The Coddington Cemetery is an early colonial cemetery located in Newport, Rhode Island. It is sometimes called the Friends' Burial Ground, and has more colonial governors buried in it than any other cemetery in the state.

Description

The Coddington Cemetery, located at 34 Farewell Street in Newport, Rhode Island

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, is a very old colonial cemetery with 93 known interments, and has the largest number of interred governors of any cemetery in the state. The six governors buried here are William Coddington

William Coddington

William Coddington was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, serving as the Judge of Portsmouth, Judge of Newport, Governor of Portsmouth and Newport, Deputy Governor of the entire colony, and then Governor of the...

, Nicholas Easton

Nicholas Easton

Nicholas Easton was an early colonial President and Governor of Rhode Island. Born in Hampshire, England, he lived in the towns of Lymington and Romsey before immigrating to New England with his two sons in 1634. Once in the New World, he lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony towns of Ipswich,...

, William Coddington, Jr.

William Coddington, Jr.

William Coddington Jr. was an early governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, serving two consecutive terms from 1683 to 1685...

, Henry Bull

Henry Bull (Governor)

Henry Bull was an early colonial Governor of Rhode Island, serving for two separate terms, one before and one after the tenure of Edmund Andros under the Dominion of New England...

, John Easton

John Easton

John Easton was a political leader in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, devoting decades to public service before eventually becoming Governor of the colony. Born in Hampshire, England, he sailed to New England with his widowed father and older brother, settling in Ipswich...

, and John Wanton

John Wanton

John Wanton was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, serving for six consecutive terms from 1734 to 1740. He was the son of Edward Wanton who was a ship builder, and who became a Quaker after witnessing the persecution of these people, also becoming a preacher of...

, all Quakers. None of the six governor graves has a governor's medallion like those found at the gravesites of most other colonial governors. The first known interment in this cemetery was that of Mary Moseley Coddington, the wife of Governor William Coddington, who died in 1647, and the last interment was that of James Easton who died in 1796.

The cemetery has been designated as Rhode Island Historic Cemetery, Newport #9, and is located on Farewell Street between Baptist and Coddington Streets in Newport. Within the cemetery is a monument honoring Governor William Coddington, erected on the 200th anniversary of the founding of Newport. The monument reads:


THIS MONUMENT

Erected by the Town of Newport

on the 12th. day of May 1839 being

the second Centeniel [sic] Anniversary

of the settlement of this town:

To the memory of

WILLIAM CODDINGTON ESQ

That illustrious man, who

first purchased this Island

from the Narragansett Sachems

Canonicus and Miantunomo

for and on account of himself and

Seventeen others his associates

in the purchase and Settlement.

He presided many years

as chief Magistrate of the Island

and Colony of Rhode Island

and Died much respected and lamented

on the 1st day of November in [1678]

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