My name is Kelly Cochran and I have
lived in Jacksonville, FL for the past 20 years
of my life, and I love to visit St. Augustine which
is only about 20 min from where I live. This past
Halloween I decided to take a visit there and go
on the haunted walking tour. I had never been before,
I've always been interested in the paranormal, and
being Halloween night, I wanted to see if I could
catch anything on my camera. As the most haunted
city in America, I knew I had a good chance. The
tour started at Huguenot Cemetery and as I took
picture after picture I only picked up more and
more orbs. It was a very clear, warm night. There
was no rain or precipitation and no dew on my lens.
Both the cemeteries our tour went to were dark and
there was no light shining inside to cause reflection
off the camera.
The stories of the hauntings are as
follows:
City Gate: As yellow fever spread through the city,
it was rumoured that a little girl around 13 wearing
a white dress was found dead by the City Gates.
Sometimes around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning you
may see her dancing on them. The police department
has also received calls about a little girl waving
to cars at all hours of the night. People say she
just waves and vanishes. Her name is thought to
be Elizabeth.
Huguenot Cemetery: The cemetery was in use and burials
stopped in 1884 since the cemetery no longer had
no room for any more of the dead. In the early 1800's,
a caretaker found one of the graves of this cemetery
dug out with the head of the corpse removed. This
headless man is said to still wander through the
cemetery today. Also, the ghost of Judge John B.
Stickney who was a prominent citizen in town when
he was struck down by typhoid fever and buried in
Huguenot Cemetery in 1882, but was later exhumed
when his children requested his remains be shipped
to Washington D.C. During the exhumation, grave
robbers attacked and stole the gold teeth from Stickney's
skull. Residents say Judge Stickney's ghost can
be seen at night, wandering around the cemetery
with his head down, as if searching for something.
Also the cemetery is rumored to be haunted by many
children seen up in the trees and on gravestones.
Tolomato Cemetery: During the First Spanish Period
this site was occupied by the Christian Indian village
of Tolomato, with its chapel and burying ground
served by Franciscan missionaries. The first bishop
of St. Augustine, Augustin Verot (d. 1876), is buried
in the mortuary chapel at the rear of the cemetery.
The last burial took place in 1892. People have
reported many times of seeing the apparition of
a young boy running around, or sitting in this tree.
Along with tales of ghostly children playing in
the graveyard, and some claim they have seen a figure
standing in the entrance of the chapel.
The first picture is of an orb in
Huguenot Cemetery. It is right near the tree on
the left.
The second picture is in Huguenot. The orb is directly
in front of the camera.
The tour continued to walk towards
the gates of St. Augustine where the guide told
us a story of a ghost of a 12 or 13 year old girl
who stayed at the city gates protecting the city.
Right before I walked in I took another picture.
The third picture is of the city gates
before I walked through. There are several orbs
here. The brightest one is right above the tour
guides head.
We were walking through the gates
and I took a fourth picture while pointing the camera
up at the sky between the gates.
We continued to Tolomato Cemetery.
Where I took several more pictures. This cemetery
is pitch black and gated so I had to slip my camera
in between the fence wires.
Picture five is one of my favorites.
There are many orbs in this one.
The very last picture is of a very
pronounced orb in the Tolomato Cemetery. When I
showed the other people on the tour they were amazed
to see how clear it came out. Even the tour guide
was shocked and stated that in all her years of
doing the tours she had never seen such clear orbs.
I hope that you can use my pictures
on your site, and if not I was glad to share them
with someone.
There is always more to life than
what we see.
Kelly Cochran
Kelly Cochran, is a 28 years old,
she lives in Jacksonville, FL. She has always been
interested in the paranormal. And has always been
able to sense different "forces" around
her. She does not claim to be an expert in paranormal
investigation, but she is aware that there is more
than what we see in this world. "Sometimes
the forces around me are stronger than other times.
We don't walk alone on this earth. I would like
to extend my research further because I am always
reading up on "ghostly activity" and the
spiritual world." Says Kelly.
"I hope that my photos can show the people
that see them that things are not always what they
seem."
Huguenot
Cemetery
Huguenot Cemetery,
St. Augustine
A municipal cemetery established in 1821 for the
burial of yellow fever victims and non-Catholics;
owned by the Presbyterian Church since 1832, clean-up
and restoration efforts by concerned citizens
(1946) and the City of St. Augustine (1951); Cemetery
Restoration Committee of Memorial Presbyterian
Church formed in 1989 ,members documented gravemarkers,
obtained historic preservation grant for preservation
plan, began restoration efforts; Friends of the
Huguenot Cemetery Organization has continued restoration,
published history, developed tours of cemetery
for visitors.
Historical Summary:
The Huguenot Cemetery was established soon after
Florida became a U. S. territory. The cemetery,
located just outside St. Augustine's north gate,
was first used for the interment of victims of the
1821 yellow fever epidemic and then for the burial
of members of city's Protestant population. The
cemetery property was acquired by the Rev. Thomas
Alexander and then sold to the Presbyterian Church
in 1832. By the late 19th century, over-crowding
of graves, and the resulting concerns for sanitation
and public health, required that the small public
and religious burying grounds in St. Augustine be
closed. New cemeteries, such as San Lorenzo and
Evergreen, were subsequently opened to parishioners
and the public.
