History News Network

Departments

Mystery of Miami construction site cemetery grows

A long-forgotten cemetery may have been the final resting place for hundreds of black Miamians, but preliminary findings suggest the burial ground was not that large.

The mystery surrounding a long-forgotten cemetery unearthed by construction crews two months ago has only deepened with a genealogist's discovery of records suggesting hundreds of black Miamians may have been buried there more than 75 years ago.

Historian Larry Wiggins, using a database of Florida death certificates compiled by the Mormon church, has found 523 names of people -- many of them Bahamian settlers or of Bahamian parentage and many of them infants -- who may have been buried in the cemetery on the edge of the old Lemon City settlement between the 1910s and the mid-1930s.

Posted on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 12:20 AM | Comments (0) | Return

Home Newsletter Submissions Advertising Donations Archives Internships About Us FAQs Contact Us All Articles