New Genealogy and Research Desk at Tolomato

 

We have set up a research table at the southwest corner of the Varela Chapel to aid in genealogy searches on our Third Saturday open days. Tolomato is the final resting place for many St. Augustine residents, about 1,000 of whom are buried there. While there are only about 105 markers remaining, they are visible lessons in history with a wealth of information to share about the people that are buried there. Your ancestor’s tombstone may be the only physical evidence of the life he or she has lived, and the information on it is important in tracing the story.

Below, Nick McAuliffe takes a group on a tour.

In addition to the transcriptions of inscriptions of the markers, we have information about those people whose graves have no markers. Many visitors come with genealogy questions, and we now have copies of the Cathedral Parish Records, the St. Johns County Death Records, and a map of our cemetery available to help them. We also have a copy of Matthew Kear’s thesis, In Reverence: A Plan for the Preservation of Tolomato Cemetery, St. Augustine, Florida, which established a framework for the Tolomato Preservation Project and provides detailed information on the cemetery. We are adding new material to our research collection as we find it. I am at the desk and ready and eager to help visitors every Third Saturday.

                                                             - Louise Kennedy

Our two “18th century docents,” Louise Kennedy and Lin Masley.

I think that I shall never see…

….A poem lovely as a tree. If you didn’t have to learn this when you were in 4th grade, I can tell you it’s a poem written long ago by the poet Joyce Kilmer (he died in WWI) and was so popular it was even put to music.  However, there’s a negative side to trees.

When they grow up in untended cemeteries or any untended space, trees are an inexorable force that can take over. At Tolomato, there are many trees that have simply rooted themselves over the years, decades and centuries, and are now ripping up grave enclosures, toppling markers, and generally misbehaving.  In our last post, you probably read about the tree that took over Hector Adams’ marker, but that tree is only one of many.

Now we’re trying to prevent this. Just yesterday, a company hired by the Cathedral Basilica came in and took out our most menacing tree, a huge sugarberry that was completely hollow inside and dead everywhere except one little streak of living wood that ran up on the west side and nourished a branch or two. Branches dropped off every time there was rain or wind, and we actually did not open the cemetery last month because it was windy and we were worried about the risk to the public.

The sugarberry, or hackberry, is a member of the elm family and can be a pretty tree, but is considered a “trash tree” in Florida because of its rapid self-seeding and aggressive growth. It secretes a sticky dew that damages the surface of anything under it and also produces a small purple berry that birds love.  But after they’ve eaten it, watch out! Many of our markers in that area are stained from the sugarberry-eating birds.

The sugarberry is actually rather fragile and can start to die from any injury. This specimen did not appear to have any injuries, but perhaps it had lost branches in a storm or something had enabled infection to enter. In any case, it was nearly completely hollow, both in the trunk and the main limbs, and removing it was the only thing that could be done.  So now we have a mound of chips. 

We will probably plant an upright tree to take its place. An upright tree such as the long-lived sabal palm or the red cedar was suggested. Both of them already exist at Tolomato, and in fact the same job took out the remains of a red cedar that had been dead for years but was being held up by the neighboring palm tree, as you can see below. 

We will begin to look at our tree options. In any case, the arborist told us not to worry. Now that now that the sugarberry is gone, the two oak trees – the big one by the gate and the younger one along the north fence - will begin to reach towards the sun and each other and fill in that space.

Veterans’ Day at Tolomato Cemetery

Tolomato Cemetery has the graves of many veterans, including veterans of both sides of the Civil War, and our last preservation work day focused on repairing some of these headstones. We cleaned numerous markers, but the biggest project of the day – actually, it took two days – was the straightening of the marker of Hector Adams,  who died in 1876 and had served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War.  These were regiments set up by the Union Army specifically for the recently emancipated African Americans.  The Emancipation Proclamation was read in St Augustine in 1863 and Hector Adams joined the 21st Regiment, Company A, at Fernandina Beach on June 3, 1863, along with Frank Papy, who is also buried at Tolomato.

Hector Adams and Frank Papy both have the military markers provided by the Veterans Administration, probably shortly after their deaths in the 1870s.  We cleaned Frank Papy’s marker, as you see in the photo above, and then set about straightening Hector Adams’ marker, which had been tipped over and pushed off of his grave site by an aggressive palm tree that had been allowed to grow up on the site.  Unfortunately, once we had opened the ground, we found that the root ball of the palm tree had wrapped itself around the base of the marker and refused to let go.  As a result, what looked like a simple project turned into a long and arduous day as volunteers dug and scraped to free the marker from the tree and then reset it a couple of feet away in a safer location.

In the above photo, Matt Armstrong and other volunteers examine the marker while in the photo below, a volunteer begins to dig.

The marker also turned out to be much longer than we had expected, and for a while it seemed that we would never reach the bottom edge.  But it finally happened, and below we see volunteers Bob Kennedy and Haley Wigley working out a strategy for lifting it.  Next to it you see the new hole dug for it.

Heave ho!

And it’s out!  Haley balances it on the dolly before moving it off for cleaning.

Matt examines the marker, pointing to the how deeply it had been buried. The marker is 36” high and had been buried about 22”, something that would not have been a problem without the palm roots.

Next came cleaning with our trusty D/2 product.

This was followed by resetting it in the new hole (after carefully recording the change that we had made, of course!).

And then our Veterans Day work was done, with Hector Adams’ marker restored to the upright position, cleaned and once again visible to all.

Another November

Tolomato Cemetery was the parish cemetery for the church that is now the Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine and returns to its roots, so to speak, every November. In the Catholic Church, November is the month in which the dead are prayed for and commemorated, and priests from the Cathedral generally celebrate a Mass in the Varela Chapel for this occasion.

