ZION Continued from 12A

14A | Sunday, June 23, 2019 | Tampa Bay Times **** THE FORGOTTEN . ZION continued from 12A Gonzmart knew nothing about Zion Cemetery when he purchased the land in 2016, he said in an email to the Times. Informed of the property’s history, he began his own research. He would not say whether he’d allow radar on his property. Richard Said Gonzmart, Gonzmart “We recognize the significance of that land in the history of Tampa Heights and in the lives of African- American pioneers.” * * * Zion Cemetery was founded in 1901 by Richard Doby, a wealthy black businessman who helped establish an African-American community known as Dobyville in today’s west Hyde Park. LUIS SANTANA | Times In 1894, Doby purchased the FORMER ZION SITE: This field and warehouse off Florida Avenue is the former site of Zion Cemetery and is now owned by restaurateur Richard Gonzmart. land to the north that would later become Zion Cemetery from Isaac W. Warner for $100, the Times dis- treasurer, tried and failed to take the Zion property in 1926 for $1 The only mention the Times around quite openly.” covered in a deed search. control of the cemetery by claiming from Alice W. Fuller of Los Ange- found of relocating remains from African-Americans, Huse said, The Zion land was part of he owned the tax deed. les County. It’s unclear how Fuller Zion was a handwritten letter sent “had no voice at all.” another African-American settle- Florida Industrial and Commer- came to own the land. in 1989 from the late Leland Hawes Many might have chosen to head ment, Robles Pond. Doby likely saw cial eventually did lose Zion Ceme- When Doby sold the property to of the Tampa Tribune to Cantor North, away from Tampa, cutting a need for a school and a church at tery, in 1915, during a sheriff’s sale Florida Industrial and Commercial, Brown, who has written books on off their connections here, said Robles Pond, plus a cemetery for to pay a debt, according to a legal the deed noted that it contained cem- the city’s African-American history. Joseph with New South Associates. African-Americans from through- notice published in the Tampa etery plots. No such mention appears Hawes said the mother of the late “With them went the memory of out the county, historians said. Daily Times. in the Fuller-to-Kennedy sale. civil rights activist Robert Saun- where their burial grounds were,” Pressley, of First Mount Carmel In 1916, a county map shows “Mt. Decades later, in November 1951, ders once told him African-Ameri- he said. AME, said that in its early years, Carmel” scribbled in the corner of the discovery of the three child-sized can bodies from a “burial ground in Communities across the coun- the church was allowed to use the the Zion property, perhaps indicat- caskets made news during construc- an area north of downtown called try often forget their African-Amer- Robles Pond School on Sundays. ing that the church was overseeing tion of the Robles Park apartments, Robles Pond” were moved to “parts ican cemeteries, Joseph said. He Doby was a member of another the cemetery for the new owner, a complex of three dozen long, two- unknown.” provided a dozen examples where church, St. Paul AME — downtown Kite-Powell said. story buildings where initially only Brown said he cannot imagine headstones but not bodies were at the time but now New St. Paul Genealogy websites show no Zion whites were allowed. where they might have gone. removed from cemeteries in the AME at 4603 N 42nd St. Cemetery death certificates after Newspaper articles make no men- years before the civil rights move- The city’s Oaklawn Cemetery 1921 — perhaps, he said, because tion of who might have moved the * * * ment of the 1960s. allowed black Memorial Park opened in 1919 and other Zion graves or how in 1925. It The men buried in Zion would Last year, the skeletal remains of and white burials took all the business. is not clear from the Times research have been laborers, primarily, and 95 African-Americans were discov- but was filling up, In December 1923, the Tampa who owned the property then. the women domestic workers — ered at a school construction site said Rodney Kite- Daily Times called Zion one of the Minutes from Housing Author- people whose “tears and blood” in Fort Bend County, Texas, and 13 Powell, curator city’s “most prominent and greatly ity meetings at the time include dis- helped build Tampa in its pio- years ago, the remains of nearly 400 with the Tampa used burial places.” cussion of the caskets and the need neering years, said Lewis with the African-Americans were uncovered Bay History Cen- Soon, though, developers were to