The first grave we went to find was William Tanner, the first Tanner to come from England. He was born in 1659. He bought 100 acres in South Kingstown and was even sent back to England at one point on behalf of the colony of Rhode Island. He is buried on his land. There are actually 3 Tanner cemeteries right next to each other. Online multiple people said the cemeteries were behind hole 3 of the Laurel Lane Country Club. My mom and I thought that was pretty funny and we decided to check it out.
When we got to the golf course we went inside the pro shop to ask where hole 3 is. The man in the shop knew about the cemeteries but said with all the rain we had gotten that day there was no way we could get back there because it was like a swamp. That should have been our first clue of what we were getting ourselves into, but I thought, "Oh he's just exaggerating. We should still try anyway. I'm not afraid of a little mud." He found out my mom was from Texas and this was her only day to see the grave of her ancestors. He called up the owner of the country club who's house is right next to the property. He said the owner, Joe, would take us to the cemetery a different way. We were so excited and so we hopped in the car to drive down the road to Joe's house.
It was very, very humid. It had been raining earlier that day and it felt like the rain was just lingering in the air. Joe was a really nice man and we started our hike to the graves. He kept saying, "You'd never find them without me." (Clue #2) He also said that he hadn't been out to them since last year. (Clue #3) At first we were walking on an old gravel road. I was in flip flops and so far things were great. There were a couple of mosquitoes, but nothing I couldn't handle.
Then we veered off the road into a field with grass and weeds up to my knees. My flip flops kept coming off and my legs were getting scratched up from thorns and wild berry bushes. After the field Joe led us into the trees, where there was no path and I wished I had a machete. He kept saying, "Just a little bit farther." At this point the mosquitoes got out of control! Mosquitoes that hadn't fed on human flesh in ages came out of the wood work and had a feast. We had to continuously wave our arms back and forth around our head.
Finally after what seemed an eternity of walking amid a swarm of mosquitoes we came to the cemeteries. They were grown over and really worn down, but luckily Joe knew exactly which one was William Tanners. I looked at my mom's back and there were 20 mosquitoes chilling there. I knew it was probably the same case with me. We were there long enough to take 2 pictures and get out! It was horrible! The rest of the day I shuddered every time I thought about mosquitoes!
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| You can barely see WT scratched on. |
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| A later Tanner cemetery. It has a rock wall around it. The mosquitoes quelled any desire to find out who is buried there. |
On the way back Joe found another road that he couldn't find before. It was the original road that William Tanner built and it was lined with rocks like so many little roads out here. We also saw the well that the Tanner's probably built. It would have been cooler if I wasn't being eaten alive! After about 30 minutes of trekking we finally made it back to our car. We were drenched in sweat, itchy, and completely miserable.
We had one more stop. Francis Tanner's grave. This one was just one town south in Hopkinton. The cemetery was supposedly right off a road, next to a house, and a foot path led the way. But my mom and I agreed that if it was anything like William Tanner's grave it was not worth it!
We parked the car in a little parking lot and walked up the street to the house that was supposedly next to the cemetery. When we got to the house we found out that it was actually Francis Tanner's house!
The cemetery was really accessible as well. We couldn't tell which grave was Francis Tanner's because all of the older ones were basically stubs, but it was cool to see the house he built. Francis was the son of William and purchased 1,200 acres. He was John Tanner's grandfather. John Tanner is the famous one from church history that gave all of his money to the Church and lived in poverty for the rest of his life because of it. He is my mom's great grandfather.
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| The little stubs or headstones |
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| Since this one was bigger we thought it might be Francis Tanner's. It looked like there was a faint "F" as well, but who knows. |
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| The cemetery had a nice little fence around it. |
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| Some of my Mom's mosquito bites. |
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