- [Narrator] This original WSRE presentation is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

- They're still here, the people of 1821.

We'll talk about this and much more on this edition of inStudio.

(upbeat music) St. Michael's Cemetery is located in the heart of urban historic Pensacola.

It's an eight acre green space that is a final resting place for many of the people of 1821.

In fact, in a way they are still here.

St. Michael's Cemetery at the crossroads of Pensacola's past.

Here to talk about that in our first half hour, she's going to stay with us the whole hour actually, Margo Stringfield.

Margo is an archeologist at the University of West Florida.

Now much of her research focuses on historic cemetery preservation and conservation needs.

She's also an expert on Pensacola's colonial British Second Spanish and early American periods.

And Robert Overton.

Rob is the Executive Director of the UWF Historic Trust among other things.

He brings over 20 years of public history experience specializing in historic sites and museum management.

And we welcome both of you to this program.

- Great to be here.

- Very glad that you are here.

And Margo, I just opened by talking about St. Michael Cemetery.

What a gem that we have here in Pensacola.

Let's talk about that.

- Oh, it is a gym and it's been a gym for many a year.

The cemetery itself dates back to our Second Spanish Period.

They were burying in that area as early as the mid to late 18th century because we see it on British maps.

And so, we know that that area was a burial ground, but we start seeing it used by the Second Spanish people and then the early Americans as they come in.

And this is where we start to see a real expression of how the cemetery ties into our whole historic Downtown area.

It is a museum and all the structures, the markers and monuments in it are a Testament to the people that built our community.

So there's a wealth of information there, and that information ties into everything we have going on in our historic community.

- And quite a lot going on, right?

- Quite a lot.

And she's right, it does tie into the community.

when you look at it, it's just...

Originally, it was right outside of town, but it's all in the historic Downtown area.

And so, part of what's going on in the community is the historic village that a university operates down that I'm fortunate enough to be involved in.

And so we go into the cemetery and you start learning about the people who came before us and in many of them buried there, and then you can actually get an idea of what life was like for them when you come down into the historic village.

Not only by looking at the houses that were some of them that were here in those early times, but also some of the programming that we do with our living history people and then you go into the museums and see the actual artifacts.

It's a great resource the cemetery is to really tie in the past and the present for the community.

And it doesn't hurt, it brings a lot of tourists in to help the economy.

- I would imagine.

So you can learn so much by going and visiting a community's historic cemeteries.

- You can and in fact, we see more evidence of our late Spanish colonial community and early American community expressed in St. Michael's Cemetery than we do anywhere else, because this is what has survived, it's been protected.

And this is a large majority of what survives that tells us about the people that were here and many more aspects of what was happening within the community that we'll talk about as we go along.

- And I believe we're seeing a map of it right now.

- That is, that's an 1827 map and it's based on an 1819 map.

And we rely on those maps to help us know where things were and who was where.

And when looking at this map, you'll see that the cemetery is huge in comparison to the town.

When this was drawn and the first time it was actually bounded.

It was in the vicinity of 25, 30 acre piece of property for the city.

And it was outside the city limits.

You even had to cross a bridge to get to it if you were going down Alcaniz Street.

And so the cemetery itself is actually left a large footprint on the landscape of our community from the very beginning.

- So are there things over parts of what used to be the cemetery now?

- Oh, certainly they are.

There are 3,200 marked burials in the cemetery and they range from, I guess the earliest one is that has a date on it, we believe is the Mareno tomb and that's an 1820 date.

It ranges over time up into our modern era.

We don't see much in the way of any burial there now, but underneath the ground and the remote sensing survey that's been done, we know that we have thousands of unmarked burials that date back to our colonial period and through.

People that we know were buried there, not only because we can see them in the remote sensing survey, but also because we see them in the documents and the historic record, and they state clearly that that is where they are going.

So if they don't have a marker, we know they are one of the hidden people of St Michael's Cemetery.

- And that's because their wills stated that.

- Their will say that.

And people often ask, why aren't they marked?

And there are a large number of reasons for that.

You have just natural aging, early sites would have been marked perhaps by wood crosses, and you would have materials that did not do well in our climate.

You also have vandalism, acts of nature.

So there are many reasons why you lose the footprint of someone's burial, but much remains, a good deal remains.

- We're just looking at the tomb of Mareno I believe while we were talking.

- We were and that may be the oldest structure now that we can identify that is a brick structure with a plaster overlay.

And it would have been built, if it was built in 1820 which is the first death date that's on it by the one or all three of the brick layers that were here and they were all of African descent.

And so if you were building brick piers to your house or a chimney, these men would have done the work for you.

And they're identified by name in the 1820 Spanish census.

- Wow, and when did Pensacola as a community start recognizing what a gem that we had with St Michael's and really start having people get involved and help to preserve and protect and promote.

- Well, I think much of that, much of the credit for this goes to the UWF Historic Trust who have been just tireless in their efforts to preserve this site.

