Located on: Wine Street, East Greenwich, Rhode Island
Ye Old Baptist Burying Ground, Rhode Island Historic Cemetery No. EG062, was first laid out in 1729 and is the final resting place of at least 39 people who died between approximately 1741 and 1878.
In 1726, East Greenwich’s Baptist community built their first meetinghouse near where the cemetery now stands. The location by the water was intentional, as baptisms took place in the Cove. The meetinghouse was destroyed by a hurricane, remembered as the “Great September Gale,” in 1815, and was never rebuilt. Though the meetinghouse is gone, the hill where it stood is still called “Meetinghouse Hill.”
The 24 gravestones that remain include four which belong to men who fought in the American Revolutionary War: Jacob Campbell (grave 17), Joseph Greene (2), Dr. Joseph Joslyn (19), and Nathan Miller (21). Other noteworthy townsfolk buried here include Elder John Gorton (10), the pastor of the meetinghouse during the Revolution. He married the future General Nathanael Greene and his bride, Catharine Littlefield, in 1774 at the Governor Greene house which still stands at the corner of Division Street and Love Lane.
Ye Old Baptist Burying Ground was deeded to the General Nathanael Greene Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution by the General Six Principle Baptist Conference of Rhode Island in 1916. It continues to be owned and maintained by the Chapter to this day.
We invite you to join us in honoring the lives and sacrifices of these early American patriots.
VISITORS PLEASE TAKE NOTE: Wine Street has no public parking. Please park on neighboring streets in accordance with posted parking placards.
CHILDREN’S RESOURCES: Bringing a child to the cemetery? Our Chapter offers free children’s coloring book pages about our four Patriots buried here.