Archaeologists have found a submerged gravestone in Dry Tortugas National Park near the Florida Keys, and they say the discovery could also mean there’s a cemetery and hospital in the area.
The site could have been used for quarantined yellow fever patients on a small island that has since eroded into the sea.
While only one grave site was found, the scientists say the remains of dozens of people, mostly members of the military stationed at Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the 1860s and ‘70s, could be at the site.
“This intriguing find highlights the potential for untold stories in Dry Tortugas National Park, both above and below the water,” Josh Marano, maritime archaeologist for the South Florida national parks and project director for the survey, said in a statement.
“Although much of the history of Fort Jefferson focuses on the fortification itself and some of its infamous prisoners,” he said, “we are actively working to tell the stories of the enslaved people, women, children and civilian laborers.”
The work to find the grave site began in August 2022 by park archaeologists with the assistance of members of the National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center, the Southeast Archaeologist Center and graduate students from University of Miami.
The site was discovered by accident months earlier when a park worker flew over shallow water in an airplane and saw something man-made in the shallow water below, said Allyson Gantt, a park ranger and spokesperson for Dry Tortugas National Park.
“Right angles usually don’t occur in nature,” Gantt said.
The Park Service released its findings this week.
The Dry Tortugas, a 100-square mile park about 70 miles from Key West, include mostly open water and seven islands, including Garden Key, home of Fort Jefferson, a former coastal fortress shut down in 1873. The park is popular with tourists and snorklers, and is only accessible by boat or seaplane.
The gravestone found in the water belonged to a man named John Greer. According to the Park Service announcement, Greer was a laborer at the fort who died Nov. 5, 1861. The cause of his death remains unknown, but the fort had several outbreaks of communicable and mosquito-borne diseases including yellow fever.
Doctors at the time took advantage of the isolated islands surrounding Garden Key and used them as quarantine hospitals for the infected. Between hurricanes, erosion and climate change, some of these islands are now under water.
Greer’s stone is made from a slab of greywacke, the material used to build the first floor of Fort Jefferson, according to the announcement. It was carved into the shape of a headstone and inscribed with his name and date of death.
Fort Jefferson was mostly used as a military prison during the Civil War. But the surrounding islands were also used for a naval coaling outpost, lighthouse station, naval hospital, quarantine facility and for safe harbors and military training, the findings say.
That also meant that the population at the fort and surrounding islands swelled with soldiers, prisoners, enslaved people, engineers and support staff, as well as their families. This increased the risk of the spread of disease, especially yellow fever. Dozens died from the disease throughout the 1860s and ‘70s.
The military eventually left the fort in 1873, but the U.S. Marine Hospital Service reoccupied it between 1890 and 1900, again requiring the use of one of the surrounding islands for an isolation hospital, according to the Park Service.
Meanwhile, the archaeologists are trying to find out more about Greer and others possibly buried in the watery grave site.
“Efforts to learn more about Mr. Greer and other individuals interred on the now submerged island are ongoing. The remains of the hospital as well as the surrounding cemetery have been documented as an archaeological resource and will be routinely monitored by members of the South Florida National Parks Cultural Resources Program,” the Park Service said in a statement. “Visitors are reminded that submerged cultural heritage is protected under Federal law.”
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