| Cemetery Number | SK042 |
| Town | SOUTH KINGSTOWN |
| Cemetery Name | OLD SAINT FRANCIS |
| Find A Grave (Opens in New Tab) |
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| Graves List | Display Graves List |
| Location | HIGH ST |
| State | RI |
| Direction | W |
| Pole Number | 15 |
| Distance | 10 |
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| Size in Feet | 100 |
| Size in Feet | 65 |
| Inscriptions | 121 |
| Fieldstones | |
| Tombs | |
| Exist? | YES |
| Last seen date? | 2003 |
| Newest | 1905 |
| Oldest | 1855 |
| Vandalism | N |
| Veteran | 4 |
| Pole | F |
| Comment | This early Irish Catholic cemetery is located thirty feet west of High Street at telephone pole # 1784, and just south of town hall. It is 100 feet x 75 feet, in fair condition, enclosed with a stone wall, and the historical cemetery sign is in fair condition. Although this cemetery probably has over a thousand burials, there are only 121 names inscribed on the various stones in this cemetery. We know by comparing the records for St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Providence, a Catholic cemetery started about the same time, to the inscriptions on the stones that the Irish in this time period marked less than ten percent of the graves. The same is true for Saint Mary’s Cemetery in West Warwick. The gap between burials and markers is especially unfortunate in that many of the gravestones for Irish burials give the location in Ireland where the deceased was born, a very important clue for genealogists.
James N. Arnold recorded this lot Oct. 17, 1880, his #192, “South of town hall in Wakefield, lot surrounded by evergreens, a cemetery known as the Catholic lot, in fair condition, here we make the following notes.”
This lot was the site of the first Catholic Church in Wakefield. The lot was purchased in 1854, and soon after a small church was erected. In 1860 when the larger Baptist church further down High Street was put up for sale, the parish bought it and then converted their first site to a burial ground. A number of burials dating from 1855-1860 suggest that there was a burial ground next to the original church.
The map numbers for this cemetery have been assigned in the order in which James N. Arnold recorded the gravestones in 1880 since many of them have been moved within the cemetery or moved to the New St. Francis Cemetery (SK 36). Unmarked graves noted by Arnold are also listed as they are no longer visible.
Recorded by John Sterling in 1991.
All extant gravestones photographed by Julie Nathanson in 2014. |
| Condition | fair |
| Enclosure | stone wall |
| Gate | no gate |
| Growth | grass-well kept |
| Terrain | hilly moderate |
| Cemetery Location |
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| Cemetery Burial Map |
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