The North Burial Ground in Providence Rhode Island is a very large cemetery that merits a lot of exploration. Previously we had tried to check out this cemetery one fine afternoon only to realize that it closes at FOUR PM. This is by far the earliest closing hours for a cemetery we have ever come across so that initial visit was literally just us jogging through it for 30 minutes. And it’s HUGE with a ton of ornate and often bizarre slates and more modern stones running up to the current day. On this particular misadventure we learned there are a bunch of self-guided tours ranging in topic that can be obtained online.
So we went back and the first tour we tried was the women’s history tour. I wasn’t real sure what we’d find on it – as it was hobbled together by the local college – but we checked it out anyway. Fortunately there was a map and it wasn’t nearly as bad as some other cemetery maps I have attempted (and failed) to read. There were twenty women of note to see which I have listed below. And if you’re here just to look at pretty cemetery photos feel free to scroll to the gallery at the very bottom of the page.
First up was Eliza Brown Gano Rogers (1800-1877) Born to a pastor into wealth and great social standing Eliza first married a prominent manufacturer Joseph Rogers before finding her calling in life. She was to devote herself to the wellbeing of marginalized women. Along with fifteen other women of good standing in Providence she was integral to the creation of The Home for Aged Women which sought to aid the unmarried, widowed, and homeless elderly women of Providence. This project was so passionate an issue that she had raised the funds, built the organization, and opened the doors only two months after having discussed the issue. Today it still exists and is called the Tockwotton on the Waterfront.
Phebe A Hathaway (1822-1886) was up next. She was an ardent defender of the temperance movement as the vice president of the Women’s Christian Temperence Union. She remained a teacher for the entirety of her life and never married nor lived long enough to see the inevitable downfall of her cause.
Hope (power) Brown (1702-1792) was known as being the mother of Providence because she bore six children (five sons) who went on to become the intensely influential Brown family. Born into high standing her sons would grow up to be shrewd businessmen in iron ore, the China Trade, and the Slave Trade. They also founded Brown university. She died at the grand old age of 90.
Avis Binney Brown (1731-1807) was a wealthy widow in her elder years which allowed her in 1800 to co-found the Providence Female Charitable Society. Its aim was to help needy women and children by giving them food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities.
Caroline Ashley (1824-1884) was born to some of the original families of Providence. She was a teacher but was more well known for her work in the Providence Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. She was a fierce abolitionist and a suffragist.
Freelove Whipple Fenner Jenckes (1751-1780) was known for being a member of the Daughter for Liberty which was a group of women who encouraged everyone to buy local products and boycott British goods to strengthen the colonies. Sadly, she did not live to see the resolution of the Revolutionary War.
Lucy Haskell (?-1812) was the wife of Charles Haskell a black revolutionary war soldier. They were married only ten months before she died at the age of 31. Her husband would go on to own a house that probably was destroyed during the Hardscrabble Riot of 1824 that followed a few months after his purchase.
Christina Bannister (?-1902)– was one of those women you couldn’t keep down. She was of mixed African American and Native American descent but despite the obstacles this would have caused her she still managed to accomplish more in a lifetime than most! She started a series of hair salons which doubled as information centers on the Underground Railroad. She fought endlessly for the rights of former black Civil War soldiers and disenfranchised working black women. As president of the Boston Colored Ladies Sanitary Commitee she helped raise funds for disabled veterans and their families. She even married what was one of the most prominent black artists of the day – Edward Bannister. She helped establish the Home for Aged Colored Woman which she would sadly become a resident of sometime later after leading a life of poverty and gaining dementia in her old age. This however only lasted eight days before she was tossed to the state asylum in Cranston for being “violently insane.”
Sarah Helen Power Witman 1803-1878 was probably the most eccentric woman on this list. She was among many things a poet, a suffragist, and beloved figure among the intellectual elites. She even caught the eye of Edgar Allen Poe who asked for her hand in marriage. This is not really that surprising when you learn of her frail Gothic charm. She was a spiritualist who claimed she could speak to the dead and wore and eclectic outfit always topped with a veil which she never lifted, not even to eat.
Martha Aramian 1934-2014 – Martha was born to Armenian immigrants who had fled Turkey after the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Here she became a prominent member of the community creating the Armenian Heritage Park and monument which you can see to one side of the cemetery (it’s HUGE, ornately carved and impossible to miss.) Dedicated to the 1.5 million who lost their lives in the conflict and those that survived them.
Zouvart Seloian Alexanian (1909-2006) was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as a child and ended up immigrating to the US in 1931 with her new husband. Their family owned and ran the Gaspee Restuarant in Providence for many years.
Sarah C. Durfee (1838-1915) was a somewhat wealthy heiress who served as president of the Women’s City Missionary Society. The goal of the organization was to reform the destitute and help uneducated girls and women to get respectable employment and homes.
Sally Goddard (1792-1872)– was a prominent member of the Providence Ladies Anti-Slavery Society and served to further her abolitionist message with pamphlets, lectures, and anti-slavery fairs.
Rhoda Carver Barton (1751 -1841) – was a mother of many. Nine to be exact. Starting with a pregnancy that overlapped her wedding day and running through many years of raising her brood almost by herself as her General husband fought several wars and served a good deal of time in prison – apparently only coming home briefly to sire more children. She died at the age of 91 – probably thoroughly exhausted.
Kady Southwell Brownell (1843-1915) was a woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer. When her husband enlisted to fight in the Civil War she insisted on coming too and was one of a remarkably few women recorded to have served active combat duty during the Civil War as a sharpshooter during Bullrun (Sharpsburg) and New Bern. Perhaps even more scandalously she was said to be as good with her sword as she was with the rifle. After coming home she pursued a career in acting but eventually died in destitution. She wouldn’t have even had a memorial if it weren’t for her husband fundraising from friends and acquaintances.
Annie Smith Peck (1850-1935) was what could be best described as an adventurer. She was an archeology and Latin professor who loved to spend her free time climbing South America’s deadliest peaks. She raised the money for each expedition on her own and hiked out of pure spite with the men who thought they knew better. She was after all also campaigning for the right for women to vote.
Natalie Curtis Burlin (1876-1921) was at her essence an archivist. She campaigned for the rights of the indigenous people and after winning some favor with Theodore Roosevelt she then spent a good deal of time on reservations recording the cultural practices of several tribes which she published in two books. After this she moved onto publish two more books about “negro folk songs” before moving to Europe to spread the word about the cultures she was studying.
Sarah Goddard (1700-1770) and Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1815) Two sisters who were integral to the running of Providence’s first newspaper. Sarah ran the shop and her sister Mary became a journalist, typesetter, and printer. Eventually they’d run the business on their own as Sarah Goddard and Co. Mary served as the postmaster of Baltimore Maryland from 1775-1789.
Eliza (Cranston) Cole (1793-1891) – just lived to be very goddamn old. Outliving both her husbands and her only daughter (who lived to be 80!)
Alice (Smith) Page (1733- 1772) is another illustration of the bleak reality of early colonial life. She married at the age of 20, bore ten children, and only saw four of them survive into adulthood before dying just short of her eldest son’s 19th birthday.