- Thank you for that.

And it's true, it wasn't me.

It was people that came before us.

Historic Trust started in 1967 is nonprofit created by the state of Florida with a mission to collect, preserve, and interpret the history of Northwest Florida.

Historic Trust has been involved with St Michael's Cemetery as a quasi state nonprofit helping with some of the management.

St. Michael's Cemetery was actually classified in 1949 as a state park.

So that's part helps with the preservation of that, because it does get some state park fundings.

With part of the buildings and structures that the Historic Trust which was the preservation board manage are tied to some of those names.

You mentioned Mareno, we have the Mareno Cottage.

Part of the property where we're at is directly tied to the Moreno family who was Downtown and what was the honeymoon cottage for one of the children is still there.

Other little historic buildings that we have of people who have connections in history.

I think we've got some images of the Julie Cottage, and what our organization has tried to do to save the history of this community is when some of these historic structures were in danger, we have been able to relocate them down to our historic village.

Julie Cottage was one of those.

It was moved down in the 1960s.

We also moved down the Lavalle House which was around 1960s.

And both of those cottages date back to about 1805, that time period.

So it was a long history of trying to save the buildings.

Telling the rest of that story is knowing that the people and where they were the arresting places looking at the documents and the wheels and those pieces.

Other structures that were here that are tied to people who in St Michael's Cemetery.

We looked at Tivoli High House, which we have the Tivoli High House.

It is not the original.

We've got images of the original.

Within the 1920s, 1930s it was torn down.

And what we have now is a reconstruction that was done in 1976 for the bicentennial of the United States.

And it's directly tied to people that are in the cemetery of St. Michael.

- It is, it's tied to Jose Noriega Jr. His dad came in with Galvez and was instrumental in the Spanish victory over the British and his mom, Victoria Lesassier is buried there next to him.

She was French, he was Spanish, they were part owners of the Tivoli High House and they rest in St. Michael's Cemetery.

And anyone that wants a good read should look up the will of Victoria Lesassier and the court case involving her, because it tells you a lot just about the legal end of things in Pensacola as well as interrelation that was going on between people.

So we see with those graves, not only the French and Spanish mix, but we also see a lot of different ethnicity expressed in the cemetery.

In Pensacola, you would have a Spanish man who were in relationships with women of color, either free women of color or enslaved women.

And they had families that were all very much integrated into the community.

And so for instance, Anne Maestre here that we see, her husband was a Spanish tavern owner and she was out of African descent.

He made sure his family was looked after after his death.

Genevieve Ham, she was a free woman of color.

She had her own business as a seamstress, and she would have known the latest fashions, she would have been able to move within society in a very freeway as was everyone moving in society.

I like to say that St Michael's Cemetery is certainly a democracy of the dead because you do not see any separation here.

And this is an image of Jose Noriega Jr.

It's a closure tablet.

It's lying flat, but originally would have stood up on the face of an above ground tomb.

And it was carved by a carver from New Orleans.

And that is where we see a lot of commerce coming back and forth from New Orleans to Pensacola during our Spanish Period.

So people were relying on the services from New Orleans to the West of us for much of what came into Pensacola before the Americans came.

- Well, each grave obviously has a story, and I would imagine that you start to between their homes and their tombstones.

I would imagine you start feeling like you know these people.

- You do feel like you know these people.

This we're looking at an image of a William Davison who came and he was one of the early sheriffs, and he also came with a load of books to sell when he came in 1821 or shortly thereafter.

But his tombstone is sandstone and we don't have this stone here, we don't have marble here.

So this was brought down likely from Basking Ridge, New Jersey where he was from.

It was shipped down after his death to be his marker here.

And he was a very kind and noble man.

He in the middle of a yellow fever epidemic brought people to the cemetery and saw that they were buried in a proper manner.

So there really some nice stories that surround him.

The Kaiser monument here.

I like to use this as the prefab example of monuments.

There are many components, there about five or six components.

These are separately carved components.

They were carved.

This one was from Philadelphia signed by the carver, and they would carve a piece and they would assemble it.

You would choose what you wanted to go.

It would come and blocks and it would come by ship.

If you had someone who died in Pensacola, you would place your order for a tombstone with the ship's captain or with one of the merchants in town.

For the Americans, it would go to the East and the tombstone would then arrive back in Pensacola where it would be assembled onsite by likely the brick layers because the base is brick and that's what it sits on.

And so a local Mason would assemble it.

But this is a beautiful example here of a sculpture that comes out of the Philadelphia area for tombstones.

- That is quite a process.

- And I wanna throw this in.

We've got these great examples of these wonderful, beautiful tombstones, but as Margo mentioned earlier, a number of the graves, earlier graves had wooden tombstones.

We have a couple of those original wooden tombstones in our museum Downtown, and we've been able to put a replacement marker out there because they just haven't stood up to the time and the weather, but they would literally cut out the tombstone and carved the names in those.

