Site #6 – Tolomato Cemetery
Tolomato Cemetery- Saint Augustine, FL
Site Visit #6 - February 25, 2021- Lavinia Lenssen
The
Overview of Site: The 6th site my honors learning community visited was the infamous Tolomato Cemetery in St Augustine, Florida. it holds graves prior to the 1760s and until the late 1800s. Before the 1760s, the cemetery was occupied by the Christian Indian village. There was a chapel and a burying ground served by The Franciscan missionaries. When Great Britain acquired Florida in the 1770s, The Village had to be abandoned.
This site is located at 14 Cordova Street. The Tolomato Cemetery had been in use until 1884, having served as the place of final rest for some 1,000 residents on a one-acre plot of land. Burials from a wide variety of time periods and residents originally from all around the world lie here today. The cemetery has a rich history, where more information can be found on The Tolomato Cemetery's Preservation Association website.
Source Link: Learn more about the Tolomato Cemetery by clicking the link here.
Artifact #1:
Caption: The first artifact in this cemetery is the grave of Major William Travers. He was born on November 7, 1794. He died on October 31, 1840, at the age of 45. His inscription says: He was a gentleman of benevolent heart and unblemished integrity and left not an Enemy behind him. His mourning Widow hath placed this Monument. May he rest in peace.
I couldn't find too much information from his life but he served in the military and was a plantation owner. But his plantation was burned during the Seminole War in 1840.
Major William Travers was born in St Augustine and his father Thomas Travers was a doctor.
In fact, his father was the director of the Spanish Military Hospital on Aviles Street. But at the time it was the Royal Hospital. Both William and Thomas are buried in the Tolomato Cemetery.
Artifact #2:
Caption: The second artifact that I'd like to include is the gravestone of Mary Manucy. It might be difficult to see the inscription from the picture without zooming in, but her grave is one of the most well-preserved from what I could tell compared to others in the cemetery. She also lived to be eighty years old, which for these days is ancient and rare.
Exterior Photo #1:
Caption: This first exterior photo is of the Tolomato Cemetery facing the entrance from afar, the front gate can be seen from a distance. This location was used as a cemetery from the 1700s until the year 1884. This beautiful space is about an acre long and wide. Though small, it is rich with the histories during the British Period, Second Spanish Period, and early statehood periods.
Exterior Photo #2:
Caption: The second exterior photo is of the chapel that stands in the back of the Tolomato Cemetery today. This mortuary chapel was built by Cuban supporters of Venerable Father Felix Varela after his death in the 1850s, in honor of his life as a priest, a philosopher, a patriot, and a man who worked for Cuban independence.
In-Conversation Image #1:
Brief Statement: The image in conversation is a 19-century photograph of the Tolomato Cemetery. Learning about the history of photography in my visual culture and seeing this photograph really goes to show how drastic the difference in photo quality was then versus now. But anyway, this photo shows a rather mysterious-looking pyramidal marker in the middle. These markers could have been made to replicate the pyramids in the National Cemetery according to the Tolomato Preservation Association webpage.
Brief Statement: Similar to the first in- conversation image, this photo is also a nineteenth-century representation of the Tolomato Cemetery. But instead, this photo is of the interior of the chapel, which exists in the back of the cemetery. The Tolomato Preservation Association restored the interior of the chapel six years ago, in order to bring clarity to the inscriptions engraved in the stone, to emphasize the symbol of the cross, and renovate the area in general while prioritizing the histories of those that are buried here.
Passage/Concept ENG202:
A concept from ENG202 that relates to our site visit to the Tolomato Cemetery could be the symbol of death, which is seen in The Surrounded, by D'arcy McNickle. In the Tolomato Cemetery, some gravestones have family members nearby one another, to symbolize the unbound attachment to the familial bond in life and in the afterlife. But in the novel, Archilde faces a sort of detachment from his family, but they also have a major impact on his life. This made me wonder whether after Archilde's death he would ever be buried beside his family. Is that something that he would want for himself after his passing? The deaths of his parents in the novel along with his arrest make the ending of this book sorrowful. Death often ends in sadness with questions about the person's life. After reading The Surrounded, I was left more confused and stunned given that much of the story was unresolved. These are also emotions that loved ones face when mourning the death of a loved one: denial, confusion, shock, sorrow, etc., etc.
Creative Component:
Our visit to the Tolomato Cemetery inspired me to go visit the Huguenot Cemetery a block away and learn more about the life of my great great great great grandfather who died in Saint Augustine of Yellow Fever. This sonnet will hopefully serve as a precursor to my final exhibition personal response that our class will present at the Llambias House on April 22nd, 2021.
Major William Travers who was buried in the Tolomato Cemetery was also once a plantation owner in the early 1800s, like Charles Wilheim Bulow, my ancestor, I wonder if they once knew each other. Both of their plantations were destroyed during the Seminole Wars.
Tainted Blood
Lavinia Lenssen
All the eye can see today are ruins
From modernity to dense jungle growth
All thanks to the slavery of humans
Made Major Charles Bulow a man to loathe
Oh but wait, six generations later
I stand here knowing this was my father
A man of great success, the creator
Of grand ole Bulowville, but whose daughter
would create chaos, for her “tainted blood”
Was self-opposing, to be half-Seminole
Tainted blood, dragging Phillip through the mud
Eternities later, I take a stroll
Down Saint Augustine to see the man’s grave,
Oblivious to the life of a slave.
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