Missing In Action
Accessibility: A large granite marker, vaguely rock shaped with a rough surface. In the center, there is a smooth rectangle that reads: The Danvers State Hospital | Cemetery| The Echoes They Left Behind. It is surrounded by greenery and a few small logs.
Danvers State Hospital:
“An Excerpt From A Patient Abuse Report 1992” Disabled Persons Protection Commission: Boston, 1992. https://www.danversstatehospital.org/patient-abuse-report
“Cregg Probes Mystery Death, Danvers Hospital” The Telegraph (Nashua, NH), September 28, 1934.
“Danvers State Hospital” National Parks Service. Accessed April 5, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/places/danvers-state-hospital.htm
“Danvers State Hospital – An Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital” World Abandoned. Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.worldabandoned.com/danvers-state-hospital
“Danvers State Hospital - Arkham and Beyond: Patients and Cemeteries” Simmons Library. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://simmonslis.libguides.com/c.php?g=832589&p=5946257
“Fireman Fight Blaze At Danvers State Hospital” The Lewiston Daily Sun (Lewiston, ME), August 14, 1936.
Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. “History of Danvers State Hospital” History of Massachusetts Blog. September 19, 2012. Accessed April 3, 2022. https://historyofmassachusetts.org/history-of-danvers-state-hospital/
DeLong, William. “Why Danvers State Hospital Ranks Among History’s Most Infamous Asylums” All That’s Interesting. April 30, 2018. Accessed April 7, 2022. https://allthatsinteresting.com/danvers-state-hospital
Dickey, Colin. “The Stain: An excerpt from Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, by Order member Colin Dickey.” The Order of the Good Death. October 31, 2016. Accessed April 7, 2022.https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/the-stain/
Dylan, “Danvers State Hospital” Atlas Obscura. October 31, 2014. Accessed April 4, 2022.https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cemetery-danvers-hospital-criminally-insane
Bonus Link:
Accessibility Description: Large green field full of several hundred small concrete and rebar markers that only have numbers on them. At the front there are 6 signs on steel posts that name this RI State Institution Cemetery #2 or Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Cranston #63. There is woods in the background, bare of leaves, and a small granite marker in the ground under the signs.
The Bodies Under Route 37:
“A Chronology of Rhode Island Hospitals” Rhode Island Medical Journal: Providence, January 2017.
“State Potters Field Cemeteries Project Final Report 2009” Released by The Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals. Released 2009.
Adams, Jay. “Rehabilitation of Rhode Island’s Route 37 Unearths Long-Forgotten Cemetery” ConstructionEquipementGuide.com Northeast Edition December 10, 2009.
Hall, Jason. “Nearly 1,000 Bodies Found Under New England Highway” KFI AM640, Oct 20, 2021.
McDermott, Jennifer. “Graves of some who died at R.I. institutions lie under highway” The Providence Journal: Providence, Oct. 20, 2021
Miller, G. Wayne. “Potter’s Fields and the Forgotten Mentally Ill” G Wayne Miller Blog. April 17, 2016. http://gwaynemiller.blogspot.com/2016/04/potters-field_17.html
Jackson, Jon. “Hundreds of People From Rhode Island Institutions Buried Beneath Busy Highway” Newsweek: October 20, 2021.
Perry, Amos. Rhode Island State Census, 1885. Rhode Island Census Board. EL Freeman, Printers of The State: Providence, 1887.
Taylor, Tolly. “Expert: 2 to 4 bodies per grave in state cemetery under Route 37” WPRI, December 8, 2021.
Bonus Links:
FindAGrave - RI State Institution Cemetery #3
Additional Reading - Cranston Herald
Land Acknowledgment:
We’d like to acknowledge that we recorded this podcast on the traditional lands of the Wampanoag, Pokanoket, and Narragansett peoples. Here in the Northeast and all across the country, native peoples are still here and thriving. For more information, please see the links below.
Links:
