A case of senseless vandalism

History Notes is a biweekly entry in the Sun Rise that features a passage from the Johnston Historical Society. This week’s story comes from July 2016.

Through the past many years that the Cemetery Committee has been working in our town’s burial grounds, we have thankfully seen very few instances of any recent vandalism.

However, that situation changed in early 2016, and in a most troubling way. On account of a rather snowless and mild early winter, the committee was able to clean Cemetery No. 69 in four work sessions between Dec. 13 and Jan. 7.

Cemetery No. 69 is known as the Belknap Cemetery, located about a quarter-mile west of the Greater Rhode Island Baptist Church on Greenville Avenue. It lies very close to the chain link fence that borders the property along Route 295. The land on which the cemetery is located had been much in the news, as it was the proposed site of the new Citizens Bank corporate headquarters. At the time we started cleaning the site, we had no idea of the impending project.

The people interred in this cemetery are members of the Belknap family. Benjamin Belknap moved to Johnston (then part of Providence) from Northlake, Connecticut, in 1740. The house he resided in (he was not the builder) was located at the corner of Pine Hill Avenue and Greenville Avenue. The house lay in neglect for many years and was torn down in 1999.

Benjamin Belknap and his family were to make an important mark on the history of the town. In fact, the above-mentioned house was the site of the first Town Meeting in Johnston, held on April 18, 1759; Benjamin was elected as a town officer at that meeting.

The cemetery itself is surrounded by the standard granite posts and iron pipes, with a smaller interior section delineated by granite posts and iron chains. There are about two-dozen marked or inscribed gravestones present as well as about the same number of unmarked “crude” fieldstones.

Of all the above gravestones, two stand out in importance. They are the markers for two younger daughters of Benjamin and Hannah Belknap, Ruth (Belknap) Clemence and Olive Belknap: “In Memory of/Ruth the Wife of Mr./Thomas Clemence/Daughter of Dr. Ben/jamin Belknap &/Hannah his Wife/Who Died Novemr/ye 18th 1750 Aged/21 years & 7 days”; and “In Memory of/Olive the Daugr/of Dr. Benjamin/Belknap & Hannah/his Wife who Died/ye 26th of Novemr/1750 Aged 11 years/2 M & 9 Days.”

On a personal level, it was quite tragic that two of the Belknap daughters died so relatively young, and even more so when one considers that the two girls died about a week apart. Both died in 1750, making their markers the oldest inscribed gravestones in Johnston. There are a few gravestones in town with earlier death dates but they are “backdated,” carved many years after the actual death date.

Pictures of these two stones were sent to Mr. Vincent Luti of UMass-Dartmouth, the foremost scholar and expert in regards to the gravestone carvers of New England. He immediately identified the carver as being John Anthony Angell. In an unpublished manuscript, Mr. Luti stated that Angell died on April 6, 1756, at age 55. The epitaph on his gravestone states that he was born in Coblenz, Germany. Luti theorizes that his name was probably “Engel” and was anglicized to Angell when he came to this country.

He initially resided in Newport, but by 1747, he appears in Providence records. Luti feels that what may have brought him to Providence was that the only other active carver in the area was George Allen, who was very busy, and resided in Rehoboth. Luti further states that Angell carved his stones with a low to occasionally medium carving depth (relief), making them somewhat difficult to read at times; that description matches our two stones.

In addition, he utilized stones of a “crumbling bituminous-like material, making them perishable and hard to read.” His design elements were very similar to the foliate style of George Allen, principally carving rosettes and acanthus scroll designs. Contrary to many other carvers of the time, Angell did not carve winged angels or human effigies. A further note of interest is that the footnotes for the Belknap girls did not, as was customary, have inscribed slate stones – they were in fact made of “crude” fieldstones.

In March 2016, it was discovered that there was vandalism in the cemetery. Unfortunately, the stone of Ruth (Belknap) Clemence had been smashed into various-sized chunks. For some reason, this stone had lain completely out of the ground for many years and this made it a natural target for vandals. It seems that the stone was lifted by at least two people and repeatedly smashed against a large fieldstone.

As Mr. Luti explained, Mr. Angell’s stones were of a crumbling quality and as a result the stone exploded into many pieces. A peculiar aspect of the damage was that in many sections a thin layer of the actual carving (about 1/8th to an 1/16th of an inch) either disintegrated or blew off the rest of the stone. With the help of then-Dep. Police Chief Dan Parrillo and other members of the committee, the broken pieces were removed in hope of repair; at the same time, the stone of Olive Belknap was also removed for safekeeping.

At this time, some repairs have been made to the vandalized stone. However, many chunks of stone with inscribed script are now missing, especially those recording date of death. These two stones are basically rare examples of folk art and are irreplaceable. They will be placed back into Cemetery No. 69 when we feel that area is secure. It is a great shame that after surviving 266 years intact and in such great shape that the stone of Ruth (Belknap) Clemence was damaged so badly by modern-day vandals.

Note of interest: Gravestones of this era are very rare in Johnston; there are only two other 1750s stones in town (Cemetery No. 21) and they are of a later date. The great majority of people who died before 1800 had their graves marked with “crude” fieldstones.

In fact, Benjamin and Hannah Belknap themselves are buried under fieldstones; thus, it is a measure of their grief that they had gravestone carved for their two daughters at a time when it was rare to do so.