One by one their names were called. Names long-forgotten like Luella Hill, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Barker, George H. Briggs and “Infant Donnelly,” the stillborn of Ann Donnelly, and dozens more. Their names echoed through the silent crowd as they were memorialized in the Knight Historical Cemetery last Tuesday.

The story began back in June 2006 when heavy rains unearthed human remains at the Route 37 right-of-way to the rear of 100 Sockanosset Cross Road (behind the former Davol building) in Cranston. Cranston Police and the state Medical Examiner’s Office were called to the scene after partial skeletons were discovered by two Citizens Bank employees on their luncheon walk. It was quickly determined it was not a crime scene but was an outwash of the outer edges of an historical cemetery. Because the remains had washed out from the Route 37 right-of-way, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation was notified by the city to correct the drainage problem and the issues concerning the human remains.

The forgotten remains were reinterred in nearby historical Knight Cemetery, also called State Institution Cemetery No. 2, located on the border of Cranston and Warwick. At the memorial service, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals Director Craig Stenning, RIDOT Director Michael Lewis and R.I. Mental Health Advocate Reed Cosper took turns speaking to the crowd and paying their respects to the lost citizens of Cranston.

Three pastors representing Roman Catholic, Protestant and Armenian Orthodox churches were also in attendance to offer prayers for those now at peace in Knight Cemetery. A special marker has also been put in place to honor Mike McElroy, a Civil War Veteran who has since been reinterred in the North Burial Ground among the other veterans. Some of the descendents of the deceased were also in attendance. Both Michael Hebert, supervising historic preservation specialist/archaeologist for RIDOT, and Jay Waller, archaeologist from the Public Archeological Lab, were diligent in locating as many descendants as possible.

Records indicate the area from which the remains washed out was the long-lost State Farm Cemetery, which now lies largely under Route 37. The State Farm Cemetery served as the first and largest of five state cemeteries intended to be the final resting place for those who died at state institutions and poor house and whose bodies went unclaimed by their families.

Everyday, more than 35,000 cars drive over Route 37 and many drivers do not realize they are driving over more than 3,000 graves that were never moved during the construction of the highway in the 1960s.

Approximately 557 remains were found last year from a 1975 reburial of 577 individuals in a mass grave at the east end of the cemetery. Granite tablets now mark the spot of both portions of the cemetery. Unlike the 1975 excavation work, the work last week was conducted by experts working under more stringent and sensitive laws and guidelines that exist today due to the RI Historic Cemeteries Act of 1992. A cemetery delineation was done in order for the new reburials to be placed in a proper location.

Why the 1975 remains were put into a mass grave and why, when they built Route 37, they move the markers and not the remains will perhaps remain a mystery. Records indicate at least 3,025 burials still exist under Route 37 and a proposal is in place to rename Route 37 as the “Potters Field Memorial Highway” to further memorialize the lost and forgotten that lie beneath.