| Cemetery Number | SK043 |
| Town | SOUTH KINGSTOWN |
| Cemetery Name | RIVERSIDE CEMETERY-WAKEFIELD |
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| Graves List | Display Graves List |
| Location | HIGH ST |
| State | RI |
| Direction | E |
| Pole Number | 1785 |
| Distance | 300 |
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| Size in Feet | 1750 |
| Size in Feet | 500 |
| Burials | 5000 |
| Inscriptions | 4003 |
| Fieldstones | 10 |
| Tombs | |
| Exist? | pop |
| Last seen date? | 2003 |
| Newest | 1993 |
| Oldest | 1716 |
| Vandalism | Y |
| Veteran | |
| Pole | F |
| Comment | This cemetery is located east of High Street at telephone pole # 1785, across from the South Kingstown Town Hall. It contains about five thousand burials with 4,003 inscribed stones and ten fieldstones. Cole’s History of Washington and Kent Counties gives a brief summary of the founding:
February 24th, 1870 the Riverside Cemetery Company was incorporated. Stephen C. Fisk, Daniel M. C. Stedman, Daniel Sherman, I. M. Church, B. F. Robinson, John Babcock and Samuel Rodeman, Jr., were the incorporators. The ground originally purchased consisted of but eight acres. This ground was graded, carefully laid out and adorned. When the first survey was made Daniel M. C. Stedman drove there the first stub, and made a circle of forty feet in diameter around it. Outside of this circle was a carriage way sixteen feet wide. … Mr. Stephen C. Fisk was the first person buried in the ground. He died in the spring of 1870 [see section C #50].
James N. Arnold visited this lot Mar. 2, 1880, his #55, “Riverside Cemetery at Wakefield.” He recorded 239 gravestones, many of which predate 1870, indicating there were many removals from family burial grounds to Riverside in its first ten years. For a description of the soldiers and sailors monument, see the veterans appendix.
Recorded by John Sterling, James Wheaton, and Gertrude Barrington for a 2004 book on South Kingstown cemeteries. Most recording was done in 1991-1993.
Gravestones were photographed in 2017 by Julie Nathanson. The photographs show that many of the broken and downed gravestones were repaired since the 1991-1993 recordings, probably in the early 2000s. |
| Condition | fair |
| Enclosure | no enclosure |
| Gate | iron gate |
| Growth | grass-well kept |
| Terrain | level |
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| Cemetery Burial Map |
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