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Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission

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The Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission was established by the Cranston City Council and is a group of volunteers, appointed by the city, to locate, assess, document, and provide signage for Cranston’s historic cemeteries. Documentation of these cemeteries includes physical location, GPS Coordinates, cemetery description and condition, and gravestone information in photographic, electronic and hard format. All data will be compatible with the software and methods used by the Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Commission. The Commission will provide leadership for all volunteer citizens who wish to work with the commission in carrying out the maintenance and documentation of our historical cemeteries. The Commission will attempt to answer any questions from Cranston Citizens and others regarding the cemeteries and those buried within them. The Commission, with the help of volunteers, will strive to provide maintenance of the grounds, the repair and restoration of stones, walls, and fences as resources become available. We formally meet on the second Tuesday of each month (March thru November) at 6:30 p.m. at the Sprague Mansion located at 1351 Cranston Street. These meetings are open to the public for those who wish to bring an issue of concern to the Commission, to learn more about what we do, or to become more involved. Attendance at meetings is not necessary to volunteer with our group. It is only with the assistance of volunteers in our community that we can achieve our goals. We would like to thank everyone who has contributed their time and treasure to assist us and are excited to continue working with Cranston’s citizens in doing great work to improve our many historical cemeteries. If you are interested in volunteering with us, require community service hours, would like to learn more about Cranston’s cemeteries, or if you have any questions or concerns regarding Cranston cemeteries, please feel free to contact us by phone or e-mail. Thanks for your interest

10/31/2026

TODDLER DIES AFTER BEING STRUCK BY TROLLEY CAR...
PAUL HERMAN BERGHAHN
1911-1913
CR002
POCASSET CEMETERY
DYER AVENUE

Paul Herman Berghahn was born in Providence, R.I. on March 2, 1911. Paul was the 9th child of Walter and Pauline (Hubber) Berghahn. Walter was a winder. Both parents were born in Germany.

On June 25, 1913 tragedy struck, as reported in The Providence Journal:

CHILD HIT BY CAR
CRUSHED TO DEATH UNDER THE FENDER
Paul Berghahn, 2, Toddles Into Path of Union Avenue Electric
And is Knocked to Ground. Is Dead When Physician Arrives.

Two-year-old Paul Berghahn, tiring of play with other children in a dump lot on Union Avenue near Huntington Avenue, toddled from the sidewalk into the path of a Union Avenue car shortly after 5:30 yesterday afternoon and was crushed to death under the fender.

The child was the son of Walter C.T. Berghahn of 206 Althea Street. The father is employed as a motor repairer by the Rhode Island Company, and has, in addition to the baby who was killed, a number of other children in his family.

The lot in which the little boy was playing previous to the accident, is situated on the opposite side of Union Avenue from his home, and is a dozen feet or more below the level of the street. Leaving the group of children with who he had been during the afternoon, the Berghahn baby clambered up the embankment to the street at about 5:30 apparently to go home.

At the moment a short trip car from the Whitehall Street switch crossed Huntington Avenue, bound toward the center of the city. When the car was within its own length of the open lot, the Berghahn boy stepped from the curbside onto the track, which runs at that point within a few feet of the sidewalk.

The motorman realized that emergency methods must be resorted to, for instead of applying his brakes, he reversed the power, and the car came to a stop within five feet. It was too late, however, to avoid hitting the child.

The little boy was struck squarely by the forward end of the car, and rolled under the fender, which failed to pick up his body. The child was found by the crew and passengers wedged and crushed under the fender, but a short distance in front of the forward wheels.

The motorman and conductor, assisted by a passenger, took the baby from beneath the fender and carried him to a residence on Union Avenue. The neighbor telephoned Rhode Island Hospital and the Seventh Police Station.

Capt. Cannon of the Seventh Precinct arrived within a few minutes as well as an ambulance. A surgeon, however, found the child dead and Medical Examiner C.H. Griffin was called. He pronounced death due to the child’s chest being crushed and gave permission for the removal of the body.

Two-year-old Paul Berghahn was laid to rest in single grave #2404 at Pocasset Cemetery.

--September 2026 CHCC photos

10/28/2026

Since May 2022 CHCC has told the stories of hundreds of the men, women and children who are buried in our historical cemeteries.

10/28/2026

"THE ZINKIES OF POCASSET"
CHAPTER 13

FREDERICK COLLINGHAM
1865-1912
LUCY (RAMSDELL) COLLINGHAM
1867-1894

Frederick Collingham was born on Aug 20, 1865 in Yorkshire England the son of James and Elizabeth (Roe) Collingham. Lucy Ellen Ramsdell was born on Mar 17, 1867 in St Louis MO, the daughter of Alfred and Hattie (Simmons) Ramsdell.