And so we were able to partnering with St. Michael's Cemetery preserve the original, but also put back a marker that still served as to honor the person who was buried there.

So working hand in hand with those things.

And you can come to the museum Downtown Pensacola History Museum and see some of those tombstones.

- Well, I was gonna say that just sounds so exciting to be able to go there and actually see something that old and that's sacred quite frankly.

- Well, it is and I like to think at St. Michael's you do see it all.

One of our favorite sites of course, is Dorothy Walton.

And again, we see a real shift in ethnicity in our community when we see the Anglo community come in.

And Dorothy Walton, this is a box tomb with a marble ledger on top of it.

And she must've been a fascinating woman.

She was married to a signer of the declaration of independence, George Walton, she would have been an eye witness to the formation of our nation.

She was also the mother of George Walton who came in and was secretary, he was the First Secretary of Florida.

And with him, she was eye witness to the formation of our state.

And she was here I think about 13 years.

And so we like to look at her as someone who was really... You think about often in history, the women have no big role.

It's always the big guy, the big event.

But here is someone that was privy to so much that was going on.

And we've done a really nice tie in with her.

Rob, tell us a bit about that.

- And the other tie in is we have in the historic village that was relocated there because it was being threatened to be torn down is the house that Dorothy Walton had lived in at one point or owned at one time, the Dorothy Walton Cottage.

The other tie, and we've had working with the local Pensacola town chapter of the Colonial Dames.

We are working on a first person interpretation of Dorothy Walton.

Our Sheyna Marcey, our Director of Education puts on the clothing that be similar to what Dorothy does and goes into and becomes Dorothy Walton.

And we've worked with that with the Dames.

We do that in our storytelling circle Downtown, periodically, as we things start getting better, we're gonna be doing it more regular schedule, but it's a great way to bring in that living history of more humanizing the people of the past.

So often we see the past is so far in the past, and we're so disconnected with it.

But when you can put it into those personal terms where you have people actually relaying my personal stories that I was the wife of a signer of the declaration of independence, I was the mother of a first Secretary.

Walton County is named after the Walton family.

So it really humanizes it and makes it more local.

We're not that far removed from our history.

Your family, by chance, (indistinct).

We've got our Arcadia Mill site over in Milton that he helped found.

And so we're actually sitting with the table of the great, great granddaughter of part of our history here.

- It's been very exciting to be part of Pensacola and have that.

And also a grandmother was Mariana Bonifay.

Her daughter married a de la Rua and Mariana, you mentioned may be buried in St. Michael's.

- I'm quite certain she's buried there.

Her marker, we don't have a marker for her there.

Again, for a number of reasons.

She did stress she did not want a big to-do made over her in St. Michael's, but I'm sure there was something that happened for her there to mark her.

There is a marker out in the middle of the road in Garden Street, but that is not where Mariana Bonifay is.

Though I feel quite certain she is in the cemetery.

She was very specific about going there.

And as long as you died in Pensacola and you were a Catholic, you would have gone into the Catholic burial ground at the time.

So she most likely is there.

She is one of the people that would be the hidden people.

And I bring up the hidden people because not only do we partner with the UWF Historic Trust, but since 2000, the university of west Florida has been heavily involved in general and the Archeology Institute in particular.

And so we guide what happens in the cemetery in terms of preservation, directives and conservation needs.

We're just finishing up two big conservation projects there now related to Hurricane Sally damages.

So, the UWF Archeology Institute has been instrumental in much of what has gone on in terms of how we research the cemetery.

- We were just looking at the classical tune.

Could you tell us about that?

- Yes, this is the Hunt tomb, and Mr. Hunt, he likely had a little to do with his design.

It was designed, this tomb was from I believe it's 1852, 53, and it was designed by an architect in New Orleans, it was carved by an architect in New Orleans.

And it's a beautiful example of the classical architecture that we see.

And we have another example that I think is actually quite spectacular and we're going to get to it next.

This gives us an idea.

You see a marble table tomb, a marble tablet, and these were both carved and shipped from Connecticut.

And then you say a granite marker.

And this is a nice example of changing technology.

Once they figured out, once the carvers figured out how to use the steam engine and the diamond drill bit, we saw a real shift in fashion and material to granite.

And so this is again, a nice classical look on one side of the image and then the machine technology on the other.

And I think the next image we're going to look at, tourism.

Tourism in the cemetery and in town.

This is an image from 1816, and it's in Rome.

It's the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

And tourism and cemeteries was quite popular.

People would go, they would tour, they would look at who was there, they would sketch, they would admire.

If you see the tomb or the aboveground tomb that you see in this picture next to the Roman pyramid, then you are able to see something very similar to the Hunt tomb.

And this is dated 1816.

- Those markers, they're all works of art and they're all have differences and similarities, but they are really outdoor works of art and the cemetery, even though it is a sacred place and it is the final resting place, it is an actual outdoor art gallery for us to go and appreciate.

