Swan Point Cemetery is a cemetery located in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Established in 1846 on a 60-acre (0.24 km²) plot of land, it has approximately 40,000 interments.
First organized under the Swan Point Cemetery Company, with a board of trustees. In 1858, a new charter was developed to make the cemetery administration non-profit, and it was taken over by a group known as the Proprietors of Swan Point Cemetery. In 1886, landscape architect H.W.S. Cleveland was hired to redesign the area. It is a cemetery park with its design inspired by the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Among the first to make use of a tract of land within the cemetery was the First Congregational Society (now First Unitarian Society). They moved several interments from older plots in Providence to Swan Point. Over the years additional land acquisition has expanded the cemetery to 200 acres (0.81 km2), and is still open to new interments today.
The Swan Point Cemetery is widely considered to be the most prestigious cemetery in Rhode Island due to the number of prominent citizens of the state buried there. There are more governors, senators and congressmen buried there than any other cemetery in Rhode Island.
Swan Point Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It is one of the two largest cemeteries in Providence with the other one being the North Burial Ground.
Swan Point has the burials of many notable Rhode Island figures:
David Aldrich, American artist
Nelson W. Aldrich, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, grandfather of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller
Richard Steere Aldrich, U.S. Congressman, son of Nelson W. Aldrich
Henry B. Anthony, Governor of Rhode Island, and President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate
Lemuel H. Arnold, U.S. Congressman, Governor of Rhode Island
Richard Arnold, Union army general
Sullivan Ballou, state politician, Civil War officer killed in action at the Battle of Bull Run
David Leonard Barnes, U.S. District judge, litigant in West v. Barnes
Charles R. Brayton, Civil War officer, Postmaster of Providence and long time Republican political boss
Ambrose Burnside, Major General in the Civil War, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator
Adin Ballou Capron, U.S. Congressman
Malcolm Greene Chace (1875–1955), industrialist, hockey innovator, and amateur tennis player
Malcolm Greene Chace, Jr., (1904–1996) chairman of Berkshire Hathaway during the 1960s
Malcolm Greene Chace III (1934–2011), board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway 1992-2007
George Henry Corliss, inventor of the Corliss steam engine
Thomas Davis, U.S. Congressman
Thomas Wilson Dorr, Political reformer, revolutionary and Governor of Rhode Island
Sarah Elizabeth Doyle, Educator and reformer.
Thomas Arthur Doyle, long-serving mayor of Providence
Elisha Dyer, Governor of Rhode Island
Elisha Dyer Jr., Governor of Rhode Island, Mayor of Providence
Benjamin Tucker Eames, U.S. Congressman
C. M. Eddy, Jr., author
Theodore Foster, U.S. Senator
Albert Gallup, U.S. Congressman
Lucius F. C. Garvin, Governor of Rhode Island
Darius Goff, Pawtucket businessman and textile mill owner.
Daniel L. D. Granger, U.S. Congressman
Theodore F. Green, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator
William S. Hayward, Mayor of Providence
Robert Henri, American painter and teacher
William Warner Hoppin, Governor of Rhode Island
Charles Tillinghast James, U.S. Senator
Thomas Allen Jenckes, U.S. Congressman
William Jones, Governor of Rhode Island
Herbert W. Ladd, Governor of Rhode Island
Benedict Lapham, industrialist, philanthropist
Oscar Lapham, U.S. Congressman
Charles W. Lippitt, Governor of Rhode Island
Henry Lippitt, Governor of Rhode Island
Henry Frederick Lippitt, U.S. Senator
Alfred Henry Littlefield, Governor of Rhode Island
H. P. Lovecraft, American author
Jesse Houghton Metcalf, U.S. Senator
Seth Padelford, Governor of Rhode Island
Charles H. Page, U.S. Congressman
Vahram Papazyan, Olympic runner
Whipple Van Buren Phillips, businessman
Elisha Hunt Rhodes, Union Civil War veteran featured prominently in Ken Burns's The Civil War
John S. Slocum, Colonel of the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry, killed in action at the Battle of Bull Run
James Y. Smith, Mayor of Providence and Governor of Rhode Island
William Sprague III, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator
William Sprague IV, Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator
Alfred E. Stone, Providence architect
Royal C. Taft, Governor of Rhode Island
George William Whitaker (1840–1916), the "Dean of Providence Painters"
