LINCOLN – Historic cemeteries will now appear on Lincoln’s Geographic Information System maps thanks to the efforts of several local advocates, who long pushed for these final resting places to be recognized officially in the town’s online map system.
There are up to 100 or more historic cemeteries in Lincoln. Many of them are part of a private house lot, accessible to family members of the deceased via an easement.
One group that pushed for historic cemeteries to be recognized on the town’s maps is the Blackstone Valley Historical Society. Ken Postle, cemetery coordinator for BVHS, said the map is a good start.
The cemetery data was gathered from the state’s GIS mapping system, according to Town Planner Al Ranaldi, and may be missing some burial lots.
Postle said the missing cemeteries include Lincoln Historical Cemetery No. 79 behind the former Larry’s Auto on Great Road and Smithfield Avenue. The maps could also benefit from including the associated easements into cemeteries, he said.
In an ideal world, Postle said, the state would update its GIS maps regularly, and the maps would also show the number of a particular cemetery.
He said all of these additions to the data would help shield the cemeteries from development, while also aiding people researching their ancestors and the town’s founding families. People across the country turn to New England to research their colonial roots, he added.
“If you want to find your great-grandmother and she’s buried in a cemetery right in someone’s backyard, it would be helpful to know where the easement is located to get in there,” he said. “That’s been an issue in Lincoln, where there have been a couple of easements developed over.”
The easements aren’t the only areas threatened by development. Postle said he fears burials themselves, lost to time, will be built over if they aren’t marked on the maps.
“On Sprague Avenue we lost,” he said, referencing a home built next to a historic cemetery in recent years.
“I saw hollows there. I’ll go to my grave saying that,” Postle said, meaning divots in the ground where he believes additional people were buried. Ranaldi said the Sprague lot was designated as buildable long before the year 2000, giving the town no jurisdiction over whether a house was constructed there as long as the cemetery next to the lot was not interfered with.
In an effort to protect historic cemeteries, Rhode Island state law prohibits construction, excavation or other ground disturbing within 25 feet of a historic cemetery. The law also dictates that construction halt and an archaeological investigation commence should an unmarked cemetery or human remains be uncovered during construction.
Such was the case with the Sprague Avenue development, where the archaeological investigation uncovered a grave shaft with pieces of a coffin and a headstone, but no human remains. Construction on the single-family home was allowed to continue.
Preserving Lincoln’s history
Francine Jackson, chairwoman of Lincoln’s Conservation Committee, said the cemeteries appeared on the maps historically, but disappeared at some point. Adding them back was not an affordable option for the commission, she said, so members turned to the town for help.
“Thanks to the wonders of Al Ranaldi,” she said, cemeteries were added back to the maps, and the town agreed to absorb the cost.
“The Conservation Commission and the Blackstone Valley Historical Society are both into the concept of preserving historical cemeteries,” she said, noting that the LCC has contributed to BVHS in the past to aid with the effort.
Asked whether the town has made changes in its effort to protect historic cemeteries since the Sprague Avenue ordeal, Postle said his main frustration is having to advocate for the protection of historic cemeteries in the first place.
“Why do we need to discuss whether or not to mark them on the maps? We should take civic pride in protecting these places,” he said. “It’s a shame people put money over remembering our ancestors who built the town.”
Things have improved a bit over the years, he said, but “it’s a shame we have to pull teeth to honor these people, many of whom are veterans. If we really have the values that built our community, we’d be doing everything we can to honor those folks.”
Postle volunteers much of his spare time restoring historic cemeteries throughout the Blackstone Valley, clearing debris and pulling up grave markers that have sunken into the earth.
“It’s round-robin. I try to focus on the most distressed, or the most endangered,” he said.
It’s worth the effort for Postle, who believes the people buried in town deserve to remain where they intended to, undisturbed.
“We shouldn’t have to beg or ask that these cemeteries be recognized. We shouldn’t have a descendent come in search of their ancestor, only to be shocked that someone built right over or next to where their ancestor was buried,” he said.
He added that the town’s historic cemeteries are also some of the last open spaces to exist, undeveloped for hundreds of years.
“You can stand in a spot in a historic cemetery and look up at the stars and experience the same exact view that someone saw 300 or 400 years ago,” Postle said.
Ranaldi said adding cemeteries to the GIS maps will have less of an impact from a development standpoint, because the town’s cemeteries would be identified on a class-one survey before construction commenced.
He said there are a few examples in Lincoln of lots that have been, or can be, developed that include a historical cemetery as part of the property. One such lot is in the Lincoln Meadows housing development off Angell Road.
“They showed us enough room to situate a house on the lot while protecting the integrity of the cemetery,” he said. When purchased, the cemetery would be owned as part of the property, with an easement for access.
A concerned citizen recently alerted Ranaldi to the location of a cemetery near a lot slated for development on Great Road.
The town asked the developer to tap its surveyor to locate the cemetery.
“They did, and they demonstrated that it was clearly not part of the lot and that a small section at the tail-end of the lot had contained a 35-foot buffer zone. Because of past incidents with historical cemeteries, I knew I wanted to get in front of the matter,” he said. “I asked the developer to show the cemetery on the plans, and we went from there.”
Ranaldi agreed that the maps may be helpful to people hoping to research their ancestors from Lincoln.
“You can locate where they’re buried, use our map to find the plot, and go and walk the cemetery,” he said.
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