They married in 1888 in Providence and they had at least 3 children.

Frederick immigrated to the US in about 1881 and was naturalized in 1888. He worked as a master mechanic.

Two of their children died at young ages: Irene Belle died in 1891 at 11 months old of cholera and Roscoe died in 1894 at 3 months old of bronchitis (just 19 days after his mother died).

Frederick died on Aug 25, 1912 at RI Hospital (he was a resident of Warwick RI), at the age of 45 of gangrene of the buttocks and septicemia and is buried in Pocasset Cemetery.

Lucy died on Dec 3, 1894 at home (34 Rye St, Johnston RI) at the age of 27 of acute phthisis pulmonalis (tuberculosis) and is buried in Pocasset Cemetery.

Buried in this plot, along with Frederick and Lucy, are three children and a daughter in law.

*********************

Recently, CHCC commissioner Dave Guiot, who volunteers at Pocasset, did an inventory of the '"Zinkie" monuments located here. He expected to find dozens and dozens. Much to Dave's surprise he could locate only 19. This is the thirteenth installment in a series of stories about those buried under those bluish zinc monuments that were so popular between 1870 and 1910.

--March 2025 CHCC photos

10/28/2026

WE MUST NEVER FORGET....

They made the ultimate sacrifice; may they rest in peace...

The plaque reads as follows:

In memory of the men of West Cranston who gave their lives in the Vietnam War

Major Frank Bennett
1st Lt. Carmen DeCubellis, Jr.
Sgt. Edward Perry
Sgt. Danny V. Scurfield
P. F. C. George J. Mack
P. F. C. Anthony J. Sivo

This monument is located at the intersection of Phenix Avenue., Park Avenue and Cranston Street.

Thanks to Pam Smith DePaul for providing us with this information.

10/27/2026

HE WAS A BUILDER BY TRADE...
DAVID GLOVER
1832-1911
CR002
POCASSET CEMETERY
DYER AVENUE

David Glover was born in Prince Edward Island, Canada on May 23, 1832. He was the son of Thomas and Sarah (Hughes) Glover. His father was a native of Scotland and his mother was of Massachusetts parentage. He attended public schools of his home town and completed his apprenticeship as a carpenter in 1849.

David came to Providence, R.I. in 1863 and started in business. He was one of the early members of the Mechanics Exchange composed of contactors and builders, later known as the Master Builders’ Association.

In 1865, he returned to Prince Edward Island and married Miss Charlotte Creighton of that place, returning to Providence with his bride shortly after. Of this union, six children were born.

David founded the firm, David Glover & Co, on Benefit Street. He led the firm for over 47 years right up to the time of his death. Under his leadership some of the largest buildings in Providence were built; including Infantry Hall, the Asbury Memorial Church, the William Fletcher building (later the Journal Building), and the A.P. Hoyt grammar school.

At the time of his death, David was the oldest member and deacon of the First Presbyterian Church having joined the church 36 years ago. He had served as senior deacon for the last 34 years.

David Glover passed away on January 24, 1911 at his home on Pitman Street of Bright’s Disease. He was 78 years old. David was survived by his wife and five children. He was buried at Pocasset Cemetery.

--August 2026 CHCC photo

10/26/2026

'ECHOES OF CRANSTON'
"TIME BRINGS CHANGES: OLD BURIAL PLOTS PRESENT PROBLEMS"
BY GLADYS W. BRAYTON, CURATOR
CRANSTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
THE CRANSTON HERALD
THURDAY, JULY 18, 1957

Time changes all things…

It is a trite saying, but one forcibly brought home as we look at the gravel pit that lies west of Phenix Avenue.
A little over a century and a half ago Patience Howard hallowed the peak in the foreground when she chose it as the last resting place for her husband, Edward Edwards.
It was the year 1805 and Mr. Edwards had just died a tragic death at the grist and saw mill he managed at Dugaway Hill. The waterwheel had frozen. Mr. Edwards had descended to the pit to look the situation over. Suddenly, the wheel became released, turned and caught Mr. Edwards, injuring him so severely that he died a few hours later.
Patience Edwards, beside herself with grief, cursed the mill and all who should have anything to do with it. Many recalled the curse in the years that followed when the mill changed hands many times and suffered numerous reverses.
Just why this particular spot on what was once part of the Caleb Colvin farm was selected by Patience Edwards records do not say. Neither birth nor death statutes tell us whether Patience was perhaps of the Colvin family when she married Edward Edwards. They do tell us another adult grave was close by at the foot of which several small graves. These latter were marked only by rough stones, uninscribed.
Twenty-one years later, Patience was laid beside her husband. Their two lone stones in an open field have marked all these years the location of another one of Rhode Island’s private burial plots.

