A lost Burlingame family cemetery, located in the John Curran Land Management Area just off of 7 Mile Road, has been rediscovered and a group of intrepid locals, enthusiasts and even City Councilman Richard Campopiano have banded together and cleaned up the overgrown plot.

"There are a lot of historical cemeteries in the city, and we try to encourage their preservation,” said Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission (CHCC) Chair John Hill. "When these cemeteries are located, many from long ago we’re talking the 1800’s, as we find them fairly neglected and overgrown we try to have them cleaned up and taken care of.”

While it’s taken more than a few years for this little plot of overgrown history to finally make its way back into the light, its existence has been known by only a select few people. For several years, locals have stumbled across the cemetery and brought attention to the burial site of what ended up being not one, or two, but at least three members of the Burlingame family.

Jan Ragno, lives around the corner from the cemetery. She first stumbled upon it through a friend in 2018, but didn’t realize its significance.

“I used to go for walks, I did a lot better at it back then, and I’d go into cemeteries,” Ragno recalled fondly. “I’d find cemeteries that hadn’t been taken care of in a long time and clean them up and take pictures. I just loved it. I talked to my neighbor about it, and she would tell me, ‘Go look at this place off 7 Mile Road’.”

Following the advice, Ragno decided to go take a look. She approached a nearby resident of where her friend said the unknown cemetery was, and they told her they knew exactly what she was looking for; their son even took Ragno to where the location. Ragno said that while you couldn’t see much through the thick overgrowth, there was one carved headstone and several small unmarked fieldstones visible.

The information, Ragno said, was then passed on to the CHCC. Unfortunately, Ragno’s attempt to bring attention to the hidden bit of Rhode Island history didn’t quite gain traction on its own, though it proved a memorable first step for those who would take up the cause.

One more person would have to stumble across the hidden gem for the momentum to build.

A few years later, in 2020, a hiker by the name of Andrew Grover said he went for a hike in Curran State Park and checked the historical cemeteries map, which can be viewed online.

“It can give you these little Easter eggs to find,” Grover explained. “Interestingly, there wasn’t anything listed in Curran. This day though, and sometimes others, I like to look at a plat map. Some hikers like to look at all the trails. I like to look at a plat map app.”

A plat map is a map of a specific neighborhood, or tract of land that shows where the original surveyors marked the property lines of each parcel or plot of land. It was right there on the map, on the lower plat, that Grover said he noticed a tiny little square.

“I’ve seen that before,” Grover said. “That often means cemetery. When I say tiny I mean that it’s much smaller than a house. You would probably have a hard time even fitting a shed.”

Grover decided it was enough to interest him into exploring. He hiked his way to that little square and re-found a piece of history. While there he couldn’t help but notice the headstone and managed to make out the name Lewis Burlingame, who died in 1893.

“City land records show a Lewis Burlingame was a part owner of a piece of property that is located about where the cemetery was found,” it said on the CHCC Facebook page.” The cemetery is correctly marked on City Assessor Map 30/2.”

Rhode Island isn’t the only state with lost cemeteries. Family burial sites located on the edges of larger properties were common long ago. What makes Rhode Island’s unique though is a man named James Arnold, who in the late 1800s traveled across the smallest state and marked down the location of every cemetery in the state and the names, or lack thereof, listed on any gravestones.

“In 1891, James Arnold visited a cemetery in the area and described it as ‘On the farm lately owned by Owen Burlingame on the north side of the brook, a burial yard in which at present nothing but rude markers remain,” the commission’s Facebook page continued. “A portion of the interments have been taken up and removed elsewhere, neglected and unprotected. Because Arnold didn’t give a more precise location, this cemetery had been called ‘Unknown Cemetery 576’ in the state records.”

This little plot of land has almost as much history behind its discovery as it does buried beneath the ground. With a name like Burlingame attached to the cemetery, it wouldn’t be much longer before a larger crowd was drawn in.

Rev. Ken Postle, who leads the volunteer effort for Blackstone Valley Historical Cemetery, was beyond excited to hear the news from Grover about the discovery and quickly began working on efforts to get a clean up crew together. With only about a month from when he heard the news to now, Rev. Postle, or Pastor Ken as he is often called, helped pull together a whole group to assist in cleaning up the cemetery this past Saturday.

During the cleanup volunteers found themselves with quite the task. The small patch of land surrounded by a low wall of piled stones was completely overgrown and untended. Despite the mess, there were telltale signs that they were in the right place. The broken off headstone proudly displaying the Burlingame name and unmarked stone grave markers at the head and feet of graves whose owners may never be known left a thrill of discovery and history in the air for those gathered.

"I can tell that there is a first row back here," Pastor Ken said as he pointed to the uneven ground. “You know how I know? The hollows. That’s where the decomposition happens, and once you’ve seen that you can’t unsee it. You’ll be surprised you notice them at times in these kinds of old places and realize what it means.”

To everyone's surprise, Lewis Burlingame's was not the only marked gravestone in the cemetery. Even John Arnold who over a hundred years ago visited this very site hadn't known the names of a single person buried there. Yet history began to unfold before the very eyes of the volunteer cleanup crew as the headstones of Charles Burlingame and his wife Ruth were found sound by side with Lewis under a foot of dirt.

With a little piece of history uncovered the group finished cleaning up what they could before their time ended, hoping that from this point forward the historical cemeteries commission may be able to find a neighbor or volunteer willing to dedicate a few hours a week to maintaining a little piece of Rhode Island history. Those interested in volunteering to adopt a cemetery or help find and clean up newly discovered ones can reach out to the CHCC’s Facebook page, or contact your local city council member.