And I know in St Michael's, we've got benches and people can come and they spend time in there.

- Oh, it's open 365 days a year at no charge.

So it was a great place to come and explore.

And it does show you not only what people were reading about because they were reading about travels in Europe and they were designing their tombs and the cemetery based on that.

As the Kaisers were, the Hunts were.

And this is a postcard from 1903.

This is a fabulous postcard because of course it says the cemetery has been there for 300 years which is not correct.

But this is the Simpson plot and this was arranged to mimic what was going on in the movement that looked at natural landscapes, the Grotto.

It was part of the push for the romantic period.

You created natural, beautiful spaces with soaring monuments.

And this is a very specific example of that.

And here it is today that you can see there's a major difference in the vegetation, but the site itself is the same.

And so these people, they named their businesses and their endeavors after what they were seeing and where they were traveling and what they were reading about.

So the Simpson's name, their timber enterprise was Arcadia.

And for the Brights next to them who were inter married, it was Vallombrosa.

And Vallombrosa was the timbered land with the big abbey where supposedly Milton wrote "Paradise Lost".

And they're all creating this wonderful setting for themselves in death that mimicked much of what they read about by writers like Hawthorne, Shelley, the writing that took them away to another place.

And that's what you will find in St.Michael Cemetery, another place.

- It's just beautiful.

And is there a special way that if we were to go and visit the cemetery, is there a special way to, is there any kind of, we're supposed to act a certain way or not step on certain things?

Is there anything like that?

- Remember it is a cemetery and I went on about it being an outdoor art gallery.

It is a cemetery, so you wanna be respectful.

It is the last resting place of people and their families are still around.

But go in, avoid climbing on the markers.

That does them no good and may get you in trouble.

- It will get you in trouble and in more ways than one because this is a historic site.

You would not be climbing on Washington's monument.

And so you don't want to on things or laying on things.

But to me what is remarkable is that we have been able to take this site which is so important to the history and heritage of our community and have it be such a welcoming place for everyone, not only our residents, but the people that come to visit our community.

It creates a sense of place.

This is a sense of place for Pensacola that cannot be created in any other way.

- I understand we have something about a picture of a coin.

- Oh, a coin, oh, well, that's the Tivoli.

There is a Tivoli House coin, and that of course would be associated with the house and- - Margo studied Tivoli quite a lot.

We mentioned it earlier the Tivoli House and the people who were connected with it, but what people may not realize is that Tivoli played a pretty important role in our history early on.

And we talk about even when Andrew Jackson came in, Tivoli was a dance hall, a Tavern and a dance hall.

It was a place where people went and did entertainment.

You got historic images of it, and you know, it was torn down.

But the coin, I let Margo talk about that one a little bit.

- The coin is a gaming coin and it came from Barcelona, Spain.

So how it dropped into the ground underneath the foundation of the Tivoli, we don't know, but it translates loosely to let every hour be a happy hour.

So, it's a gaming piece but it's a charming little token that is associated archeologically with the Tivoli House.

And we're going to talk more about that when we talk about food ways and what they were serving at the Tivoli.

- One of the other pieces of Tivoli that we did not reconstruct in 1976, but there was an octagonal dance hall, just a sort of south and east of it there.

And I know that they've done some archeology out there and poked around a good bit, but that was where people were having leisure time.

And I think it possibly was a place that we talked about Rachel Jackson when she came in, who wasn't as enamored with Pensacola and talked about them dancing on the Sabbath and drinking the dancing on the Sabbath.

And we think that's probably where they were doing it at.

- Likely so, but it was the center of entertainment and it is firmly linked to the Noriega family and to the Lesassier family to the (indistinct) family and everyone in town would have gone there.

They would have gone there to enjoy the theater and dancing and food - Sounds like Pensacola was a happening place.

We are winding up our time a little bit with you Rob.

I want to make sure that you tell people that are watching our program exactly why they should come Downtown, why they should visit some of these historic sites.

- We celebrated a few years ago our 450 years of European occupation.

We have a very historic city and there's no argument on that one.

We were one of the few places in Florida that has some of the original older historic structures.

Our climate causes them not to stand up to that, but early on with groups like ours and the Heritage Foundation, there was a preservation movement.

So Pensacola has really been able to preserve our historic character.

You come down, you look at the historic structures, you learn the history.

We've done a good job plus with the university and the community of interpreting that history.

And then what you don't want to forget is that all of Downtown Pensacola is really an archeological site.

So much has happened here.

We are walking on history.

It doesn't hurt that we've got a great beach and the blue angels fly over Downtown and we got people coming in and wonderful restaurants.

And going back to the Tivoli example, we are a community who loves to celebrate, we are a community who loves to... We work hard, but we love to have a lot of fun and a very hospitable community.

So I think that's why you do that.

It's a lot to see, a lot to learn, but it's also done in an enjoyable environment.

- It is and I would encourage people when you go to the cemetery to enter the south gate down by the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, because you will be walking on a colonial era road.

