Gravestones returned

NEWPORT, R.I. — Centuries-old gravestones missing from a Colonial-era cemetery in Rhode Island have been returned after turning up elsewhere, including one found in a woman’s yard. The three gravestones were reset in the Common Burying Ground in Newport on Saturday. The oldest stone dates to 1690 and was for a one-year-old child. The stone was found in August by Stephanie Pallas, of Upper Darby, Pa., said Lew Keen, of the Newport Historic Cemetery Advisory Commission. The stone for William Mayes was last seen in 1979, but the Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Commission maintains an online database, and it had a photo even though the marker disappeared more than 30 years ago, Keen said. The others were from 1835 for a Newport woman, Elizabeth Cook, and her children, and they were last seen in 1874. Those were found in a Newport yard during a renovation in the 1980s and stored in a basement until the homeowner alerted the commission in the spring, Keen said. Keen said theft of historic grave markers is a chronic issue, and that people take stones for patios, well covers and other uses.