PROVIDENCE — On the edge of the Seekonk River, only a few miles away from the hustle and bustle of downtown, walkers come to enjoy the shade of 100-year-old trees, the sweet smell of the forest, and the occasional glimpse of a fishing great blue heron swooping down into the Seekonk River.

This stretch of greenery isn’t a park, per se, or an urban wildlife reserve; in fact, it’s not a place for life at all.

Swan Point Cemetery on the city’s East Side is the final resting place of some of Rhode Island’s most famous figures, but it’s also become a thriving habitat for plants and animals.

Founded in 1847 as a part of the garden cemetery movement, Swan Point encompasses 200 acres of carved stones and memorials, but also rolling hills, towering trees, and views overlooking the Seekonk River.

The former farmland was meant to be a burial ground for the influential and powerful. The graves of Civil War heroes and Rhode Island governors cover the cemetery, including the tombstone of General Ambrose Burnside, who held both titles. But, like many 19^th-century cemeteries, it was also meant to be a refuge for the living, to visit late loved ones and take in the calming scenery.

Environmentalist and activist Greg Gerritt told ecoRI News on a recent walk through Swan Point that the cemetery has created a foundation for wildlife to flourish that he’s been documenting for years.

The burial ground is a part of a chain of green space that also includes Butler Hospital’s grounds — which are open to the public for walking — and the Blackstone Park Conservation District.

“From the Henderson Bridge north all the way to downtown Pawtucket, almost, it’s continuous forest,” said Gerritt, walking along a path off the cemetery’s roads and into the forest where he said he saw an owl last season.

Gerritt initially started coming to the cemetery when he first moved to Rhode Island in 1996, as a way to relax and enjoy nature in an urban setting.

Swan Point is one of his stops on his daily walks — Gerritt doesn’t drive. “This is where I come to recharge every day,” he said.

Gerritt narrates the wild scenes he’s captured on videotape on his YouTube channel, Moshassuckcritters, which started as a project capturing tadpoles in the North Burial Ground, but has expanded to all sorts of urban wildlife encounters.

“Basically, everything lives here,” he said, referring to Swan Point. “I mean, I’ve never seen a bear here, but pretty much anything else.”

Gerritt started going down the list: coyotes, deer, eagles, herons. “All the big stuff, as well as all the little stuff,” he said.

What he’s seen has changed over the three decades he’s been visiting the cemetery.

“I have no idea coming into the year what it’s going to be like, and who’s going to be the star,” Gerritt said.

Some of his favorite sightings have been the eagles, who he’s seen chase osprey to drop their fish and even get chased by scrappy seagulls.

“This is a place that people come all the time to see birds. This is probably the birdwatching mecca of the state,” said Gerritt, explaining that the cemetery opens early in May for the birdwatchers.

Most of the people he sees walking in the cemetery are people like him, coming to the home of the dead to feel a little more alive.

As he wound through the narrow paths on the outskirts of the cemetery, he found a fish, maybe a half-eaten meal of one of the eagles, he guessed, and marveled at how quickly the land has turned wild again.

In less than 200 years, the farmland has become forest again.

“This section of woods here is among the most amazing patches of woods in the state,” he said. “But it’s all temporary.”

He passed by a patch of clear-cut trees. The cemetery still takes tenants, and some day, much of the open space will become a burial ground.

Gerritt said he’s always wanted to be cremated, but if it becomes legal in Rhode Island, perhaps he’ll be composted instead.