Life and Island Times – June 11 2016

Isle of the Dead

Ponce De Leon discovered the Florida Keys in 1513. He came looking for gold and the Fountain of Youth but found neither. When the Spanish later landed in Key West, legend has it that there were skulls and bones scattered all over. These bones were human remains left by the Caloosas, who supposedly used the island as a burial ground. It was then that this island was named the place Cayo Hueso, or “bone island.”

It is a fitting name when you consider that human bones seem to be scattered all over this island town. The first public cemetery in Key West was established in the sand dunes at the southern foot of Whitehead Street. In 1846 a hurricane destroyed this cemetery washing bodies from the graves and depositing bones in the sands along the beach.

While small graveyards and lone tombstones have been found all around Key West, the one that has become a major tourist attraction is Key West’s Old Cemetery. This graveyard was started in 1847 on nineteen acres on the eastern edge of the island. Due to a century’s worth of dredge fill, it now sits in the dead center of the town.

The Old Cemetery contains somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 graves. The exact number cannot be documented because of so many unmarked graves, lost records, and Key West’s bizarre burial customs.

The first thing one notices are the above ground, white-washed tombs stacked one on top of the other, some three or four tiers high. The same thing has been done underground where family members are stacked one on top of the other. The local name for this space saving practice is “multiple internments.” In one family plot with seven spaces there are 28 known burials and in other instances old bones have been removed when new remains were added to a grave. In many cases people who Marlow knows have buried their deceased loved ones in somebody else’s grave. Some families have even sold “internment rights” to their plots, sort of like a time-share deal.

This recycling has resulted in human remains getting mixed-up in the excess dirt and hauled off to the dump. The big problem is Key West’s heat and humidity which causes rapid deterioration of remains and caskets should a grave be disturbed. It is not unusual to find pieces of old caskets or bones when a new grave is dug.

Even with its problems the Old Cemetery represents the eccentricity of Key West’s history and inhabitants.

One of the cemetery’s predominate historical features is the bronze statue of a sailor overlooking the graves of 27 sailors killed during the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor.

In the Otto family plot, there is the resting place of the graves of Elfina a pet Key deer and family’s three Yorkshire terriers.

Who hasn’t heard of Ernest Hemmingway’s pal and bar owner Sloppy Joe Russell? Joe died while fishing with the Papa and is now at rest in a box-like tomb.

Not far from Sloppy Joe is the tomb of General Abraham Lincoln Sawyer who died in 1939 at 77. His final request was to be buried in a full size tomb. He wasn’t really a general; he was actually only 40 inches tall, a former carnival midget.

General Abraham Lincoln Sawyer (l) and his tombstone ®\

Beyond an archway inscribed with “A Los Martitires de Cuba” you’ll find a memorial to the deceased heroes of the 1868 insurrection against Spain.

Over in the Catholic section is the grave of a Bahamian named Thomas Romer with the inscription “Good citizen for 65 of his 108 years.”

The most talked about inscriptions in the cemetery is one that says, “Devoted Fan of Julio Iglesias”

The marble tablet for Pearl Roberts, which says, “I told you I was sick” is the most photographed in the cemetery.

The marker that is emblematic to Marlow of the spirit of Key Westers is that of Arthur Lujan.

Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat