Update - 7/24/23

Harrington Lot | West Greenwich, Rhode Island | Historical Cemetery No. 98

Added to Cemetery List, July 24, 2023! Click HERE to view.

Due to a forest fire that swept through the area more than 50 years ago as well as an overall air of neglect, this lot has seen better days. Though it has been cleaned out very thoroughly in recent years, making it far easier to navigate than it had been previously, many of the stones show signs of extreme damage. This is particularly true for the burials in this lot marked with slate head- and footstones. Between the heat from the fire and the natural process of delamination, many of these bore inscriptions that had to be pieced together using the tiny slivers of stone that had split off from the face of the stone over the decades. Some of these, Rebecca Harrington’s stone in particular (Burial No. 5), we found to be so brittle and delicate, we decided to just leave it be to eliminate the risk of further damage.

Even so, however, we were able to locate and recover Lydia Harrington’s stone (Burial No. 6), broken into several pieces, as well as the “R. C. / 1796” fieldstone (Burial No. 9), recorded by James Arnold but not Blanche Albro, which had been broken in half. Due to the cleaning efforts, we also found an unrecorded burial, simply inscribed with the initials “P. H.” (Burial No. 17).

In her 1977 recording, Blanche Albro had noted “about 20 graves marked with fieldstones”. We searched the area thoroughly, but were unable to locate anywhere near that number. Perhaps on a future visit, we’ll have more success!