— Photos by Lydia Whitcomb
In the Hope Memorial Garden, in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence. The focal point of the garden is this sculpture of granite monoliths as a backdrop for an 18th Century anchor recovered from Narragansett Bay. It was designed by Brown University art professor Richard Fishman.
The 18th and early 19th centuries were the heyday of Rhode Island’s maritime trade.
The sculpture was originally installed at an outdoor chapel on Providence’s Killingly Street in 1972 and was moved to Swan Point in 1976.
The anchor is a symbol of homecoming in many places and especially in coastal New England, with its historic connections to the sea. The anchor is a symbol of hope and of Rhode Island, whose flag and seal it graces. But you see a lot of anchors in many New England cemeteries, some positioned in rather strange ways, as below, also at Swan Point.
