Tolomato Cemetery
Tolomato Cemetery rises on the site of a former Guale Indian village and Franciscan mission, and served as St. Augustine's Catholic burial ground from the 18th century until it closed in 1884, holding roughly a thousand graves. Among them lie Bishop Agustin Verot, the first Bishop of St. Augustine, and Father Felix Varela, the Cuban priest and reformer whose remains rested here some sixty years.
Visitors describe figures in priestly garb drifting near the mortuary chapel, said to be Varela and Verot, disturbed when their bones were long ago shuffled into one shared vault. Another legend lingers in the oaks: a young woman woke from a death that wasn't death when her funeral procession brushed an apopinax thorn, gaining six more years.
Visitors still report her shape gliding through the branches.
📍 14 Cordova St, St. Augustine, FL 32084, St. Augustine, FL · Get directions