“Let the Dead Rest”: The Tumultuous History of the Arnold Burying Ground

June 24, 2025

This is a guest blog post by Rebecca Dawson, a rising senior studying American History and Cultural & Historic Preservation, Salve Regina University. Rebecca is a 2025 John E. McGinty Fellow (Salve Regina University) in partnership with the NHS Buchanan Burnham Summer Scholars program. 

While exploring Newport’s ‘Historic Hill’ neighborhood, one may stumble across a burial ground set a few yards back from Pelham Street, nestled in between the Governor Van Zandt mansion and the Philip Rider house. This small cemetery may seem unassuming, but it is actually the resting place of Rhode Island’s first colonial governor, Benedict Arnold (1615-1678). Initiated in August 1677 with the burial of Damaris Goulding, Arnold’s infant granddaughter, the land remained an active family plot until 1834; Arnold himself was interred in the plot in 1678.[1] The site once contained sixty-six marked graves, many of which were carved by either John Stevens, John Stevens II, or William Mumford, three prominent stonecutters during the early eighteenth century in Newport.[2] Those visiting the cemetery today will be met with fifty-three stones, a consequence of disruptive actions undertaken in the 1850s.

Benedict Arnold’s will was signed in late 1677 and it contained clear instructions for his burial. The governor wished for a plot “three rod square” on the land he owned just west of the “stone-built windmill” (also belonging to Arnold). Damaris Arnold (1621-1679), his wife, was to be interred with him, and he wanted proper memorialization for both her grave and his own.[3] Arnold’s command for the parcel of land was even more straightforward:

“I do hereby solemnly prohibit ye selling or otherwise disposing of the said three rod square of ground at any part thereof, but that it be wholly reserved for the use of my kindred relations for so many of them as shall please to bury their dead in the said ground.”[4]

The governor’s last will made his thoughts and feelings unmistakably clear; the Arnold Burying Ground was to remain simply that. As the decades progressed, however, the vast acreage surrounding the cemetery underwent development. The countryside that Arnold once owned had quickly been encroached upon and thus Pelham Street became a bustling neighborhood.

Around 1838, Captain Augustus N. Littlefield, a mariner, moved into the home located at 70 Pelham Street, which was situated on the plot directly west of the Arnold Burying Ground.[5] Less than a decade later, Littlefield also became the landowner of the plot east of the cemetery, meaning the burial site was the dividing rift between the mariner’s lands.[6] By this time, the burial ground had been dormant, as the last known burial occurred in 1834. Littlefield’s inclination was to absorb the burial site into his own property, creating a seamless flow of land on Pelham Street. According to the common law of England, which Arnold was buried under, the land belonged to the governor’s heirs, not to the State, meaning that the cemetery could not be tampered with; the will of Arnold also dictated this fact.[7]

Undated photograph of 70 Pelham Street, the former residence of Augustus N. Littlefield. Note the property to the east, as it is sitting on top of the Arnold Burying Ground. Collection of the Newport Historical Society, MS115 Box 4.

By 1857, Littlefield’s property had consumed the public path leading to the burial ground, making the plot inaccessible to Arnold descendants and visitors without the risk of trespassing. The Captain had decided that the best way forward was to approach the Newport City Council. On October 27, 1857, Littlefield delivered a plea in which he proposed the relocation of the Arnold Burying Ground, including the stones, tombs, and human remains, to the Willow Cemetery (now part of the Island Cemetery).[8] His argument was that there had not been a burial in over twenty years, the stones were difficult to read, and his tenants were displeased at the thought of living adjacent to a cemetery.[9] Littlefield purchased four lots in the Willow Cemetery for the removal with his own money, and he vowed to conduct the operation with the utmost care. On November 3, the City Council accepted Littlefield’s gift of the new burial plots, but on November 12, they agreed to postpone the official hearing regarding the relocation of the Arnold family indefinitely. The Council’s vote on that same night, however, was 4-3 in favor of keeping the human remains in place.[10]

“A Doleful Ditty,” a broadside circulated throughout Newport condemning Littlefield for his invasive behavior towards the Arnold Burying Ground. Collection of the Newport Historical Society, FIC.2025.174, BRO-4, Folder 9.

Captain Littlefield was not pleased with the outcome of his City Council plea, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. The graves of Governor Arnold, his wife, and his kin were dug up and shipped across town.[11] The public caught wind of this act and swiftly protested, with some even composing poems that humiliated Littlefield.[12] Not only had Littlefield disobeyed the City Council, but he trespassed and disregarded the wishes outlined in Benedict Arnold’s will. Shortly thereafter, the Captain was ordered to reinstate the Arnold Burying Ground.[13] After the backlash he endured, the hope was that Littlefield would carefully correct the mistakes he made, but that was not the case.

