Update - 7/7/23

Joshua Carr Lot | West Greenwich, Rhode Island | Historical Cemetery No. 92

Added to Cemetery List, July 7, 2023! Click HERE to view.

As we’ve worked our way through the cemeteries of the BRMA over the years, we’ve encountered the occasional error in the historical record. The vast majority of these errors were very minor. “Mar. 10” transcribed as “May 10”, “1844” transcribed as “1841”, and so on. The Joshua Carr Lot, however, was an altogether different matter.

Our initial recording—including the recovery and excavation of two inscribed fieldstones that had been displaced, one of which we found sadly broken in half—contained three stones that appeared to us to be entirely new to the historical record. After consulting both James Arnold as well as Blanche Albro’s recording of this lot, however, we gradually came to the realization that these three stones were not unrecorded, they’d simply been mis-recorded. Our findings are detailed below.

R. S. - Burial #1 | View Gallery image HERE
Though recorded by James Arnold, we found additional lines of inscription well below ground level that provided the date of their death, so our record was updated accordingly.

Sarah Carr - Burial #2 | View Gallery image HERE
A beautifully-inscribed, unusually complex and detailed fieldstone burial. Transcribed as “Miriam Carr, daughter of Sarah Carr” by both Arnold as well as Blanche, it is actually the gravemarker for Sarah Carr herself. Note that the S’s and 4’s are all carved backwards. We’ve encountered the backwards 4’s in other fieldstone burials as well, likely to distinguish them from 9’s.

Easther Colgrove - Burial #5 | View Gallery image HERE
Another fine example of fieldstone inscription artistry. It is unfortunate that we found the stone broken in two, but at least we were able to assemble all the pieces required for a full transcription. We don’t always get that lucky. Transcribed by Arnold as “Esther Cahoone”.

C. C. - Burial #8 | View Gallery image HERE
A curious burial with a curious inscription. The first line of inscription in our initial recording of this stone read “C C C E S”, but upon closer inspection, we saw what appeared to be a lower case “d” carved into the third “C”, meaning a proper recording of it would read either “C C dC E S” or “C C Cd E S”. Our best explanation for this is that “dC E S” is possibly an abbreviation for “deceased”, as the second line of inscription provides the date of this individual’s death. The second line of inscription reads “NO _0 1762”, with the “N” carved backwards. We could not make out the first digit in the date as the stone shows heavy signs of chipping and weathering there. Recorded by Arnold as “C. C. E. / Oct. 10, 1776”.