By JOHN HILL

You’re forgiven if you never noticed the Stone Family Burying Ground; it is nestled on a 40-by-40 foot lot on Frankfort Street, not far from Speck Field. What was a busy cemetery in the 1800s became a small forest in the 2000s.

Saplings, some with stems thicker than an adult’s finger, briars and bushes had sprung up amongst the 21 headstones marking four generations of the Stone family, hiding them from the view of anyone who wasn’t willing to walk up to the fence around them.

That changed this month, when a group of volunteers organized by the Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission descended on the graveyard the morning of June 12, and spent three hours cutting back shrubs, pruning bushes and raking up old leaves to bring the Stone family’s legacy into the sunlight once again.

Officially known as Cranston Historic Cemetery #45, the Stone Family Burying Ground – as it was referred to early 1800s land records – is a throwback to the city’s early years, when agriculture was how most residents made a living. Farm families would designate a place amidst their land where they would bury their dead, at least while the family still lived there.

The first headstone in the Stone cemetery is from 1796, the last from 1890, when most of the Stone descendants had moved on to other places and professions.

Just reading the headstones in a cemetery can tell you stories of the people buried there; who they were, how they were related and how much they were missed.

But with the Stone family, we have more. In 1866, Richard C. Stone published a genealogy of his forebears and cousins, listing more than 1,700 people. A copy is in the Peacedale Library in South Kingstown.

The patriarch of the Cranston Stones is John, who was born in 1771 and died in 1840. He established a farm in the area around what is now Reservoir Avenue and Route 10, near Spectacle Pond.

But John’s is not the first recorded burial. That sad honor goes to Sally Ann Stone, the daughter of John and his wife Mary Joy Stone. Sally Ann was, as her headstone carefully notes, was one year, six months and nine days old when she died on Sept. 24, 1796.

She rested there alone, as far as we can tell, until 1837, when Daniel C. Stone – who would have been her nephew had she lived – was buried there too. Like Sally Ann, he died young, at one year and five months.

According to their headstones, John and Mary died on the same day, Aug. 20, 1840. Richard Stone’s genealogy said Mary was the unofficial school system of the neighborhood, teaching her seven children reading and literature.

“Each winter and autumn evening saw, for about an hour and a half, that little group conning their lessons in reading and spelling, under a mother’s instruction and care,” Stone wrote. “More than this, the privilege granted and enjoined upon her own was extended to the whole neighborhood and many is the child in ‘Cucumber Town’ (the hamlet where they lived) who could trace their first knowledge of reading and their last, even, to this good woman…”

Her first born, Seneca, appears to have been inspired by his mother. He taught in the town’s schools and served on the School Committee in the 1830s. He was also elected to the Town Council as well as treasurer and twice represented the town in the General Assembly.

The handwritten records of that time show his term as treasurer may have been controversial. The town meeting voted to create a special committee to investigate his performance, and later noted he had made a payment to “correct errors.” The Town Council didn’t appear to have any problems with him. It voted a resolution thanking him for his service.

“He taught singing and music in his own town,” Richard Stone wrote, “and was leader for some time of a military band.”

You stand by his grave and wonder, did they play for his funeral.

Not all of John and Mary’s children stayed on the farm. Their son Daniel C. Stone became a shoemaker and William Joy Stone moved to Providence and sold dry goods. Others made wagons or bought and sold fish.

Judging from the headstones, the last burial was in 1890, for Mary Ann Cole Stone, the wife of John and Mary’s son Daniel C. He had died in 1861.

In the 1900s, the farm was carved up for commercial or residential development, and the cemetery where the Stones buried their dead became an afterthought, left to nature as the people who might have cared moved on.

But neighbors told the cemeteries commission they would be willing to maintain the cemetery, but were intimidated by the magnitude of the job. That is where the commission came in. If a neighbor was willing to keep an eye on a cemetery, weed it, clean up litter that may get dropped there, the commission would organize a cleanup to clear out all the overgrowth.

The Stone lot job saw six volunteers fill 55 yard waste bags in three hours.

“It is very satisfying seeing something so dull and drab as a cemetery in need, come to life from just a few hours of hard work from caring people who have the same passion,” said Nicole Johnson-Morais, a member of the commission.

“It looked so daunting when we arrived,” commission vice-chairman Paul Tognetti said. “But it was a joy to work with everyone who came out to help. It really did not seem like work at all.”

If there’s a neglected historical cemetery in your neighborhood that you’re willing to adopt, the Cranston Historical Cemeteries Commission can organize a cleanup for it. The commission can be reached through its Facebook page or by emailing cranstoncemeteries@gmail.com.