MIAMI – Archeologists have identified the stays of a 19th century quarantine hospital and cemetery on a submerged island in Florida’s Dry Tortugas Nationwide Park in the Gulf of Mexico.
Although only one particular grave has been identified, historical information point out dozens of people — primarily U.S. troopers stationed at Fort Jefferson — may have been buried at the site in waters west of Essential West, Florida, park officials stated in a news launch Monday.
A team that provided park cultural resources staff members, the National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Centre, the Southeast Archeological Middle, and a University of Miami graduate university student, manufactured the discovery for the duration of a survey of Fort Jefferson Write-up Cemetery that began very last August.
They learned the grave of John Greer, a laborer who died on Nov. 5, 1861. Officials reported they never know much about Greer, but his grave was prominently marked with a big slab of greywacke, the similar materials utilized to assemble the initially floor of Fort Jefferson.
“This intriguing obtain highlights the prospective for untold stories in Dry Tortugas National Park, each previously mentioned and beneath the h2o,” mentioned Josh Marano, a maritime archeologist for the South Florida national parks, and the survey’s job director.
He reported initiatives are continuing to learn a lot more about many others buried on the submerged island.
Fort Jefferson was a armed forces prison throughout the American Civil War, and the bordering islands grew to become a naval outpost, a lighthouse station, naval hospital, quarantine facility and a internet site for armed service instruction.
The threat of communicable disorders, which include outbreaks of the mosquito-borne yellow fever, increased as the fort’s populace grew with navy staff, prisoners, enslaved individuals, assistance employees and their family members.
The fort was abandoned in 1873, but the U.S. Maritime Medical center Support occupied it again concerning 1890 and 1900, and an isolation hospital was established up on a close by island.
“Whilst a great deal of the record of Fort Jefferson focuses on the fortification alone and some of its notorious prisoners, we are actively doing the job to explain to the tales of the enslaved individuals, women, young children and civilian laborers,” Marano said.