When you come off of Alcaniz Street and enter the gates to the cemetery, you are walking on a road that was there.

It shows up in the maps of 1765, that little road.

And so, walk down that road and let the modern environment fall away from you and think about the people that were here and how they shaped our city.

They built our roads, our roads are named after these people.

They gave us who we are today.

We are all Floridians and there is no doubt about that, regardless of where we started out.

- And we'll be talking more about that after we take a break.

Rob, thank you so much.

We look forward to seeing you in Downtown Pensacola and having you help carry this history forward for us.

- We're welcome to have everyone come on down.

- Thank you.

When we come back, they are still here, more on the people of 1821.

You're watching inStudio.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Unlock your newest member benefit.

Over 1000 episodes of your favorite PBS shows: "American Masters", "Antiques Roadshow" "Nature", "Nova", "Masterpiece".

Watch the best of any time anywhere.

Become a member, sign in, and starts streaming today.

- How long does it take for caterpillar to turn into a monarch butterfly?

Based on the video, they said roughly 10 days.

- PBS LearningMedia is a great resource to have because it is highly engaging for the students and it really taps into their love for technology and getting information fast and having it accessible.

One of the reasons that we're here today is to work other teachers and collaborate along with PBS and WSRE and (indistinct) to bring resources into the classroom for the 21st century.

- We truly enjoy having teachers and their students visit our park.

We appreciate what they do and we love sharing the knowledge that we have about Marine life and our oceans.

PBS LearningMedia is a way for me to reach the students through the technology they're plugged in every day.

It's just a wealth of resources that I don't think any teacher should not take the opportunity to explore.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] You're watching viewer supported WSRE TV, a service of Pensacola State College.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to inStudio as we continue our discussion about Pensacola's role in the making of Florida.

And now more specifically how St. Michael Cemetery Foundation brings the past to our modern community.

We are joined now by Jennifer Melcher and we're also having Margo stay with us to talk more about this.

Jennifer is a Faculty Research Associate at the UWF Archeology Institute and specializes in digital data.

She also serves as Secretary on the historic St. Michael's Cemetery Foundation.

So thank you for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- So how do you two work together?

- Oh my goodness, we work closely together and I certainly rely on Jennifer for most everything that I do.

So, we are both archeologists at a UWF Archeology Institute and much of our work overlaps, and of course we both serve on the St Michael's Cemetery Foundation board.

So we wear many hats in our community.

- Absolutely, I am often like to joke that I am madly paddling the boat when Margo says, "It's going this direction."

So, we often find our projects tied up together.

- So she steers and then you paddle- - Yes, I try and make sure everything goes smoothly on the backside.

- That's great, and you've been really working hard on a big project.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, back when the whole 1821 celebration came about, we started thinking about how we could have a more accessible event for St. Michael's Cemetery.

We normally have an event where we have people stationed in the cemetery and with different people who are having accessibility issues, the cemetery of course, is sort of not got very stable terrain.

People who are visually impaired find it difficult to navigate.

We wanted to have a project that was really accessible to everyone in the community.

And so story map that we came up with enables us to do that so people can either kick their smart device and walk through the cemetery themselves or they can actually do it from the comfort of their easy chair or wherever they want to take the tour from.

- It was kind of born of necessity I understand, but it's turned into something that will be so useful for so many years for so many people.

- Well it will, we look at how we can bring our history and heritage and our archeology to the public in innovative ways.

And Jennifer always has an answer for anything that we all sit around and brainstorm about how we might having might make that happen.

We were looking at a way to both broaden how we bring the cemetery to the public as a whole, especially to people who might not be able to visit either in person for a variety of reasons.

And certainly as we all know, if you are surprised by something like a pandemic there again, you have many challenges.

And in particular, what we wanted to do in this year was, I would say without trying to be too I don't know emotional about it.

We wanted to lift people up, we wanted to do things that would lift people up and give them something that they could go and do safely.

So Jennifer was able to make that happen.

So she's created a beautiful product that is going to allow people to really enjoy themselves outside no matter what the circumstance is.

- Tell us about your project.

Tell us where it started and where it is now.

- So fortunately back in the early 2000s for St. Michael's Cemetery, they created what's called a geographic information system.

And that piece of software has grown and developed as technology has.

And we can now do what's called a story map.

And that allows us to weave together different visual media as well as a physical map to sort of tell this linear story that we'd like to tell about all of our people who were here in 1821.

And so it sort of took that starting point of the map and then built on different bits and pieces as we found people who were here in 1821 or as we found more information about the different parts of the cemetery that we're developing.

- And Margo, how does this really bring the story to life for people when they have an opportunity to take a look?

- I think in a number of ways, we certainly often don't think about the past in ways that would benefit us a great deal, but the past is the way forward to the future.

So knowing about our past is a way to help guide us as we move into the future.

