Historic Tolomato Cemetery

08/27/2026

Burial tourism is especially important in the case of St Augustine, where many of our dead have travelled here and there. But probably few have done as much as our St Augustine Founder, the Adelantado Pedro Menéndez de Aviles.

He was a native of Aviles, from the fishing and seafaring barrio of Sabugo. However, after all of his travels through the Spanish lands, including St Augustine, he died suddenly (probably of the plague) in Santander, a city about three hours away from Avilés. He had been called back from Florida and sent to that city to assemble the Armada that was intended to support Spain in the ongoing wars in the Low Countries…which as we all know ended up wrecked on the coast of Ireland because of the fall storms.

He had left his wishes to be buried in his home parish in Aviles, so he began his journey first to the town of Llanes, which is about 50 miles from Santander. He was borne to his burial place in the black and gilded casket that St Augustine is now on view at the Diocesan Museum at the Mission and Shrine of La Leche.

But the expedition was caught by the winter storms and he was buried in the local church in Llanes. But his family did not have the money to get him further along on his journey, so what was supposed to be a short stay actually turned into 17 years.

Finally, he was taken to Avilés and buried in his home parish, San Nicolás de Bari. But only for a few decades, because the old church (shown below) was on the verge of collapse and in order to make the repairs, the burials had to be removed from their niches or tombs.

So he and the parish (meaning the name, San Nicolás de Bari) moved to a large Franciscan church near the center. And after the years of repairs were completed, his remains (and the parish) went back to their original location and the black casket was placed in a large marble monument in a niche on the wall.

Years passed and the church needed more work on the walls, so he and the casket were removed briefly and then restored to a new niche in the same church….but unfortunately, the niche and the marble urn created to hold the remains of Pedro Menéndez were not big enough to accommodate the large casket.

So Pedro Menéndez’ remains were then removed from the large black casket and placed in the marble urn in the niche in the wall, as you see in the photo below.

Finally, in 1924 the Rotarians working through the Sister Cities Program organized an event meant to bring Spain and the US closer together after what is called in Spain the “Desastre del ‘98,” the Disaster of 1898. This refers to the Spanish American War and Spain’s loss of its last foreign territory, Cuba.

So as a gesture of reconciliation and friendship, Spain presented the casket to the United States. Many well known Floridians worked on this, such as John Batterson Stetson of Stetson hat and university fame.

The hand-over was a huge formal event, with ambassadors, military from both countries, Presidential representatives, ceremonies and masses, and with a procession to present the casket to the US. It was then brought back by ship to St Augustine and installed at the Mission.

While the casket hasn’t always been treated well - it spent many years in a dark cubby hole off the gift shop in the old, pre-flood (Hurricane Matthew) building - it is now receiving the respect it deserves in its central installation place in the Diocesan Museum at the Shrine.

Go see it and say a little prayer for our founder Pedro Menéndez, who now rests in the place of his birth…but I’m sure is very happy to know that we here in St Augustine have something to remind us of all the time and toil he spent here.

08/16/2026

Evening falls on Tolomato Cemetery after a hot August Open Day. Despite the stifling heat, we had a fair number of visitors - mostly locals this time - and gave tours using our new route. We’ll be open again on September 19, 2026, and it can only be cooler by then!

08/12/2026

Tolomato Cemetery will be open this Saturday, August 15, from 11:)) am-2:00 pm. And we’ve got a new self-guided tour for those - like the dedicated visitors shown here - who want to know more about what they’re seeing. The basic map was created by Matthew Kear for his 2010 thesis/book , In Reverence, which was the inspiration for the founding of the TCPA and opening of the cemetery to the public. Over the years, we developed a tour of a few key sites. We’ve revised it from time to time as we learn more or simply in response to visitor feedback. And here’s the 2026 edition!

08/02/2026

We’ve just updated our self-guided tours, and one of the things we wanted to include was our “Invisible Burials,” that is, the unmarked burials of historically important people. We selected three people that visitors often ask about: General Jorge (Georges) Biassou, the 18th century Governor Enrique White, and Mary Evans (“Maria” of Eugenia Price’s Maria Trilogy).

We plan to commemorate these people on our new tour, although we haven’t gotten all the details ready yet. And you’ll have to come to the cemetery to see what the numbers on the tour sheet below reference!

