WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED
The Original Hillside Burial Ground with slate The site before we began work. Results of the 1890 headstones. Improvements.
The original Town of Providence, founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, did not have a Common Burial Ground until 1700. When a loved-one died, families buried them on their property. This resulted in many small cemeteries across the town.
By 1880, Providence had become a burgeoning city and one act of the City Council was to have all the small cemeteries moved to North Burial Ground. A group of descendants of Pardon Tillinghast got together and petitioned the City to keep the family burial ground which had become neglected and overgrown. The City agreed, providing the Tillinghast family improved and maintained the burial ground. Without moving the 30+ relatives buried on the site, the hillside grade was raised to the Benefit Street level with granite stone walls, iron fencing and a single monument honoring our common progenitor, Pardon Tillinghast (monument photo above). With a small fund it was maintained until the mid-twentieth century.
By 2015 some of the walls were deteriorating, some sections of the fencing were badly rusted and the land-scaping need improvements. Once again, a small group of Pardon’s descendants organized and incorpo-rated as the Tillinghast Society, Inc. We obtained our tax-exempt status to raise funds for the needed re-pairs. After an appeal to family members and with grants from several organizations, we were able to raise $50,000.
With those funds, the Tillinghast Society, Inc. was able to repair a wall that had shifted onto neighbor’s property, replace 81 feet of rusted fencing with new fencing to match the old fence and repaint the existing 130-year-old fencing. A path was constructed around the monument and a custom-made bench was in-stalled.
Also, an informational sign was installed explaining the hidden history of the site along with biographical information about our common ancestor, Pardon Tillinghast, who settled in Providence c.1643