And certainly using the resources that we have in Pensacola and Escambia County to be able to help our community as a whole, both as an economic to our tourism industry is bring people in to see what we have to offer that doing something like this goes a long way and being helpful with it.

And so we have, since the university in Archeology Institute became involved back in 2000, we have everything we've looked at doing has been public product and that's what we've done.

And Jennifer has been the driver of the public product that comes to the public.

It's okay to have an idea, but you have to have someone who's able to take an idea, visualize the idea and then bring it to fruition.

And so being able to walk in on that south road in St. Michael's Cemetery, know you're on a colonial road, know that you may be standing there in whatever year it is, but you are being taken back to a period of time when people were in our community during our Second Spanish Period, during our early American period throughout our history.

And even the people we don't see are there beneath our feet.

It's a really powerful experience to walk in under those Oak trees.

- And why do we care about those that came before us and the people that are in St Michael's?

- Well, I think there are a really diverse background of our community.

We have people of all religions, all ethnic backgrounds, all racial backgrounds in our cemetery, and we can see those people in the 1821 population.

So they have a great heritage here and they give so much influence and flavor to our Gulf coast culture.

And that's not just here in Pensacola, we have connections in our cemetery over to New Orleans and Mobile.

So we have lots of different cultural connections here that are present even still today.

- And talk about some of the different elements of what you've done and how it's come together.

- So, a big part of it is the walking tour of course, which you can go through and see all of the graves that we've identified with people of 1821, but there's also a portion that tells the history of the cemetery and how it developed through time.

It really does start with that colonial road and the cemetery really sort of grows out from there.

It doesn't really seem to get into that north area of the cemetery until very late in the 1800, even into the 20th century.

So, we can see that happen through time and we also have some connections with some historic imagery so people can compare past and present.

- So often I think people think, "Well, why should I care about this?

These are people that are gone."

But I think they forget that they'll be gone someday too and how important it is to just have that remembrance and the knowledge.

- Well, I think so.

These people are part of our history and heritage.

We sitting here today are going to be part of history of our community.

We all contribute during the course of our lifetimes in one way or another and we all leave a mark in one way or another.

We were all part of the big story.

And I think too, especially in historic communities like ours, you need to look after and I don't want to.

This is not a lecturing kind of use of the word need to, but we're all proud of our history and heritage here, and we need to preserve it.

We need to preserve it for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and everyone that comes after us.

And in doing so, what we're doing is preserving not only a part of our past, but we're preparing for our future.

And we've been very fortunate at St. Michael's Cemetery and at our other cemeteries in town to be able to start developing a way to do this so that we're all moving forward.

St. Michael's, we refer to it as the mother ship because we have actually, we started there and that's where we've really learned much of what we have learned about preservation and conservation of historic cemeteries and how we go about working with them so that we have have a product that's going to be a really good one for our community as a whole.

- Jennifer, tell us what some of the most surprising things you've learned as you've gone through St. Michael's.

- I think some of the connections of people and their heritage.

One of the things is we were doing the research, we found that people would live their whole lives with a sort of anglicized name because they were living in an American territory and eventually an American state.

But when they died, they sort of used their more Hispanic sounding names.

So we see people like Francis Bonifay, who his tombstone reads Farruko Bonifay, which would have been his sort of more Hispanic name.

We see headstones that are in French and in Spanish on that tour.

And so we really do see that whole diversity represented very clearly in our cemetery.

- I guess people want to be remembered for who they truly are, it sounds like.

Have you...

So that's been some surprising things, but as you've gone through this, have you come across anything that just really, you couldn't believe?

- I think one of my favorites was tying our burials to some of our marriage records that we have for Escambia County and looking at things where people may not have been able to get married, but their headstone, they were married on their headstone is the way I like to think of it.

So their married name is represented there even though they may never have actually been able to legally marry.

And we see things as far as African tradition show up with some of our markers.

Things like shells that are associated with African burial tradition and native burial tradition show up with some of our Hispanic and our other markers so they may have had some connections to those communities that we might not have otherwise known without what we see in our cemetery.

- Margo very exciting and a little bit spicy sometimes huh?

- Well, I think so, spicy in a nice way.

It's in a way that makes you smile.

I think Victoria Lesassier is one of our more interesting people, but everyone in there has an interesting story to tell.

They were making bricks, they were building structures for people to live in, they were sewing clothes.

Every industry that we see associated with them as a profession links them to someone else in the community.

And we see that today.

I like to think we're all standing next to each other.

And the people in the cemetery are standing next to them.

They're people they knew in life as well.

- We're getting short on time, but I would love for you Jennifer to highlight some of the special parts of the story and the map.

- I think one of the best things is that people really can do everything at their own pace.

They can go down multiple days and explore bits and pieces, they can wait and take this tour in the autumn when there may be down there for one of our events that we have so often in Pensacola, and they can just enjoy a beautiful Pensacola day while learning a little bit about history.

- That is so nice.

Margo, were there other things about this that you'd like to address?