But as for the “Invisible Burials,” we’ll have an informational poster and at some point, we hope, more permanet commemorations of these important St Augustinians.

We’ve had a lot of questions about Gen. Biassou recently…he died in 1801 and was buried at Tolomato following a big military funeral with a casket drawn by horses with plumes and military and clergy marching in the procession…but no marker.

That is, no grave marker…although the Haitian American society from Miami did gift us with a bench in his honor, so we at least have a plaque honoring him. But no grave marker. And why not?

Tolomato Cemetery was established before the time of the “perpetual care” cemetery, which provided memorial markers as part of the deal, so it was up to the family to provide a marker. Florida has no natural stone, and stone markers had to be ordered from elsewhere (usually Charleston or Alabama) and were expensive.

Thus most people stuck with perishable wooden markers, often a simple wooden cross, or wooden grave enclosures. And in any case, early burials were often “stacked” burials, with three successive burials in the same site. Ossuaries were also used for “old” burials, meaning that the skeletal remains were removed and put in a common site. Plans were done in 1811 for ossuaries at Tolomato, but they were never carried out, so it’s not clear that we ever had ossuaries.

In general, individual burials had tenancy for only a year and a day, so after about a year or so, markers were irrelevant.

But any markers had to be supplied by the families or survivors, and in the case of General Biassou, the second highest paid official in St Augustine, they were unable to do so because of the large number of people who had come with him from Haiti and whom he supported in his house on St George Street.

In the case of Governor White, who died in 1811, a marker had been ordered but possibly never made it because of blockades in the run-up to the War of 1812.

And Mary Evans…who knows why? Eugenia Price thought that Maria had died and been buried on her property north of St Augustine, but when the Cathedral death records were finally made accesible, it turned out that she had indeed been buried at Tolomato Cemetery.

So in the future we’ll be doing more work on making the “Invisible Burials” visible again!

07/19/2026

A beautiful but HOT Open Day at Tolomato Cemetery. Despite the heat, we had a large number of visitors who took tours or spent time on their personal photography in the cemetery. Here you see some of our docents helping our visitors, including our chapel harpist, Mary Jane, letting a visitor play a gliss (a sort of fast strum) on her harp.

Other visitors went to the far reaches of the cemetery, such as the group that visited “TF” in the shady southeast corner of the cemetery. Another group of visitors came in with an armload of flowers and distributed them on markers throughout the cemetery. Here you see a carnation on the Minorcan marker. Thank you, visitors!

And finally, a couple of our docents were out of town on vacation but of course we always visit interesting cemeteries when we travel. There’s always something (or “someone”) interesting. Docent Judy sent us some photos of Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, which features a huge monument to President Garfield - and also the grave of Elliot Ness, the famous early 20th Century G-man known for nabbing Al Capone.

As we tell our visitors, the cemetery is always the location of the most authentic history in any town!

07/12/2026

Father Varela sighting at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. He was our Cuban-born, St Augustine raised missionary priest who ended up working mainly with Irish immigrants in NYC during his time there! It’s wonderful to have him in this mural, which was a gift for the now retired Cardinal Dolan and depicts Catholics…clerical, lay, US or foreign born…influential in creating NYC.

And lots of angels, included in this post because they are so spectacular!

Fr. Varela lived in New York City, worked among the impoverished Irish immigrants, maintained his contact with Spanish and Cuban intellectuals, published a bilingual newsletter, had a respectful debate with Emerson, and then fell ill and spent his last five years in St Augustine, died in 1853 and was buried in Tolomato Cemetery.

We’ll be open on Saturday, July 18, 11-2:00. And you can come and visit his burial place right here in St Augustine!

07/01/2026

A new museum! The Karpeles Manuscript Museum on St George Street just opened its doors today! This is a big deal for St Augustine…the Karpeles has other museums, such as the original in Charleston, but will gradually be consolidating its manuscript collection and moving its activities to Florida, specifically, to the History City, St Augustine!

