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Indian Cemetery

Also known as Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Portsmouth #626

Portsmouth, Newport County, Rhode Island, USA

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PO626
Charles C. Maytum says that this cemetery was "located a short distance west of the approximate center of the Schoolhouse Swamp in an almost inaccessible area" ("Paragraphs on Early Prudence Island," 1964, p. 49). Though traditionally called Indian Cemetery by Prudence Islanders, Maytum believes it to be in fact a slave cemetery with perhaps a few graves of Indian slaves. He cites excavations as early as 1894. On his visit in 1956 he found six excavations and four plain fieldstones on opened graves in a dense briar patch of about 25 square feet. He quotes from Allen Evidence (presumably this has to do with Charles Edwin Allen, the PI historian?): "A violent gale occured in September 1869. In sweeping over the southern part of the island, it completely unearthed the Indian Cemetery, laying the skeletons exposed. The farmers in the vicinity gathered up the bones and deposited them all in one grave."
The map location is approximate.
PO626
Charles C. Maytum says that this cemetery was "located a short distance west of the approximate center of the Schoolhouse Swamp in an almost inaccessible area" ("Paragraphs on Early Prudence Island," 1964, p. 49). Though traditionally called Indian Cemetery by Prudence Islanders, Maytum believes it to be in fact a slave cemetery with perhaps a few graves of Indian slaves. He cites excavations as early as 1894. On his visit in 1956 he found six excavations and four plain fieldstones on opened graves in a dense briar patch of about 25 square feet. He quotes from Allen Evidence (presumably this has to do with Charles Edwin Allen, the PI historian?): "A violent gale occured in September 1869. In sweeping over the southern part of the island, it completely unearthed the Indian Cemetery, laying the skeletons exposed. The farmers in the vicinity gathered up the bones and deposited them all in one grave."
The map location is approximate.

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