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.
