“Who pays for this? Who profits and who suffers,” Deborah Moorehead said about the Rhode Island Airport Corporation project to extended Green’s main runway. “I only know, in my gut, this isn’t right.”

Moorehead, a member of the Eastern Woodland Native Americans, has ancestors in the Peter Freeman lot cemetery adjacent to what will be the extended runway. One of them is her great-grandfather, Daniel B. Smith, a veteran of the Civil War who fought for the North with Camp 11, Rhode Island. She said while growing up it was “engrained” in her that the land had been her ancestors’ homeland.

“There’s deeper history there than people know,” said Moorehead, who has a master’s degree in art and a concentration in cultural sustainability from Goucher College.

Peter Mair, senior archaeologist for the Public Archaeology Laboratory (PAL) and project manager for the Freeman lot, explained that the cemetery is in a designated “no object zone” by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the headstones could damage a plane should it come off the runway.

All of the stones will be removed; those needing repair or “stabilization” will receive it before being moved to a location off the new Main Avenue. The current cemetery has been completely mapped as well so when PAL recreates the cemetery in its new location it will have the “exact configuration and relationship between headstones” as the Freeman lot. Flat markers will be made to replicate exactly what the previous headstones did and placed over the 25 graves in the cemetery. The site itself is not part of the immediate runway and will not be paved over, according to Mair. The plans for the Freeman lot came out of an agreement approved on September 22, 2014, between RIAC, the City of Warwick and the Warwick Historic Cemetery Commission (WHCC).

Rebecca Pazienza Bromberg, a spokesperson for RIAC wrote in an email, “RIAC has gone through a public process regarding Warwick Historic Cemetery No. 26 [Peter Freeman lot].  This includes the EIS process, Rhode Island Historic Preservation and Heritage Commission review, coordination with the Narragansett Indian Tribe, and Warwick Historic Cemetery Commission.” 

Pegee Malcolm, from the WHCC, said, “I think this is the best we can do. The commission had no opposition to it. Everything was all above board.”

Moorehead said, “It’s a solution, but why wasn’t I or anyone else involved at the table for the decision?”

She would have liked a say as a “stakeholder” because she and her family will be directly affected by the removal of the gravestones and paving.

Mair and Malcolm both noted that public notices were made in both the Beacon and the Providence Journal in June of 2012 looking for information on the cemetery and calling for any relatives to come forward, but no one did.

Besides her own familial connection with the cemetery, Moorehead fears, since her great-grandfather is not the only veteran in the graveyard, the patriotism displayed by those men buried there will be disrespected.

“It was a long process and a lot of work to come to this agreement,” Mair said. “We have always considered the process we go through to be very considerate and respectful for those buried in historical cemeteries.”

Malcolm even pointed out that family members and others from the public will have the opportunity to visit and honor those buried in the Peter Freeman lot. They just have to coordinate with RIAC so they can visit safely.

Moorehead said, “This is our homeland, these are my ancestors, and I can’t even visit their graves without permission and an appointment from the airport.”

She said that many people have come up to her asking about the cemetery and expressing concern for the graves.

“What’s the benefit for the people of Rhode Island going to be and is it enough to justify moving this cemetery,” Moorehead said. “What’s the cost of economic development?”

Moorehead also published a book, Finding Balance, which follows both the oral and written history of the Eastern Woodland Tribal Nations, which can be purchased on Amazon.