A Grave Situation: Part Three
Exhuming the Past of Lincoln and Forgotten Cemeteries in Pinellas. An eight-part series special to the Gabber. By James A. Schnur
HERITAGE VILLAGE ARCHIVES AND LIBRARY
A Disturbing Pattern The practice of disturbing individual gravesites is nothing new. Neither is the wanton neglect of burial grounds. Questions about the stewardship and conditions at historically Black cemeteries have attracted renewed interest on both sides of Tampa Bay. The recent discoveries of forgotten graves at the Robles Park Village and King High School sites in Tampa, along with two locations in Clearwater, have left many wondering how such neglect could happen at those former solemn grounds. Surveys for possible unmarked graves at another historically Black burial ground in Tampa, Memorial Park Cemetery, have also started. Forgotten graves revealed by ground-penetrating radar have shocked many. Similar reactions occurred a few years ago, after investigations found unexpected bodies at the former Dozier School for Boys in Florida’s Panhandle. Early Patterns Of Disrespect While GPR surveys at former burial sites in Tampa and Clearwater focus on historically Black cemeteries, Pinellas County’s history shows a larger pattern of disrespecting burial sites. This shameful legacy began long before Lincoln
6
Cemetery was established in 1926, long before Pinellas separated from Hillsborough County in 1912, even long before any African Americans lived in lower Pinellas. By most accounts, the earliest recorded burial in presentday Pinellas County took place in 1853 on grounds that later became the Sylvan Abbey Cemetery along Sunset Point Road in eastern Clearwater. This does not mean, however, that the first person ever to perish in Pinellas did so in 1853. Potter’s fields, often known as paupers’ graves, certainly existed. These unmarked sites offered a place where people buried their dead without any permanent marker. Any simple wooden posts or crosses that may have existed deteriorated over time. Beyond these forgotten pioneer burial plots, other bodies were placed in the highly saline soils of Pinellas long before the first Europeans arrived in the New World. People have lived and died here for thousands of years. Archaeologists and historians investigating the First Floridians have few archives to examine. These Indian cultures left no written records. When they interacted with Spanish conquistadors and pirates in the 1500s, their populations quickly declined. Expeditions led by Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528 and Hernando de Soto in 1539 skirted along and probably passed through the Pinellas peninsula as these Spaniards
theGabber.com | October 1 - October 7, 2020