Early Days

These are the symbol of our state’s early days and of the independence of our first settlers who cared for their own in life and death, on the big farms which they worked.
Other colonies built around a single church and established a common cemetery. But Rhode Island and Providence Plantations were founded on independent thought and action.

Poses Problems

So today, while we benefit in many ways from that independence, we are also posed with a problem, that of hundreds of private cemeteries in every state of neglect and desecration.
Many have already been lost sight of entirely, as this one seems doomed to be very shortly. Those remaining are being marked and the graves recorded by the State. Where soldiers lie buried the American flag is being placed upon the grave to do that soldier honor.

Edward Edwards

Edward Edwards had earned such recognition. At the time of the Revolutionary War, he belonged to Captain Frederick Williams Company and received a certificate for his services. In 1778 he must have served at the Battle of Rhode Island, for records state that he was sent out to procure a horse for General Sullivan.
Other records tell of his commission to guard duty and at one time he served as a wagoner. He was on the muster roll in 1782 and served in the 2nd Company. He was on campaign duty that year and received compensation for nine months of service. Because of his service he received exemption from his poll tax, a small perquisite granted the soldiers of the time.
When hostilities finally ceased, he returned to the home he had purchased on Scituate Avenue in the vicinity of the mill at Dugaway Hill and in time acquired the management of it.
His tragic death in 1805 we have already related. His resting place is one of Rhode Island’s problems of today, a problem which has been brought about by the changes which time has wrought.

Time Brings Changes

We have to accept these changes and we should accept the responsibilities that are their natural accompaniment. There must be a decent, a reverent and a practical solution to this problem of our burial places. It should be a solution which would leave no doubt in the minds of those acquiring property where burial plots exist as to their obligations. Prospective owners of such plots should know what would be required of them by law and handling of the situation.
There are doubtless many who do not willfully offend but do so out of ignorance of proper procedure.
To those like Mr. Howard Luther, who is restoring the George Read Cemetery on Scituate Avenue, which was on land he recently purchased…and to the Oak Hill Terrace Garden Club whose members, with the help of the Cranston Blues, are restoring the Andrews Lot at the entrance of Oak Hill Terrace…we have words of the greatest praise and appreciation for the splendid way in which they have met this 20th century problem which the changes of time left on their doorstep.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The remains of those interred at CR031 Edward Edwards Lot were eventually relocated to CR034 Thomas Andrews Lot at the entrance of Oak Hill Terrace.

10/25/2026

"A GOOD CITIZEN AND A KIND NEIGHBOR"
THOMAS WILSON DORR BROWN
CIVIL WAR SOLDIER
(1844-1883)
CR002
POCASSET CEMETERY
DYER AVENUE

Thomas Wilson Dorr Brown was born on July 7, 1844 in Scituate, R..I. He was the son of Captain Beriah and Mehitabel (Wilbur) Brown.

Thomas enlisted into the military on September 20, 1862 and mustered in on October 13, 1862 into Co A, 12th Rhode Island Infantry. Pvt. Brown was wounded “slightly in hand” in Fredericksburg VA on Dec 13, 1862. He mustered out on June 29, 1863.

Thomas married Lydia Luther on Nov 4, 1866 in Pawtucket RI.

In 1870, Thomas, Lydia and their 3 months old son, lived in Glocester RI. Thomas was a “clerk in grocery”.

In 1875 and 1880, the family of three lived in Johnston RI. Thomas was a lapidary (jeweler).

Thomas passed away on November 17, 1883 in Johnston, RI at the age of 39 of spinal meningitis and was buried in Pocasset Cemetery. His funeral “was largely attended, over two hundred being present”. He was “a good citizen and kind neighbor”.

--August 2026 CHCC photo

10/24/2026

"BURIED AT POCASSET, A LONG WAY FROM HOME"
STORY BY JOHN HILL

Cranston must have been abuzz in July of 1885. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show had come to town, setting up in Narragansett Park at the corner of Park and Gansett Avenues. Hundreds of workers and performers were about the fairgrounds, tending to horses and buffaloes and building sets for two days of shows.

One of those workers was Ar-Sar-Kee-So-Lee-Shar, a 29-year-old Pawnee Indian from the Nebraska plains. But when the show packed up and headed to Newport on July 22, Ar-Sar-Kee-So-Lee-Shar stayed behind, buried in a small, barely marked grave in Pocasset Cemetery.

What little we know of Ar-Sar-Kee-So-Lee-Shar comes from a short article in the July 23, 1885 Providence Journal that chronicled not his life, but his burial.

