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.
History
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 , 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.
Notable interments
Swan Point has the burials of many notable Rhode Island figures: Rachel Blodgett Adams, 1921 Ph.D., mathematician David Aldrich, American artist Nelson W. Aldrich, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, grandfather of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller Richard Steere Aldrich, U.S. Congressman, son of Nelson W. Aldrich Henry B. Anthony, Governor of Rhode Island, and President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate Lemuel H. Arnold, U.S. Congressman, Governor of Rhode Island Richard Arnold, Union army general Sullivan Ballou, state politician, Civil War officer killed in action at the Battle of Bull Run, whose love letter to his wife was featured in Ken Burns's The Civil War David L. Barnes, U.S. District judge, litigant in West v. Barnes Bathsheba A. Benedict, (1809–1897), abolitionist and philanthropist, and benefactor of Benedict College Lester D. Boronda (1886–1953), painter, furniture designer, sculptor Augustus Osborn Bourn (1834–1925), businessman and politician, Governor of Rhode Island 1883–1885 Charles R. Brayton, Civil War officer, postmaster of Providence, and long time Republican political boss Emeline S. Burlingame, editor and suffragist Ambrose Burnside, Major General in the Civil War, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator Adin Ballou Capron, U.S. Congressman Elizabeth Buffum Chace (1806–1899), slavery abolitionist, women's suffrage Malcolm Greene Chace (1875–1955), industrialist, hockey innovator, and amateur tennis player George Coby (1883 - 1967), Georgian/American industrialist, chemist and philanthropist. Inventor of first electrical Christmas tree lights, waterproof concrete and construction grade glass bricks. George Henry Corliss, inventor of the Corliss steam engine Helen Metcalf Danforth (1887–1984) university president. Jane Anthony Davis, American painter Thomas Davis, U.S. Congressman Thomas Wilson Dorr, Political reformer, revolutionary and Governor of Rhode Island Sarah Elizabeth Doyle, Educator and reformer. Thomas Arthur Doyle, long-serving mayor of Providence Elisha Dyer, Governor of Rhode Island Elisha Dyer Jr., Governor of Rhode Island, Mayor of Providence Benjamin Tucker Eames, U.S. Congressman C. M. Eddy Jr., author Theodore Foster, U.S. Senator Albert Gallup, U.S. Congressman Lucius F. C. Garvin, Governor of Rhode Island Darius Goff, Pawtucket businessman and textile mill owner. Daniel L. D. Granger, U.S. Congressman Theodore F. Green, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator William S. Hayward, Mayor of Providence Robert Henri, American painter and teacher William Warner Hoppin, Governor of Rhode Island Charles Tillinghast James, U.S. Senator Thomas Allen Jenckes, U.S. Congressman William Jones, Governor of Rhode Island Herbert W. Ladd, Governor of Rhode Island Benedict Lapham, industrialist, philanthropist Oscar Lapham, U.S. Congressman Charles W. Lippitt, Governor of Rhode Island Frederick Lippitt, Philanthropist Henry Lippitt, Governor of Rhode Island Henry Frederick Lippitt, U.S. Senator Alfred Henry Littlefield, Governor of Rhode Island H. P. Lovecraft, American author Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf (1830–1895), founder and director of a university. Jesse Houghton Metcalf, U.S. Senator Seth Padelford, Governor of Rhode Island Charles H. Page, U.S. Congressman Vahram Papazyan, Olympic runner Whipple Van Buren Phillips, businessman Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke (1854–1931), university president. D.W. Reeves (1838–1900), bandleader known as "father of band music in America" Elisha Hunt Rhodes, Union Civil War veteran featured prominently in Ken Burns's The Civil War Horatio Rogers Jr., Attorney General of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice James Y. Smith, Mayor of Providence and Governor of Rhode Island William Sprague III, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator William Sprague IV, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator Margaret Bingham Stillwell, bibliographer and librarian Alfred Stone, Providence architect Royal C. Taft, Governor of Rhode Island George William Whitaker (1840–1916), the "Dean of Providence Painters" Henry Clarke Wright, (1797-1870), preacher, writer and abolitionist.
See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence, Rhode Island List of cemeteries in Rhode Island
References
External links
Swan Point Cemetery official website