- I think just come take a stroll and let yourself stop and read the French tombstones, the Spanish tombstones, go stop at Dorothy Walton and think about her role in our community and look at other people that you see.

Genevieve Ham, that you would never know one thing about except her name, the Roman cross, and of course her age, that said she was 102 years old, but I just don't think so based on other documents we've seen.

But she lived a rich life and you see that in documents that were associated with her, and this is someone that you would just pass by.

But there's much we can learn by taking a deeper dive into our very diverse community here in Pensacola.

- And thanks to people such as Jennifer and yourself were able to do that.

So thank you for being with us and we will look that up and take the tour ourselves.

I know I will.

- Thank you for having me.

- All right, absolutely.

We're going to take a quick break and come right back.

(upbeat music) - WSRE public television and the Escambia Elementary Principals Association congratulate the Shining Star award recipients.

These students were selected upon the basis of good citizenship and adherence to the core values adopted by the Escambia County School system: equality, responsibility, integrity, respect, honesty and patriotism.

Congratulations to all of these outstanding students.

You are watching viewer supported WSRE TV, a service of Pensacola State College.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to inStudio.

We've had some fascinating discussions about St Michael's Cemetery, about some of the historic buildings that are Downtown, just about Pensacola being kind of hallowed ground.

Wherever you walk, you're walking on history.

And we have Margo Stringfield here with us.

She's an archeologist with UWF and heavily involved in these projects that we've been talking about and Renea Brown.

Renea Brown joins us now.

She is the President of St. Michael's Cemetery Foundation and also descendant of some people that are buried in St. Michael.

So we wanna talk more about that.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having me today.

- So, you're the president of the foundation now.

- Yes.

- How did you get involved?

- I was asked to serve on the board a couple of years ago, and it was an honor to be invited to serve.

And so after serving for a few years and the opportunity presented itself to step into the vice presidency role and then the opportunity came again to step into the presidency role.

And it has really expanded me individually, and it's been a wonderful group of people to serve with.

They make my job easy.

- And how many people are on the board and do they come from all walks of life?

- The board is comprised of community partners, community leaders and just overall professionals who say, "Okay, I want to volunteer my time, my services and my talents to my community and this is how I choose to volunteer."

And they bring such knowledge and wisdom and insight to the community as well as to how we function as a board in order to support the city, to support the cemetery and to support our efforts to retain the history of the cemetery.

- Well, and thank goodness for that because I know there was a time when so many cemeteries were going into states of disrepair.

Hope St. Michael's did the same?

- Yes, there was a while where St. Michael's was kind of...

I don't want to use the word neglected, but that's the word that comes to mind and it changed hands.

And I think Margo would speak more to the changing of the hands, but it changed hands and it ended up with the private foundation of which we are apart.

And we are honored to have that cemetery and have the charge and the responsibility of seeing after it.

- And it's also a state park.

Is that correct?

We call it an eight acre green space.

- Yes, but it is an outdoor museum and it is a state park.

And I think to speak to what you were just talking about, all over the country, municipalities are facing a dilemma of what to do with historic resources that are, I like to call them floating islands.

They're no longer attached to who established them in ways both financial and physical.

So, for St. Michael's Cemetery this was a community burial ground was firmly rooted in the Catholic Church because the whole community was Catholic at that time.

This was a Catholic burial ground for Catholic citizens.

And then when you had the Americans come in, we saw just an immediate blending.

There was no non blending.

You now have a cemetery that's on the outskirts of town, you've got a lot of people involved in it, but over time, let's face it, over a couple of 100 years who started the cemetery is no longer today likely in either a financial position to look after it nor are they trained professionals to look after it.

And so where...

In St. Michael's case, this is a wonderful model for us to follow because with the university becoming involved and with other public partners and with the state park and with a not-for-profit volunteer board involved, we have been able to give to the public at a minimal charge.

And I will say that charge goes to the people that mow the grass and maintain the landscape.

So, for St Michael's Cemetery, there are no paid employees.

Everyone is pro bono or in kind service.

And so we would hope that what's happened at St. Michael's can be something that other communities can look to because people are struggling.

How do you deal with it?

You either let it continue to go downhill or you do something about it and make it be an asset in your community.

So here are your choices.

ISO or a good resource that's going to help your community.

And that's what we've done with St. Michael's and we are also doing with the other cemeteries in town.

So Michael's partners closely with AME Zion, Magnolia, Mount Zion, John the Baptist, we have worked closely with our cemetery team in the cemetery with all the cemeteries in the city, and in the county if you call us, we work with you too.

This is a real mission for both the Archeology Institute and the St. Michael's Cemetery Foundation is to help everyone else deal with these resources in a manner that's going to preserve them and make them assets to the community.

So it's been a real pleasure.

And of course, I started working with Renea quite some time ago.

We met as she was trying to identify cemeteries for the Escambia County Property Appraiser's Office.