It’s located in the Sanchez House on St George Street (yes, it’s our Tolomato Sanchez!), which the Karpeles spent the last year completely renovating to create this beautiful light, open space. And “manuscript” is broadly defined to include artifacts (such as moon suits!) but at the same time focused throughout the rooms. In honor of the American Revolution, at the moment the front rooms house a set of Colonial American documents from all of the various original 13, with a special room devoted to Florida during this period (since of course our history is different from all the others!). It even includes a US plot to steal Spanish Florida…

Then if you go back you see all the other things Florida has been and is…Space Exploration and technology, side by side with dinosaurs, Disney and …Star Trek. It’s a very enjoyable museum and they have great plans for the future - it’s free (please don’t forget to leave a donation, but nobody duns you for it!) and seemed to be popular with scholarly adults and dinosaur-impressed children equally.

Afterwards I walked back to Tolomato and saw another great museum (St Photios Shrine, with its Greek and Minorcan focus) and a wonderful but neglected site, the city-owned Ribera Gardens, which has the great de la Puente map on one wall, flanked by historical figures from the Lost Voices on-line exhibit of Dr Michael Francis and La Florida. The park, alas, needs weeding and cleanup, but it’s really worth ducking into. (Update…the city has tidied it up and it looks great…thank you, City of St A!)

And then you can leave the park through the back door, out behind Mojo’s, and cross the street to our favorite museum of all, Tolomato Cemetery!

06/27/2026

Greek Landing Day 2026! Once again, our Greek friends at St Photios Shrine walked up the street from the Shrine to Tolomato for their annual remembrance in prayer of Mary Darling (Genopoly), the daughter of Juan Genopoly (Gianopoulos). He was one of the “Greek Minorcans,”, that is Greeks who had been collected by Turnbull in his sweep through the Mediterranean and were part of the original Minorcan colony in New Smyrna. Later, he established a school for Menorcan children in St Augustine in what is now known as the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse in 1788. His daughter Mary or Maria, born in 1822, was one of the teachers in the schoolhouse, which now hosts the sculptural “Garden of Educators” in commemoration of the work of the family of Juan Genopoly (as the original Greek name was transformed in St Augustine). She died in 1884, and in the photos, you see her simple brick tomb and marbled headstone.

Fr Maximos, the Greek Orthodox priest attached to St Photios Shrine, led the procession, along with the new director of the Shrine, Archon Carl Hollister…and a lot of Tolomato members and Minorcans, both Greek and non-Greek. The reason you don’t see many folks in the photos is that the weather was extremely hot and they had all sought refuge in the shadows of the beautiful Tolomato oaks!

Fr Maximos blessed the grave of Mary Darling and prayed the traditional Orthodox prayers, ending with “Memory Eternal.”

This year, the group visited the Varela Chapel. Many people do not know that we have an icon, entitled “Christ the Teacher,” an icon which always shows Christ holding a book and teaching, given to us in 2015 for the 450th by St Photios Shrine! The iconographer for this beautiful work is Fernando Arango.

A lamp is usually kept burning in front of an icon, and our original lamp survived some difficult conditions for some years but we finally had to remove it and plan for a replacement. But St Photios Shrine once again contributed to the beauty and sacredness of this space by giving us a beautiful new icon lamp! Here you see Carl Hollister installing it. It is wonderful to see that glow once again back by our icon, and it was a great pleasure to have the St Photios folks see it, many for the first time.

We went over to the Garden of Educators later for another blessing - and by the way, there is also a bust of Fr Varela in the garden - and then a great lunch at St Photios.

And some planning…next March, 2027, will mark the 250th Anniversary of the arrival of the Minorcans from New Smyrna, their march to freedom. And this is going to be a really big celebration that you won’t want to miss, because Lea Craig of the Menorcan Experience is gathering up even distant Minorcan families and St Photios will join with them in an unforgettable historical commemoration…and naturally, Tolomato will be involved!

06/22/2026

Great information about our beloved SSJ (2 buried at Tolomato)! Check out the O'Reilly House museum and their great exhibits. Fr fr. Miguel O'Reilly, first priest of the Cathedral and original owner of the House that was the first convent of the Sisters of St Joseph of st Augustine. is buried in Tolomato Crmetery.

The Waterworks - this is where we'll be showing the movie Els Menorquins at 3:30 on Wednesday. Ticket sales will support the activities in 2027 for the 250th commemoration of our walk from New Smyrna to St. Augustine. Here's the link to get a ticket https://theminorcanexperience.com/2026/05/18/els-menorquins-movie-screening/

06/22/2026