Two Historic Cemetery Programs in Little Compton this Week

Final Lecture in the “Remember Me” Speakers’ Series

This Thursday, September 6, Marjory O’Toole, “Remember Me” Project Director and Executive Director of the Little Compton Historical Society, will present “Lessons Learned from Little Compton’s 46 Historic Cemeteries” at the Little Compton Community Center at 7 pm. The talk will focus on the new information discovered after a year of research and restoration in the community’s historic cemeteries. Ms. O’Toole will touch on issues of cemetery ownership, the Town’s Negro Burying Ground, recent and continuing restoration efforts, and the recent discovery of numerous unmarked graves using Ground Penetrating Radar.  The Little Compton Historical Society is presenting the lecture as the last in their “Remember Me” speaker’s series. It is free and open to the public thanks to a grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.  No registration is required.

Gravestone Cleaning Workshop

Then on Saturday, September 8, Ms. O’Toole and other Historical Society volunteers will host the next gravestone cleaning workshop in the Old Burying Ground on the Commons from 9 to Noon. The “Remember Me” project’s goal is to recruit 100 volunteers who will each attend a workshop to learn safe gravestone cleaning techniques approved by the American Association for Gravestone Studies and then pledge to clean 10 gravestones this year. If successful the result will be 1000 clean gravestones. To date 90 volunteers have attended or registered for a workshop and the Historical Society estimates that these volunteers have cleaned 500 local gravestones to date. Volunteers age 14 and up are welcome and are asked to register for the Saturday workshop by visiting littlecompton.org or calling the Historical Society at 401-635-4035. Additional cleaning workshops will be scheduled this fall, including one in the Adamsville Cemetery. Gravestone cleaning is important to prevent lichens from slowly breaking down the stone and to enable visitors to read the inscriptions on the memorials.

The “Remember Me” project has been generously supported by The Rhode Island Foundation, The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, The Ocean State Charities Trust and members of the local community. A Town-wide Cemetery Tour is scheduled for Saturday, September 22 to explore and celebrate the town’s 46 historic cemeteries, a number of which are not normally open to the public. For tickets please contact the Historical Society.