Tolomato Cemetery:  From the First Spanish Period to 19th Century St Augustine

Tolomato Cemetery is located on the site of an early 18th century Franciscan Indian mission (Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Tolomato, or Our Lady of Guadalupe of Tolomato) in St Augustine, Florida.

The initial Indian group was composed of Guale Indians from Georgia.  Tolomato was the name of the place in the marshes about 50 miles south of modern Savannah where they lived.  The mission was destroyed and five of the friars and numerous Indians were killed in an attack by a rival cacique in 1597, and the Guale population was reestablished at various points on the Georgia coast, including Cumberland Island. However, the new missions were destroyed, either by attacks or by hurricanes, and the band of hardy Guale eventually arrived in Florida and were settled outside of St Augustine in what is now the Guana River Preserve.  The new Mission Our Lady of Guadalupe of Tolomato established on the riverbanks and lasted some 80 years, until it was destroyed in 1702 by British forces under Gov. Moore of South Carolina(?).The Indians fled to the La Leche Mission in St Augustine and when it too was attacked, they fled or took refuge in the Castillo with the other St Augustine residents for the Seige of 1702. When the Spanish fleet from Havana drove off the British, the Guale Indians from Tolomato were resettled once again, this time on the site that would become Tolomato Cemetery.  The new mission was composed of several traditional thatch dwellings for the families, as well as a chapel with a 4 story coquina belltower. There was a resident friar supplied by the Convento de la Inmaculada, the Franciscan friary that is now the Franciscan barracks, who lived in a thatched dwelling next to the church.

 There would have been burials during this period, probably under the floor of the chapel or closely together in the church yard.  The church seems to have been regarded by the local Spanish population as a sort of "uptown parish" since the main parish church at that time, Nuestra Senora de la Soledad on St George Street, was about a mile south and the Spanish were used to having many conveniently located small parishes.  A number of Indian women eventually married Spanish men, with several of these families living on the nearby street now known as Spanish Street. An "Indian from Tolomato," don Diego, established a trading post for exchanging goods such as deer hides with Indian groups from the North and West, and became quite wealthy. He was married to a Spanish woman and built a fine house on the property across the street from Tolomato. The house is long gone and the property occupied by a BBQ restaurant, but archaeological work is done any time there is an opportunity to open the ground at the site (that is, drainage projects, paving, etc.).

Tolomato: Cemetery

When the British took over St Augustine as a result of the treaty ending the French and Indian (or Seven Years) War, most of the Spanish citizens left and went to Cuba or on to other parts of the Spanish Empire.

Spain returned to Florida in 1784, after the settlement of the American Revolution, which expelled England from North America. 

But during that 20 year period, a group of immigrants, the Menorcans, had arrived in town. They are the ancestors of many St Augustine residents, brought here from the Mediterranean by Dr. Turnbull, a Scottish doctor and British colonist, as indentured servants to work on an indigo plantation in New Smryna Beach.  Badly treated, they rebelled after a number of years and came to St Augustine in 1777, along with their priest, Fr. Pedro Camps. 

Fr. Camps asked the British Governor, Gov. Patrick Tonyn, for permission to bury deceased members his parish in the "old Catholic cemetery" of Tolomato, and the governor agreed.  While there are possibly Indian burials there, this was the beginning of the use of Tolomato solely as a cemetery.

Tolomato: Mirror of Our History

There are large numbers of documented burials from the 18th and 19th centuries, with all burials ceasing in 1884, when all cemeteries within the city limits were closed by the city government because of fears that they assisted in the spread of yellow fever.   Cemeteries had little to do with it, but nobody knew that until 1905, with the work of Dr. Walter Reed in identifying the mosquito as the vector.

The cemetery is the resting place of people from all the diverse groups that created St. Augustine, and includes Spanish, Minorcan, Irish, African, Greek, Italian and 19th century Southern and Northeastern American burials.

Also buried in Tolomato Cemetery are many individuals important to the history of Florida.  Some, such as GOvernor Enrique White, Second Spanish Period Governor, are unmarked, while others, such as the Civil War Freedmen or USCT members, have faithfully preserved markers to tell their stories.