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More than 25 gravesites are unearthed yesterday in Cranston on land where paupers were buried between 1875 and 1916.
July 21, 2006 BY BARBARA POLICHETTI
Journal Staff Writer
CRANSTON -- Construction crews working off Sockanosset Cross Road to correct drainage problems that last month eroded skeletal remains from old, unmarked paupers' graves yesterday uncovered evidence of more than two dozen additional burial sites behind the former Davol Building.
The drainage work was being done by Carpionato Properties, which owns the property abutting the sharp embankment that slopes down from the westbound lanes of Route 37. The site is now an operations center for Citizens Bank.
State law requires that all excavation in the area be supervised by archaeologists now that it is know that the highway sits atop a turn-of-the century burial ground for the long-closed State Farm on Pontiac Avenue.
Michael Hebert, archaeologist for the state Department of Transportation, said that more than 25 gravesites were unearthed yesterday as a backhoe carefully scraped at the ground. The top of the grave shafts showed up clearly as rectangular shadows of darkened dirt in the reddish-brown earth.
Hebert said the graves were not a surprise since it was determined last month that Route 37 covers almost all of a 3.4 acre graveyard that was the final resting place for hundreds of people who died in the state prison, workhouse, asylum or almshouse between 1875 and 1916.
The discovery that the highway was built without the graves being removed came after heavy June rains washed loose some bones and sent them tumbling to the fringe of the parking lot.
Hebert said yesterday that he has continued to research the matter but cannot determine conclusively why mounds of fill were deposited on top of the cemetery when Route 37 was constructed in the mid-1960s. The maps he has reviewed do not mark the land as a cemetery, he said, and there was likely no physical evidence since the graves of the state's impoverished and imprisoned were marked only with numbered wooden stakes at the turn of the century, and those markers would have rotted away over the decades.
Also, Route 37 was built before the passage of a law that requires an archaeological survey before any land is disturbed for a major state project, Hebert said.
He said that the original contract and accompanying notes cannot be reviewed because the file was destroyed in 1972 in accordance with the DOT's old record-retention policy.
The skeletal remains from seven graves were removed last month, along with shreds of plain wooden coffins and three lead coffin plates bearing the names of two women and one man who died in the state almshouse in 1916.
Another plate, also dated 1916, was found yesterday, said Hebert, who is working with Paul Robinson, principal archaeologist for the state, and the Public Archaeology Laboratory of Pawtucket. The plate bears the name Nettie Brackett, and Hebert said that death records show that she died at age 56 of heart disease. She was born in Douglas, Mass., and lived in Woonsocket before she was sent to the poorhouse, he said.
Although the discovery of the additional graves means more work for the archaeologists, their plan remains the same, Hebert said. Any graves in danger of being dislodged by erosion or the new drainage channel being built will be removed, he said.
Then the state will find the appropriate place to re-bury them, and public advertisements will be placed listing any names that were found on coffin plates. Hopefully, Hebert said, some of the long-lost residents of the almshouse will have some family members in the area who can help fill in their histories.
According to Hebert, the erosion that unearthed the remains last month was the result of interim work done by Carpionato Properties as it waited for the DOT to approve a permanent solution to drainage problems that send water and silt cascading down the highway embankment into the parking lot.
Because 1916 was the last year that the cemetery was used and because it is the date on all the coffin plates found so far, archaeologists last month speculated that the seven gravesites they dug up were on one of the outermost rows of the old burial ground. Hebert said that yesterday's digging now shows that at least one row might be under the parking lot, but those graves will not be disturbed since they are in no danger of being eroded.
A municipal ordinance stipulates that no graves can be disturbed without permission of the City of Cranston. Hebert said that until then, the site will be mapped, protected with plastic and covered again with dirt.
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