The Huguenot Cemetery
is significant because it was the first cemetery
in St. Augustine dedicated for Anglo-American civilians.
The burial traditions and funerary materials expressed
at Huguenot, compared with the nearby Tolomato Cemetery
(established by the Catholic Church in 1777), demonstrate
both the differences and commonalties in funerary
practices and religious attitudes of two distinct
groups residing in 19th century St. Augustine. The
gravemarkers at Huguenot Cemetery display a range
of funerary art popular in the 19th century, including
false box tombs with inscribed ledgers and finely
carved headstones by highly skilled stone carvers
in vogue during the 1820s-40s, and the more elaborate
monuments that were favored during the Victorian
period. The work of several important stone carvers
in the southeastern United States has been identified
at the cemetery, including Thomas Walker and members
of the White family who had shops in Charleston,
South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia.
The Concerns: The
Presbyterian Church has owned the Huguenot Cemetery
since 1832. After the cemetery was closed to burials
in 1884, the church continued maintenance of the
grounds, and some efforts of restoration were made
in 1946 and again in 1951. However, it eventually
became necessary to keep the entrance gates locked
and restrict visitation to the site. While the burial
site was relatively secure from vandalism and theft,
natural weathering and deterioration of the markers
continued.
The Response: In
1989 the Cemetery Restoration Committee of Memorial
Presbyterian Church was formed. It initiated a program
to document the Huguenot Cemetery's gravemarkers
and research genealogical information about those
who are buried there. In 1990, participants in the
Preservation Institute: Caribbean made measured
drawings of the more significant gravestones and
box tombs at the cemetery. In 1991-92 the Restoration
Committee was successful in obtaining a survey &
planning grant from the Bureau of Historic Preservation,
Division of Historical Resources to develop a master
preservation plan for the cemetery. The Plan's recommendations
were adopted by the Committee and, as funds could
be raised, work began on those funerary markers
determined to have a high priority for restoration.
The Friends of the Huguenot Cemetery was formed,
and the organization published Sacred to the Memory:
A History of the Huguenot Cemetery, 1821-1884, St.
Augustine, Florida in 1998. The cemetery is located
in a high-traffic area between the Visitors Information
Center and the Old City Gate to St. Augustine's
historic St. George Street. To prevent the one-half
acre site from being negatively impacted by large
numbers of visitors, members of the Friends group
give guided tours of the cemetery at specified times
of the week. The resident and contact person for
Friends of the Huguenot Cemetery is Charles Tingley,
who can be reached at the St. Augustine Historical
Society's Research Library, 904-825-2333.
Rosemary Cemetery,
Sarasota
Private cemetery established in 1886, turned over
to the City of Sarasota as a municipal cemetery
in 1903. Members of historical and preservation
organizations took action to cleanup the cemetery
in the 1980s; the organization raised some funds
for initial work, later private funding was obtained
through a local trust for restoration of markers
by professional conservators. Archaeology students
at New College documented the grave markers; the
Cemetery was listed in the National Register of
Historic Places in 2003.
Historical Summary:
Rosemary Cemetery was privately owned from the time
it was established in 1886 until 1903, when it was
deeded to the town of Sarasota. It was used by most
of Sarasota's population until 1925, when a public
cemetery was established in the nearby town of Oneco.
Although that new memorial park became a more popular
cemetery for many Sarasotans, Rosemary Cemetery
remained an active cemetery and occasional burials
still take place there.
Rosemary Cemetery
is significant because it is the final resting place
for many of the town's pioneers, and its gravemarkers
and attendant funerary art and architecture reflect
the community's social history. The collection of
markers also demonstrates the various styles and
materials used to commemorate the dead in the central
Gulf Coast region of Florida during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Of particular interest
are a variety of hand-cast concrete markers and
a small number of early 20th century marble markers
with designs influenced by the late Victorian period.
The cemetery's original plan was centered around
a pergola contributed to the community by Mrs. Potter
Palmer.
The Concerns: Over
the years, as families of those buried at Rosemary
Cemetery moved away or died, and as public interest
in the cemetery declined, the site became over-grown
with vegetation and was sometimes used as a dump
for the surrounding neighborhood. A number of the
gravemarkers deteriorated because of natural weathering.
The Response:
In 1983 a group of concerned citizens from local
civic and preservation organizations began a campaign
to clean up the cemetery. The Sarasota Alliance
for Historic Preservation formed a committee to
address the special needs of Rosemary Cemetery.
The Alliance's accomplishments included installing
a sprinkler system, planting a row of oak trees
along one side of the cemetery, placement of entrance
gate posts for the center drive, and restoration
of the pergola. In 1990 and 1991, the Alliance funded
studies that made preservation recommendations for
the cemetery. A private trust offered funds for
a restoration program that would be supervised by
the Sarasota Historical Society; since 1999, resetting
and restoration of markers is done on a periodic
schedule. In addition, Rosemary Cemetery has been
listed in the National Register of Historic Places
and archaeology students at Sarasota's New College
have completed a grave-by-grave survey of the site.
Rosemary Cemetery borders on the city's arts and
cultural district, and is a significant area of
green space within its revitalized neighborhood.
More information is available at www.ncf.edu/NCarchaeology/Rosemary/History.htm
http://www.flheritage.com/archaeology/cemeteries/index.cfm?page=Case_Studies
