PENSACOLA, FLORIDA The Search for the Hidden People of St. Michael ’s Cemetery VOLUME II Chapters X-XI; References and Appendices Cryptic Message #2. David S. Hinks. Courtesy of the Arts Council of Northwest Florida Margo S. Stringfield, Stuart Hamilton, Johan Liebens, Jay K. Johnson, Bryan S. Haley, Aaron Fogle, Kendra Kennedy, Siska Williams with contributions by Elizabeth D. Benchley University of West Florida Archaeology Institute Report of Investigations Number 158 December 2008 Funded in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, assisted by the Florida Historical Commission Chapter X. Into the Archives by: Kendra A. Kennedy And Siska M. Williams Introduction St. Michael’s Cemetery is a historic treasure located in downtown Pensacola. Its gravestones afford a glimpse of the individuals from all classes, ethnicities, and occupations who played a role in shaping the course of Pensacola’s history. Some of the surnames visible in the cemetery are echoed throughout the town and beyond on street markers, building fronts, and park signs. Although many working class individuals’ names are only found in the cemetery, their stones hint at the stories of those whose labor transformed the early colonial city of Pensacola into a bustling maritime port. While St. Michael’s was officially established by the Spanish crown in 1807 on what were then the northern limits of the Spanish settlement of Panzacola, Spanish citizens may have been burying individuals in the cemetery long before. Even so, the oldest documented grave in the cemetery only dates to 1812 (Bruington 1986: ix). Also strikingly absent on the Pensacola landscape are the graves of colonial residents who died in Pensacola during the city’s British period (1763-1781) and earlier Spanish occupation (ca. 1753-1763). Their grave markers no longer exist and the stories that accompany them are slowly fading away. While remote sensing, soil surveys, and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping can determine the locations of unmarked burials and potential areas of interest for additional survey or ground-truthing, no technological innovation can reveal the names and identities of those who died and were buried in Pensacola during its colonial occupation for whom no marker dots the landscape. In order to find these “hidden” people of St. Michael’s cemetery and the recorded locations of any burial grounds during these years, an extensive search of secondary and archival sources was undertaken that led to local documentary collections, libraries throughout North America, and archives as far flung as England, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and Spain. Historical Research began by contacting local genealogical societies as investigation into the names of the colonial dead has strong ties to that field. Within this report, the term colonial refers only to the British (1763-1781) and second Spanish (1781-1821) periods. Unfortunately, officers of the Pensacola Genealogy Society were unaware of any past or current research by their members into deaths in colonial Pensacola. Efforts to contact the British West Florida Club (a local chapter) proved unsuccessful, as the club appears to be defunct. Although the documentary resources of the Pensacola Historical Society (PHS) were very useful, no PHS members are conducting research at the time of this writing into Pensacola during the British or early second Spanish period that relates to this work. In 197 addition to communicating with local societies, several local and regional historians and interested persons were contacted who generously shared their research into and knowledge of colonial Pensacola. Unfortunately, none of these historians had conducted any research into the locations of cemeteries in Pensacola during the colonial periods nor come upon references to said cemeteries while exploring various documents and archival collections. In order to determine what avenues historians had already investigated, the various secondary sources on Pensacola history and genealogy were consulted. Several publications were particularly relevant and set the groundwork for the next phase of the project. Winston De Ville’s (1986) British Burials and Births on the Gulf Coast: Records of the Church of England in West Florida, 1768-1770 drew attention to parish registers from the Anglican Church in Pensacola during the British period and the Colonial Office 5 Collection (CO 5) (historical documents relating to British colonial affairs in America and the West Indies) from which the registers were transcribed. Communication with Mr. De Ville strongly suggested that no other similar registers are contained in the CO 5 Collection, but that other pertinent information might be. British Burials and Births on the Gulf Coast specifically highlighted the importance of the various religious establishments of Pensacola as a potential source for information on death and burial through parish records and correspondence. Laura D.S. Harrell’s (1967) “Colonial Medical Practice in British West Florida, 1763-1781” suggested the importance of the medical history of Pensacola in understanding sickness and death in the city during the colonial period. Her work prompted a focus on the hospitals where the sick were housed and the surgeons who cared for them. Robert Rea, a prolific historian who wrote extensively on the British period in West Florida, published several books and articles that emphasized aspects of Pensacola’s history important to this research. His articles, “Dr. John Lorimer and the Natural Sciences in British West Florida” and “Graveyard for Britons, West Florida, 1763-1781”, expanded the work of Harrell and provided additional information on a dedicated surgeon, John Lorimer, who spent most of his career attempting to improve medical care in Pensacola (Rea and Holmes 1969, Rea 1969). Rea’s works on the military establishment in West Florida, including The British Period, 1763-1781: Pensacola Under the British and “Life, Death, and Little Glory: The British Soldier on the Gulf Coast, 1763-1781”, called attention to the striking potential of military and naval records of the British regiments and naval vessels stationed in Pensacola between 1763 and 1781 (Rea 1974, 1978). The secondary sources outlined above not only indicated important subjects for further research (churches and ministers, doctors and hospitals, military and naval records) they also cited information from significant document collections such as the Colonial Office 5 Collection, the Haldimand Papers, and the Gage Papers. The Haldimand Papers contain letters and correspondence from British General Sir Frederick Haldimand, Commander of Post at Three Rivers, Pensacola, and St. Augustine from 1758-1784. The Gage Papers (written by Thomas Gage, General of British Forces in North America) contain letters, assignments, orders, and reports from Pensacola during the years 1754-1783. Two of these archival sources (the CO 5 Collection and Haldimand Papers) are readily accessible at the University of West Florida (UWF) so intensive study of their contents began. It originally appeared that indices for these collections were nonexistent or partial. This index deficiency 198 combined with the sheer size of the microfilm collections made it difficult to avoid scanning through hundreds of documents not relevant to the project. Originally, investigation was limited to several of the microfilm reels that dealt with the early years of the British occupation of West Florida and with its military correspondence, but even with these limitations, the collections proved a demanding task. Assistance from other researchers indicated two indices that facilitated research into these extensive collections. Although no index exists that is specific to the CO 5 Collection, Mr. Robert O’Hara, who was hired to conduct research in the National Archives of the UK for this project, suggested consultation of Documents of the American Revolution, 1770- 1783, a guide to primary sources from the British Colonial Office (now held in the National Archives of the UK) that deal with the events of the American Revolution (Davies 1972). Though this guide covers the years 1770 to 1783, it only extensively references documents from the CO 5 Collection for the years 1775 to 1781. Even so, Documents of the American Revolution offers a means of accessing the information contained in the CO 5 Collection that would otherwise be unrealistically time intensive and impossible within the confines of this project. Similarly, UWF graduate student Larry James, during his research into Brigadier General Frederick Haldimand, discovered the online version of an extensive index to the Haldimand Papers (Lemoine and Tremblay 2006). This index, first published over the course of several years (1884-1889) in the annual Report on Canadian Archives by the Public Archives of Canada (the repository of the original Haldimand Collection), calendars and briefly describes each individual document in the 115 microfilm reels. These descriptions permitted examination of only the documents germane to this research, thus facilitating the discovery of many sources in the Haldimand Collection that contribute important information to the understanding of death and burial in colonial Pensacola. Using the information from these primary and secondary sources, a database was created of the names, death dates, occupations, and other information about those who died in colonial Pensacola (Appendices 10.A and 10.B). The database