Swan Point Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Established in 1846 on a 60-acre (0.24 km2) plot of land, it has approximately 40,000 interments.[2]

Swan Point Cemetery
Entrance sign for Swan Point Cemetery
Map
Details
Established1846
Location
585 Blackstone Boulevard, East Side, Providence, Rhode Island
CountryUnited States
TypeRural cemetery
Size200 acres (81 ha)
WebsiteCemetery website
Find a GraveSwan Point Cemetery
Swan Point Cemetery
Swan Point Cemetery is located in Rhode Island
Swan Point Cemetery
LocationProvidence, Rhode Island
Coordinates41°51′10″N 71°22′58″W / 41.8528776°N 71.3828347°W / 41.8528776; -71.3828347
Built1846
ArchitectMultiple, including H. W. S. Cleveland
NRHP reference No.77000007 [1] (original)
78003445 (increase)
Added to NRHPOctober 5, 1977
Grave of Rhode Island Governor Elisha Dyer Jr.

History

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The cemetery was first organized under the Swan Point Cemetery Company, with a board of trustees. In 1858, a new charter was developed to make the cemetery administration non-profit, and it was taken over by a group known as the Proprietors of Swan Point Cemetery. In 1886, landscape architect H. W. S. Cleveland was hired to redesign the area. It is a cemetery park with its design inspired by the landscape of the first rural garden cemetery in the United States, Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Among the first to make use of a tract of land within the cemetery was the First Congregational Society (now First Unitarian Society). They moved several interments from older plots in Providence to Swan Point. Over the years additional land acquisition has expanded the cemetery to 200 acres (0.81 km2), and is still open to new interments today.

The Swan Point Cemetery is widely considered to be the most prominent cemetery in Rhode Island due to the number of well known citizens of the state buried there. There are more governors, senators and congressmen buried there than any other cemetery in Rhode Island.

Swan Point Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It is one of the two largest cemeteries in Providence with the other one being the North Burial Ground.

 
Gravestone of H. P. Lovecraft

Notable interments

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Swan Point has the burials of many notable Rhode Island figures:

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ "Celebrating life since 1846". Retrieved 2013-11-23. Swan Point Cemetery was established in 1846 on a 60-acre tract of land bordering The Neck Road (now The Old Road) and extending easterly to the shore of the Seekonk River. ...
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h "A History of Swan Point Cemetery". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  4. ^ "Aldrich, Nelson Wilmarth, (1841–1915)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  5. ^ "Aldrich, Richard Steere, (1884–1941)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  6. ^ "Anthony, Henry Bowen, (1815–1884)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  7. ^ "Arnold, Lemuel Hastings, (1792–1852)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  8. ^ "A History of Swan Point Cemetery". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  9. ^ "Capron, Adin Ballou, (1841–1911)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  10. ^ a b c d e "Burial Information". Swan Point Cemetery. Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  11. ^ "Danforth". Rhode Island Historic Cemeteries. RI Historic Cemetery Commission. Retrieved 2022-03-06.
  12. ^ Gerard C. Wertkin (2004). Encyclopedia of American Folk Art. Routledge. ISBN 978-1135956141.
  13. ^ "Davis, Thomas, (1806–1895)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  14. ^ "Notable Persons Interred at Swan Point Cemetery". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved June 1, 2014.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Notable Persons Interred at Swan Point Cemetery". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  16. ^ a b c Spencer, Thomas E. (1998). Where They're Buried: A Directory Containing More Than Twenty Thousand Names of Notable Persons Buried in American Cemeteries, with Listings of Many Prominent People who Were Cremated. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 432. ISBN 978-0806348230.
  17. ^ a b c Spencer, Thomas E. (1998). Where They're Buried: A Directory Containing More Than Twenty Thousand Names of Notable Persons Buried in American Cemeteries, with Listings of Many Prominent People who Were Cremated. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 296. ISBN 978-0806348230.
  18. ^ "Foster, Theodore, (1752–1828)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  19. ^ Spencer, Thomas E. (1998). Where They're Buried: A Directory Containing More Than Twenty Thousand Names of Notable Persons Buried in American Cemeteries, with Listings of Many Prominent People who Were Cremated. Genealogical Publishing Com. p. 239. ISBN 978-0806348230.
  20. ^ "James, Charles Tillinghast, (1805–1862)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  21. ^ "Governor Herbert W. Ladd (1843–1913), Papers of, 1872–1912". State of Rhode Island. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  22. ^ "A History of Swan Point Cemetery". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  23. ^ "Lapham, Oscar, (1837–1926)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  24. ^ "Lippitt, Henry Frederick, (1856–1933)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  25. ^ "Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf". Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2022-03-06.
  26. ^ "Metcalf, Jesse Houghton, (1860–1942)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  27. ^ "Page, Charles Harrison, (1843–1912)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
  28. ^ "Swan Point burial information". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  29. ^ Biographical Cyclopedia of Representative Men of Rhode Island. Providence: National Biographical Publishing Co. 1881. p. 360.
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