Text quoted from Volume 1, Number Four of the Cthulhu Prayer Society Newsletter:

By 1725, only 18 documented burials had occurred in the [North Burial Ground of Providence], clear sign that home burial was still preferred. The burial ground land was used for a town animal pound. A whipping post and stocks were set up there, too. The Rhode Islanders may have been rebels against the Puritans, but they were still Englishman, fond of dispensing corporal punishment for such offenses as reveling on the Sabbath.

Gravestone carving became a Providence profession with the arrival of John Anthony Angel, who came from Portsmouth, RI in 1747. Other gravestone carvers were George Allen, Seth Luther, and Stephen
Hartshorn.

Finally, the idea of a civic burial ground caught on. As the population expanded and land grew scarcer and more valuable, it became plain that having Grandpa in the backyard was an impediment to business and real estate. The burial ground underwent expansion, with some houses along its edge vacated, the owners often settling for an exchange of land. The burial ground underwent successive expansions in 1747, 1764, 1776 and 1867.

The creation of Benefit Street, cutting across many vertical plots of land running up College Hill, also resulted in the relocation of a number of family plots to the North Burial Ground, with the endorsement and encouragement of the city fathers. Providence’s Quakers also acquired a designated part of the burial ground for themselves, moving their graves from Olive Street. Many other historic grave plots wound up in Swan Point Cemetery, which explains how a garden cemetery opened in 1846 has stones from the 18th century!

Taken by me some time later:

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More Sarah Helen Whitman: HOURS OF LIFE and POE’S HELEN.

(PDFs via kobek.com. Ya heard?)