While Littlefield had vowed to rebury the dead in the Willow Cemetery with careful precision, the same did not apply for when he went to fix the lot on Pelham Street. The act of unearthing coffins, which had been buried for at least a century in many cases, was detrimental; the tombs had crumbled upon removal, exposing the human remains within. Littlefield reburied the Arnold family in shoebox-like tombs in shallow graves back at the original burial site. The original gravestones were laid flat rather than being propped up as they had been, and the entire plot was covered in soil, as if the Captain was attempting to physically erase history.[14] Once the ugly ordeal had finished, Littlefield planted shrubs among the stones in an effort to cover up his mistakes.

70 Pelham Street, Littlefield’s residence, was sold to Charles C. Van Zandt in 1863; Van Zandt would later become the thirty-fourth governor of Rhode Island.[15] Littlefield died in 1878. By 1906, as seen in the photograph below, gravestones were visible in the Arnold lot, but the area was covered in brush.[16] The Newport public continued to demand that proper preservation efforts be employed at the burial ground; FP Garrettson, the President of the Sons of the Revolution, wrote the following statement in July 1907: “we love to talk about the glories of Newport, and the dear old ancestors; and then, when they are gone, keep them warm and well fertilized under a manure heap.”[17] The lot had turned into a wasteland.

Photograph of the Arnold Burying Ground in 1906, covered with brush and debris. Collection of the Newport Historical Society, Box 215A.

Photograph of an unidentified man working to restore the Arnold Burying Ground. He is in the process of unearthing a buried gravestone. Undated. From Alice Brayton’s “The Burying Ground of Governor Arnold,” 1960.

In 1946, Alice Brayton, a descendant of Gov. Arnold, bought the land where the cemetery was located in an auction.[18] An early preservationist, Brayton believed the restoration of the burial ground to be a worthy endeavor. Upon first inspection, Brayton could not see any memorials: “there were no gravestones, no sign that [the] Governor was there or had ever been near the place.”[19] The assistance of local landscaper TJ Brown was also sought after, as he had workers who were eager to begin the preservation process.[20] Through the help of John Howard Benson, a stonecutter at the John Stevens Shop on Thames Street, the cemetery was painstakingly restored.[21] Brayton and Benson worked to excavate the stones that had been laying flat for over fifty years, but it was made clear that the remains below the gravestones were to be left undisturbed, for they had been handled far too many times.

Photograph of Governor Arnold’s gravestone being restored, circa 1946-1948. Individual unknown. Courtesy of Alice Brayton’s The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, 1960.

Today, the Arnold Burying Ground on Pelham Street is maintained by the Preservation Society of Newport County. While the exact original configuration of the gravestones is lost to time, the invaluable efforts of Brayton and Benson have allowed for an integral plot of Rhode Island history to remain accessible to both Arnold descendants and tourists alike well into the twenty-first century.

 

 

*Note: “Let the dead rest” is a quote taken from the Newport Mercury issue from October 24, 1857 in regards to the Arnold Burying Ground.[22]

 

[1] J. N. Arnold, Report of J. N. Arnold, Commissioner to Inquire into the Present Condition of the Governor Benedict Arnold Burial Place (Providence, RI: El Freeman & Sons, 1901), 7; Alice Brayton, The Burying Place of Governor Arnold (Newport, RI: Privately Printed, 1960), 135.

[2] Brayton, The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, 51-81.

[3] Benedict Arnold, Last Will and Testament, 1677, facsimile by Stephen Gould, May 17, 1814, Box 7A, Folder 22A, Newport Historical Society (NHS) Collections.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Newport Herald (Newport, Rhode Island), August 14, 1897, MS115 Box 4, NHS Collections.

[6] Brayton, The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, 13.

[7] Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island), 1906: 29; Letter from William R. Harvey to Dr. Roderick Terry, Box 215A, NHS Collections.

[8] Augustus Littlefield, Letter to the City Council, October 27, 1857, MS115 Box 4, NHS Collections.

[9] Ibid.; Newport Mercury (Newport, Rhode Island), November 7, 1857: 2.

[10] Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island), November 3, 1857, MS115 Box 4, NHS Collections; Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island), November 12, 1857, MS115 Box 4, NHS Collections.

[11] John Sterling, Newport, Rhode Island Colonial Burying Grounds (Providence, RI: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 2009), 375.

[12] “A Doleful Ditty,” undated, FIC.2025.174, MS Box BRO-4, Folder 9, NHS Collections.

[13] Brayton, The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, 21.

[14] Ibid.

[15] MS115 Box 4, NHS Collections.

[16] Box 215A, NHS Collections.

[17] FP Garrettson, Letter to the Editor of the News, July 27, 1907, Box 215A, NHS Collections.

[18] Providence Journal (Providence, Rhode Island), 1954: 14.

[19] Brayton, The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, 9.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Sterling, Newport, Rhode Island Colonial Burying Grounds, 375.

[22]  Brayton, The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, 19.