reinter them, but there’s no men- NAACP. during construction at Hunter Army ter. Woodlawn eyeing the neighborhood for future tion of any search for more graves. Around 20 percent of those Airfield outside Savannah, Ga. had added a sec- white suburbs. Unlike today, no laws required whose death certificates the Times U.S. Rep. Alma S. Adams, a North Rodney tion for African- developers to do so in 1951. located were born before the end of Carolina Democrat, has intro- Kite-Powell American buri- * * * “In a best-case scenario, when the Civil War in 1865, either in Flor- duced the African-American Burial als by 1900, but it Robles Pond had a population of human remains are moved from ida or another Southern state. Grounds Network Act to create a couldn’t handle the city’s growing 315 in 1927, according to A Study one cemetery to another, there is a Some of them rated stories in the government-funded database of population, either. of Negro Life in Tampa from the paper trail,” Kite-Powell said. newspapers when they died, like Car- known and potential grave sites. The first map of Zion Cemetery city of Tampa. “The Negros lived in But considering the second-class oline Hicks, a servant for the sheriff, One afternoon in May, a handful filed with the county clerk at the turn this area first, but it has been sur- status of African-Americans in the and L.G. Caro, a minister who helped of people with a stake in the redis- of the 20th century had a corner cut rounded by Whites,” the study says. 1920s, he said, “I can certainly pic- found Bethel Baptist Church and was covery of Zion Cemetery toured out for the schoolhouse and church. By this time, Zion Cemetery had ture a scenario where a private or considered a key political endorse- areas of the property that they Doby sold Zion in 1907 for $300 disappeared from maps and city a church-based black cemetery ment for white politicians. could reach. to Florida Industrial and Commer- directories. ceased to exist and they move the Still, their community would One recalled hearing church cial Co. — a black-owned company In 1929, a five-shop storefront remains to someplace else, but they have wielded little of the power elders speak of the cemetery when that made caskets, furniture and was built on the Florida Avenue site don't document that.” needed to protect the cemetery dur- he was a little boy. Another remem- musical instruments, according to of the Zion property, home to Acme Still, a large-scale relocation ing the years it faded from sight. bered hearing a story from a fellow clerk’s office archives, city directo- Furniture and Tampa Health Bak- would have rated coverage in local “The mid 20s are the high-water parishioner. All wondered whether ries and a February 1909 article in ery. The building, now vacant, is newspapers, said Joe Joseph of mark of the Ku Klux Klan in the the bodies still remain. the Tampa Tribune. still there on Gonzmart’s property. Georgia-based archaeological soci- 20th century,” said Andy Huse, a In 1912, newspapers reported The developer of the storefront ety New South Associates, which librarian with the University of Times photographer James Borchuck that James J. Head, a former Con- was H.P. Kennedy who, according specializes in lost African-American South Florida Special Collections contributed to this report. Contact Paul federate commander and county to clerk’s office records, purchased cemeteries. Department. “They would parade Guzzo at [email protected]. 1 Memorial Park TwinCemetery Lake Sh ad o w Zion Cemetery 275 2 WoodlawnLake Cemetery site and area Dr. Martin Luther Dr. Martin LutherH King Jr. Blvd. 3 Jackson Heights Cemetery ill Site of former shown at right s King Jr. Blvd. b 4 Oaklawn Cemetery 1 o Zion Cemetery r Si l v er o 3 5 Marti Cemetery u Lake g Rogers Park h Virginia Ave. 34th St. Golf Course R 15th St. i 2 v 50th St. Robles e r Kentucky Ave. Park Apartments Nebraska Ave. Florida Ave. No sign of graves MacDill Ave. Lake Ave. Eg y p t Columbus Dr. A search of historical records Lake 5 accounted for few of the nearly 275 4 Tampa St. 92 N Boulevard 400 people whose death Palm Dr. Florida Ave. Howard Ave. certificates say they were 41 Ybor City Woodlawn buried at the long-forgotten Spruce St. Cemetery y Zion Cemetery, the first w k officially recognized Emily St. P Rome Ave. io elmon E Robles 275 c S xpy African-American cemetery in c . u F.P.O. Park Tampa. The search involved the 4 N HILLS. Cypress St. city of Tampa's four cemeteries and the private Memorial Park Area shown Cemetery, the second local Tampa African-American cemetery.

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