Tolomato Cemetery

 St. Augustine, FL
February 24th, 2022

Tolomato Cemetery is located off of Cordova St. in downtown St. Augustine. It houses over 1000 bodies in about 1 acre of space and contains the oldest marked grave in Florida. Its last operating year was 1884. Its gravestones follow St. Augustine's history from Spanish ownership to British, and even through early statehood.

Learn more at Tolomato Cemetery  

Exterior Photo 1

Exterior Photo 2

Artifact 1

The artifact depicted above is the massive gate that surrounds the cemetery. It was built after grave robbers broke in and stole clothes from a wealthy woman's grave. The woman was Elizabeth Forester, whose grave marker is artifact 2 for this site. The robbers were soldiers working at the Castillo de San Marcos at the time. The wrought iron surrounds the front of the cemetery. 

Artifact 2

This grave marker is that of Elizabeth Forester, a young daughter from a wealthy northern family. It is the oldest marked burial in the entire state of Florida. It is made from Georgia Marble, a tell-tale sign of family wealth, and is an above-ground crypt. 

Image In Conversation 1

The image above is of the Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. This cemetery is controlled by the Department of the Army. It is 639 acres and serves as a reminder of all our soldiers have fought for in American history. This cemetery is still in use and conducts hundreds of funerals weekly. It is 638 acres larger than the Tolomato cemetery but has the same feeling of nobility and respect lingering on its grounds. I visited this cemetery when I was in fifth grade, and the impact of being in such a noble space is equally as long-lasting as the impact of the Tolomato cemetery and all the history lost in its grounds. 

Image in Conversation 2

This site is the Spanish Military Hospital in St. Augustine, FL. It is a short walk away from the Tolomato Cemetery. When I toured this museum a few years back, I was told there was a point in time when diseases ransacked the soldiers and too many died too fast to have proper burials. They were allegedly buried under the roads as they were being built right next to this building. There is no record of how many bodies were buried in this way. This reminds me of the Tolomato Cemetery because, similarly, many bodies were crammed into such a small space without record of their burial.

Literature in Conversation

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler 

"We had a funeral for Bankole's family. And for all the friends and family we've all lost. Then we planted live oak trees for our dead. Afterward, we sat together and talked and ate a meal and decided to call this place Acorn" (Duffy and Jennings, 261).

    I decided to highlight the ending portion of Parable of the Sower, because they establish a small graveyard in the novel to commemorate all of the loved ones Lauren and her friends have lost on their journeys. It also seemed fitting to use the closing section of the book in conversation with a cemetery, as both mark the end of a long story. For Lauren, her small graveyard marked the ending of her journey to gain followers, but also the beginning of her journey to found a small colony based on her beliefs. St. Augustine, where Tolomato Cemetery is located, also started as a small colony looking to spread its beliefs, making it a good conversation piece with this section of the novel.

Creative Component 

Description: Photograph, Image of Tolomato Cemetery with digital drawings of headstones

For my creative component, I decided to take a photo I took of the Tolomato Cemetery and draw in extra headstones to honor the hundreds of bodies buried there that were not marked. I did this in order to demonstrate how crowded the cemetery easily could be. I only added a few more than 10 headstones and it already looks cramped. Imagine how crowded this cemetery would be if it actually accounted for all of the people buried there.