The Cemeteries of our Abandoned Asylums

From Victorian times through the industrial age pestilence and disease were common in the crowded wards of State institutions for the indigent, insane and disabled. But the limits of medical science and inadequate support for these asylums in those dark days were especially detrimental to the institutionalized poor who, even in death, could not be cared for.

Oftentimes their remains were unclaimed by friends or relatives, unable to have supported their loved ones in life and too sick or indigent themselves to bury them in death; and so they were buried by the State instead, in pauper's cemeteries located on or near the grounds of those asylums in which the deceased lived their final days.

The graves of those laid to rest in this way usually were marked by a small numbered pillar or headstone made of wood, metal or concrete, and the identities of the buried were recorded in ledgers at the institutions. Sometimes when the families of the dead were no longer in dire straits they would attempt to locate their passed on loved ones to have their bodies disinterred and removed to a private cemetery or family plot. Unfortunately, over time the records which had given each of the dead a name were lost; and so as the cemeteries fell into disuse, and the memories of those buried in their anonymous graves slowly vanished.

Today many of these paupers' cemeteries - the potter's fields - continue to fade into obscurity. Crumbling from neglect and sinking into the ground a little more every year, they are slowly disappearing beneath the weight of time, always growing closer to encroaching development and industry, always becoming more obscure.

Now more than ever there is a wind of change in the air. The once immense and prolific asylums of the 19th and early 20th centuries have, in recent years, fallen by the score beneath the wrecking ball. It is all but inevitable, then, that in time their burial grounds will disappear as well, abandoned and forsaken as the lives of those whose bodies there rest eternally below.

Or perhaps they will find, by the allure of their mystery and the plight of their indignity, some curious traveler to honor them; a benefactor to help preserve their past and uncover their secrets.

Already the State of Massachusetts has made efforts to preserve their State cemeteries at Danvers, Medfield, Belchertown and other municipalities; but other States, like Rhode Island, remain far behind. The cemeteries of historic asylums in Warwick, Cranston and Exeter continue to suffer from neglect and remain in danger of deteriorating beyond repair.

As recently as 2006, heavy spring rains unearthed 69 boxes of skeletal remains from an unmarked cemetery along the northern embankment of Route 37 in Sockanosset; the bodies of former residents of the State's poor farm. Unfortunately, not all of the remains could be identified; but to the town's credit, they were reinterred in the potter's field at the juncture of Pontiac Avenue and Knight Street in Warwick. Yet the dead there remain nameless; their tombstones are concrete posts. Their epitaphs are but numbers carved in the stone.

How many more of these long-forgotten dead rest beneath our feet? How much longer will they remain at rest? Will their names be forever unknown, their stories untold? Will their graves be monuments or just memories?

Only time will tell.

For an excellent photo essay on potter's fields, visit Mike Collington Photography.