The North Burial Ground is a 110-acre (0.45 km2) cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island, dating to 1700. Providence had no public burial ground and no Common until the year 1700 (64 years after its founding) because Rhode Island’s religious and government institutions were so rigorously kept distinct, dating back to its founding by Roger Williams in 1636. Before creating this cemetery, townspeople buried their dead in family plots on individual farms.