, “Both Ralph Browning...and his brother Harold Browning Jr...tell the story that Gilbert 'Gib' Carpenter [1907-1999] grew corn on this lot for many years and told them that he had removed gravestones from that lot and plowed the land. He claimed he didn’t plow deep enough to disturb any burials.”

One could argue that at Riverside Cemetery, the Curtis Corner Middle School students showed considerably more respect for the deceased whose graves they visited with their teachers on a beautiful Autumn day.

“I explained to them that the graveyard is a place not to be feared,” Mr. Poirier explained. He continued, “It’s ok to walk on the grave and read the stone. Everything on a head stone is positive,” he told the students.

Back in the classroom, the students wrote story “middles,” created histograms and pie charts, discussed the meaning of engraved symbols and epitaphs, and reflected on less tangible lessons the cemetery revealed.

Upon further reflection, one student wrote about the field trip, “It helped us understand the impact of wars on small communities.”

For more information about “History Comes Alive in the Graveyard," email Kevin Poirier at kevinpoirier@cox.net