Once again this year,  on Saturday, Nov. 3, the Menorcan Society sponsored the Mass and encouraged its members to come, since there are many Minorcans  buried at Tolomato. In fact, it was the priest who served the Minorcans in their New World ordeal during the British Period and also accompanied them on their flight to St. Augustine, Fr. Pedro Camps, who asked British Governor Patrick Tonyn for permission to use the “Old Catholic Cemetery” for burials once again. If you live in St Augustine and visit Tolomato, you will recognize many of the Minorcan names that you see on streets and shops throughout town.

Below is the statue of Fr. Camps and the Minorcans in the west courtyard of the Cathedral. The term “Minorcan” also includes those of Greek, Italian, Sardinian, Sicilian and other stock who were part of the emigration.


The Menorcan Society and other attendees placed flowers on the graves, although unfortunately when I went out to the cemetery later that same day, I found that our abundant squirrel population had tipped over the vases and eaten the flowers, leaving only a random scattering of petals here and there.



But the squirrels didn’t win!  Above, Fr. Ed Booth (who has Minorcan roots) from the Cathedral parish stands for a moment after blessing the grave of his long ago predecessor, Fr. Miguel O’Reilly, who during the Second Spanish Period was the first pastor of the parish that is now the Cathedral. Fr. Miguel O’Reilly died in 1812 and was buried at Tolomato; his successor, Fr. Miguel Crosby (another Irishman ordained in Spain) is buried nearby.

Record-Breaking Open Day at Tolomato!

Every month, our number of visitors increases, and in October, 2012, we hit our highest number so far: over 400 visitors came through the gates from11-3 pm that Saturday.  Granted, on this occasion we were helped by a nearby political campaign event, which gave us visitors who stopped in on the way back to their cars upon its conclusion.  We were also recently listed in the AAA magazine and we are getting people who have timed their trip to St Augustine just to coincide with our Third Saturday openings.  Whatever the reason, it was a busy day…

Below, Nick McAuliffe took a picture of Elizabeth Gessner, in vaguely 18th century dress, giving a tour to some interested visitors.  Our docents were hoarse by the end of the day!

Matt Armstrong spent the afternoon finishing up the ironwork restoration project that he had started about two weeks ago with the aid of some 15 volunteers.  In this photo, he is putting  flat black oil-based paint on top of the cleaned, primed and undercoated metal. It’s a time-consuming process, and the visitors stopped to chat with him about it. Some of them signed up are going to be doing it themselves at our next event in November (date to be announced).

And finally, here’s the cemetery cat, who came out to keep an eye on things.

The photo was taken by Louise Kennedy from her new genealogy and reference table at the back of the cemetery. The cat appeared to be unimpressed by our goings on and soon went off to check out a neighboring backyard.

Preservation Dedication

Today we did our very first metalwork preservation session.  Matt Armstrong, who has taken the NCPTT metalwork preservation course, instructed a group of some fifteen enthusiastic volunteers (some from the Flagler College Archaeology Club), who then spent the morning brushing, cleaning, stabilizing and finally painting part of the wrought iron grave enclosure around the Benet marker. 

In the photo below, Matt describes the project. This enclosure was chosen because the ironwork is in poor condition, but still good enough so that cleaning and painting will help it.  Some of our metalwork is so deteriorated that it has rusted through, but most of the Benet enclosure is intact.

The purpose of this is not to make it look “like new,” but simply to arrest the deterioration while it is still possible. This ironwork shows the results of probably a century of neglect.

We started with a lead test to determine whether whatever paint remained on the ironwork contained lead. It probably had, once upon a time, but by now, so little of the paint remains that the test was negative.  So we put on masks only to protect ourselves from little metal chips stirred up by our next activity, steel-brushing the metal.

This cleaned off the loose rust, and then we washed the cleaned metal with Photoflow, a gentle, non-reactive cleaner.

Once that had dried, the next step was spraying the metal with a rust converter (Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer, in this case), a product that bonds with the rust, stops its progress and creates a smooth, paintable surface, as we see below where the treated metal, black, is next to an as yet untreated rusty upright.

Once the rust converter had dried, we moved on to the next step, painting it with an oil based primer.   The undercoat used in the 19th century was often a red oxide based paint, and we used something very similar to it.  But wait…after a beautiful, sunny morning, all of a sudden clouds rolled in and we had the Florida specialty, a completely unanticipated drenching rain.  But did that stop the volunteers?  Not at all!

In this photo, we see them working under a piece of plastic drop cloth, held up by human tent-poles.

And, alas, although we had one more step – letting the primer dry and then giving it a couple of coats of flat black oil-based paint – we had to call it quits after the primer coat. However, even having gotten that far was enough to protect the metal, so we packed up our things and the dripping volunteers then went their ways to dry off or, better yet, to eat barbecue at Mojo’s across the street.

So I can’t put up the final photo yet…but Matt and others will be back in the cemetery some time in the next few days to do the final coats, and as soon as they’ve finished, their splendid work will be displayed here for you. 

It was a great project with great volunteers and a truly excellent presentation and instruction by Matt.  And it is the first of many!

Metalwork Preservation

Tolomato Cemetery has a number of cast and wrought iron grave enclosures – or at least what’s left of them!  As you can see, they have rusted through, fallen over or been disrupted by plant life.

But we’re going to attempt to halt the deterioration. Matt Armstrong, our Preservation Chairman, attended the NCPTT workshop on historic ironwork a few months ago, and now he’s going to bring his knowledge to bear on Tolomato’s collapsing ironwork.

On October 6, we’ll have another Preservation Work Day for our members and volunteers, where they’ll clean, remove rust, repair what can be repaired, and use rust-proofing paints and materials to prevent further loss of these features, some of which are very lovely examples of 19th century cemetery art.