
Harmony Chapel and Cemetery - Harmony RI
Posted by:
nomadwillie
N 41° 53.351 W 071° 36.005
19T E 284285 N 4640741
Built as a schoolhouse in c. 1830, it is one of the few Federal-style schoolhouses to survive in the state, and is probably the best-preserved of that period.
Waymark Code: WM12FDE
Location: Rhode Island, United States
Date Posted: 05/15/2020
Views: 2
The wood-frame chapel adjacent to the cemetery sits on US Route 44 west of Edgewood Drive. Built as a schoolhouse in c. 1830, it is one of the few Federal-style schoolhouses to survive in the state, and is probably the best-preserved of that period. It was later (by 1870) converted for use as a meeting house (free chapel) for villagers. Residents would occasionally hire ministers to speak and hold various Christian religious ceremonies.
The cemetery behind the chapel was used as a private cemetery by the Steere, Smith and other local families until opened for public use in 1878.
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The cemetery, laidout over a period of years, follows an
irregular rectangular grid.. The original. portion , was recorded on a plat drawn in 1878. The cemetery, while not of any particular artistic merit, is of interest, too, for the mirror it holds up to nineteenth-century social history - The concern with more public burials tthan the traditional family plot could provide was a typical mid-nineteenth century concern and the burial yard here in the hamlet of Harmony was established at least as early as 1857.
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Cemetery is also known as Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Glocester #35