And so she has taught me a huge amount over the course of the years that we worked together.

So, I think for St Michael's, it's a wind story there, but the state park story is one that hearkens back to the 1940s and the ladies in Pensacola applied to have St Michael's be a state park based on the fact that some ladies down in South Florida had applied to have a small park that they were overseeing made into a state park.

Now, all these people are connected politically.

So this was something that did indeed happen.

And in South Florida, the seed of that small park became the seed for the Everglades National Park, and St. Michael's in 1949, we were designated to state park, but we just sort of rocked along as such and people didn't pay too much attention to it until about the 1990s when funding started to roll from the park, from the state parks into maintenance.

And so, I think that I'm not speaking and saying we're unique in the state park system, and that this is the only state park that is exclusively a cemetery.

- Wow, that's neat to know.

Renea, you have some personal ties.

We've been talking about how the cemetery is really a melting pot of so many different kinds of people.

Talk about your personal connections.

- Well, fo years I learned the oral history from the family and from the elders of the family, and just became curious, what's true?

What's not?

What's fact?

What's fiction?

And through working with the Pensacola area cemetery team, researched in some genealogical records and just playing around for a little bit and then I started to uncover truth to some of those stories that were told.

And for my family, I am a descendant of Jacob Kilgour.

And Jacob actually, his family, our family immigrated from Switzerland into Philadelphia back in 1743.

And his father was in turn...

He fought in the Revolutionary War.

He was a captain, he was a wagon master and the first sheriff of that county.

So Jacob decides to just take a trip and ended up down in Pensacola area.

And through Jacob Kilgour is why I'm here.

Part of Jacob Kilgour's heritage goes back to Juan Gomez and the slave of Victoria Lesassier Augustina and they had a daughter by the name of Cecilia Gomez, and Cecilia Gomez married one of Jacob Kilgour son, John Kilgour.

And that is the beginning of my story.

- Wow, wow, I've seen that tombstone there, right?

Have I seen the Gomez tombstone in St. Michael's or am I- - Gomez family members in the cemetery, yes.

- I thought I had.

- Yeah.

- So you were with the property appraiser's office and then you also had heard these stories and it's all come together.

Who would have thought that you would be sitting here as the President of St. Michael's Cemetery?

- I did not see that one coming, but it has been an honor because I've learned so much from the board members to help me with our research and to help me understand those historical records and how things can tie together and how people come together to build a tapestry.

It's not just one thread, one strand, but it's a collective.

And the cemetery itself lends to that collective because it is the blend of the community that was, and it tells a story of why we are here and I'm honored to be a part of that.

- Oh, that's amazing.

You've got something here on the table for us.

What is that?

- Well, Jacob Kilgour actually filed for a land grant- - Did you wanna hold that up?

- Yes, from the territory of West Florida.

And this is a copy of the original land grant that was provided to Jacob.

Now, Jacob filed for it back in 1819, I believe and John (indistinct) was one of the witnesses.

And so, with that, he was granted in 1828 February, but unfortunately he passed away in September of 1827.

- That's amazing.

- It is amazing.

- Just holding history inn your hand like that.

I can just feel it Margo.

All of you down there working to bring this to us.

The whole community just owes such a debt of gratitude.

Now, you also mentioned that.

When I think of Pensacola and cemeteries, I think of five or six that I know of.

And you telling me there's a lot.

- There are a lot of cemeteries.

It was a common practice back in earlier time where people would bury directly on their own property.

So you may have a cemetery that was right in the backyard or in the front yard of a home.

So you have cemeteries that are scattered throughout that may not be readily identifiable.

But they are there.

- They're all over the place, right?

- Yes they are.

- And as you said, you're hoping to be a model for other cities, for other cemetery boards?

- We do and I think we likely are a model.

And just because of the really large resources that have been brought to it from all of our community partners.

- Well, it's so great that you're working on this.

Any other stories about your family that you'd like to share?

- Well, that's the main one, but at the same to narrow it in.

If you're a part of Pensacola history, you may remember the Driftwood Restaurant.

Well, my grandmother was the head baker and my grandfather was the head chef, Margaret and Leonard Simmons.

So I grew up with Kilgour distinction, but I also have the restaurant side as well.

So you pull it all together and it's just like a melting pot of history.

And so I've been asked the question, "Do you cook like your grandfather?"

That's my mother.

- Well, that's so wonderful and we sure wish the Driftwood we're still here.

I'm old enough to remember that.

- Still have some of the recipes.

- Yeah, so thank you to you and to your family and to all the contributions that you make for all of us and just thanks for being here and special thanks to Margo Stringfield as well and our earlier guests, Robert Overton and Jennifer Melcher.

This program detailing historic St. Michael's Cemetery in Pensacola will be available soon online at wsre.org as well as on YouTube.

Please feel free to share it.

I'm Sherri Hemminghaus Weeks.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you again soon right here on WSRE TV PBS for the Gulf Coast.

(upbeat music)