He’d got up at 7 a.m. on the 22nd, but said he wasn’t feeling well and had to lie down. Within minutes, he was dead from what the coroner called “organic heart disease.”

An undertaker from Olneyville took his body to a barn where the coroner performed an autopsy. Pocasset Cemetery, on Dyer Boulevard, was only about a mile and a half from the fairgrounds and Cody arranged for him to be buried there. Cody is listed in the cemetery record book as the one paying for the plot.

It was either too expensive to commission a headstone or the show had a schedule to keep, because Ar-Sar-Kee-So-Lee-Shar’s grave was marked by a short stone marker with the number ‘94’ carved in it, a common practice for pauper’s graves.

Native American performers were common in Cody’s and other wild west shows. In “Buffalo Bill’s America,” historian Louis S. Warren wrote that either as a performer or backstage, working on Cody’s show was a prized job for Native Americans. The shows featured elaborate reenactments of battles, stage coach robberies and buffalo hunts with horse-mounted players. When Cody first started, he had used white performers to play the Indians. But by the late 1870s he found the real thing brought in bigger crowds, so he started hiring Indians – mostly Pawnee and Sioux – to play themselves.

Many of them had gotten a start in show business at the forts and towns in the west, where they would perform dances and rituals for tourists. That created a pool of experienced performers for touring wild west shows. Cody paid his Indian performers at the same rate he paid whites, Warren said, offering a steady income that was hard to match on the Pawnee reservation.

Ar-Sar-Kee-So-Lee-Shar may not have been famous, but his funeral was important enough that the Providence Journal sent a reporter to cover it. The New York Times even ran a short item on the ceremony, clearly based on the Journal’s account.

“The grave was dug so that when the body was placed in it the head pointed to the eastward, as is customary among the savage tribes,” the Journal reported. “Each member of the band who were traveling with Buffalo Bill then approached the grave and in their own tongue addressed the Great Spirit on behalf of their comrade, who had gone before them to the Happy Hunting Ground.”

Ar-Sar-Kee-So-Lee-Shar’s fellow Pawnee were not the only ones there. Word of the funeral had spread and the Journal said a crowd of white professionals had tagged along with the procession “on the supposition that the Indians would indulge in a dance or other peculiarities.”

“They were much disappointed, as the services, which lasted but half an hour, were very solemn and impressive.”

--John Hill is a retired Providence Journal reporter and the current chairman of the Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission. Thanks also to George Daigneault at Pocasset Cemetery for bringing our attention to this most unusual story.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Shortly after this story was published in September 2024, CHCC commissioner Dave Guiot contacted the Pawnee tribe to see if we could get more information about this individual. There was precious little information to be had but we did discover that the English translation of this man's name is "Esteemed Dog". Very interesting!

10/24/2026

RECENT STORM DAMAGE...
CR043
LODOWICK BRAYTON LOT
PHENIX AVENUE

Among other things, CHCC commissioner Scott Cohoon takes care of about 10 of the historical cemeteries in the western part of Cranston. Today he paid a visit to the Lodowick Brayton Lot on Phenix Avenue.

Scott discovered that since his last visit a lot of dead wood had fallen onto the lot. Fortunately, it appears that none of the headstones were damaged. Scott fired up his chainsaw and quickly took care of business. See the "before" and "after" pictures below.

We thank Scott for all of the great work he has done since he joined CHCC three and a half years ago. His efforts are greatly appreciated!

************

About CR043......

Located 600 ft north of the junction of Route #37 and Natick Road and 100 feet west of Natick Road. Easily accessed with path from Furnace Hill Rd. The Cranston Foundry was a little south and west of this lot. James Arnold recorded this lot 19 Jul 1891 (Vol 4, Pg 680) At the Cranston furnace in rear of Mr. Brayton's farm house and on the edge of the river bank, lot walled and fenced, yard in fine order. Emma B. Shaw 1927: Caleb Colvin farm.

There are said to be 31 burials here with 31 inscriptions. The oldest burial took place in 1830 and the latest in 1906.

For more information on CR043 click on the link below:
https://rihistoriccemeteries.org/newsearchcemeterydetail.aspx?ceme_no=CR043

--October 2026 CHCC photos

Address

1351 Cranston Street
Cranston, RI
02920

Opening Hours

Monday	5am - 8pm
Tuesday	5am - 8pm
Wednesday	5am - 8pm
Thursday	5am - 8pm
Friday	5am - 8pm
Saturday	6am - 8pm
Sunday	6am - 8pm

Website

https://www.cranstonhistory.org/, https://rihistoriccemeteries.org/

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