Tolomato Cemetery

St. Augustine, FL

February 24th, 2022

http://www.tolomatocemetery.com

Description

The Tolomato Cemetery is located in the oldest European-founded city in the United States (St. Augustine), and was in use as a cemetery from the 18th century until 1884. This cemetery is less than an acre but around 1,000 St. Augustinians remain, including many people important to the history of Florida and the United States. Burials include those of people from Spain, Cuba, Ireland, Minorca, Italy, Greece, Africa, Haiti, France and the American South and Northeast. Also the graves of soldiers from both sides of the Civil War are included, and even the burial place of a man important in the history of Cuba, who may one day be declared a saint, Fr. Felix Varela. It started with the First Spanish Period, when Tolomato was a Franciscan mission, and went through its use as a cemetery during the British Period and the Second Spanish Period and then on through Florida's Territorial and early Statehood periods. 

Exterior Photo #1

Exterior Photo #2

Artifact #1

Here is a symbol on Michael O'Reilly's grave of the first greek initials of the word "christ" which was also on Father Miguel O'Reilly's. Protestant England was involved in Catholic fait. In 1768, indentured servants were recruited by the British on the island of Minorca to work an Indigo plantation in Florida, south of St. Augustine. When living conditions became intolerable in 1777, the settlers and their priest were given sanctuary in St. Augustine. Father O’Reilly became pastor of the St. Augustine parish. In 1797, he dedicated the new parish church (now the Cathedral-Basilica) that was begun five years earlier. Father O’Reilly would serve the parishioners of St. Augustine for 28 years until his death in 1812. In addition to the Cathedral, Father O’Reilly’s legacy includes the house that bears his name, which he had wished to leave in his will to a teaching order of nuns, and one of his students who took his lessons at the O’Reilly House (Felix Varela). These cemetery walls eventually began to deteriorate. The decorative coquina band was fragile and would have to be removed along with a sizable portion of a crumbling corner.  They re-pointed coquina blocks and reformed the coquina band and re-plaster the vault walls.

Artifact #2

This is Elizabeth Forrester's grave, and the oldest marked grave in the state of Florida. She was buried in 1798 and grave robbers came and stole her clothing because of the value clothing had then. It is presumed she was wearing precious, marketable clothing because she came from a rather wealthy family at the time which also shows through the fact that it is a marble grave above the ground, Spanish style grave. It was discovered that the grave robbers were two soldiers from the Castillo, which later led to the resolution of putting a guard and fence around the cemetery. 

In Conversation Image #1

https://talesofthecocktail.org/history/how-bacardi-bat-became-one-worlds-most-well-known-logos/

At the Tolomato Cemetery, there is a plaque on the outside of the chapel that says "This chapel was erected by the Cubans in 1853 to preserve the ashes of Father Varela." The plaque also contained a symbol of a bat. In Cuba, bats symbolize luck and good fortune. The first Bacardi warehouse was operated in Santiago de Cuba. Don Facundo Bacardi Masso set up Bacardi’s first distillery. Spotted by Don Facundo’s wife, Doña Amalia Bacardi, hundreds of fruit bats were living in the rafters of the family distillery. She recognized the importance to the Spanish and Cuban Taíno Indians as symbols of good health, family unity, and good fortune. Bats are also natural friends of the rum industry as they pollinate the sugarcane crops and prey on insects that damage them. Rather than exterminating the fruit bats, the family embraced the bats and let them be. The face of the brand was born through their great fortune.

In Conversation Image #2

https://www.netmeds.com/health-library/post/yellow-fever-causes-symptoms-and-treatment

Part of the Tolomato Cemetery consisted of a section of burials who passed from yellow fever. Yellow fever is a disease caused by a virus that is most commonly spread through mosquito bites. Symptoms take 3–6 days to develop and include fever, chills, headache, backache, and muscle aches. About 15% of people who get yellow fever develop serious illness that can lead to bleeding, shock, organ failure, and sometimes death.

Passage/ Concept from ENG202

A passage from ENG202 that relates to the Tolomato Cemetery is the final page in "Parable of the Sower." After futuristic America set in the year 2024 fails its citizens by experiencing extreme environmental and economic crises, social chaos is eventually created. A few manage the hardships, while the rest fall. The final page is a scene after the Acorn community makes it to Bankole's family land, and they realize his family is apart of those who didn't make it. Lauren says to Bankole: "Most of us had to walk- or run- away from our unburied dead. We should remember them all. Lay them to rest if we can" (261). They then had a funeral for Bankole's family and for all the friends and family they lost. They also planted live oak trees for their dead in hopes of memorializing them. "Parable of the Sower" and the Tolomato Cemetery share the idea of memorializing and preserving people after they're gone.

Creative Component 

For my creative component, I decided to make a collage of different cemeteries and memorials around Saint Augustine. I walked to the Catholic Cemeteries, Huguenot Cemetery, Memorial Presbyterian Church, Major Dade and his Command Monuments, Father Pedro Camps Memorial, and included the memorial on the wall in the First Congregation Sons of Israel. I used the Instagram Layout app in the process of making a collage using all of these sites photos. This is not my first time making a collage, and I made sure to photograph a variety of different places and ways people have been memorialized. Plaques, graves, buildings, and statues are just a few of the many ways people are memorialized here in Saint Augustine.