MIAMI CITY CEMETERY

In 1897 Mrs. William Brickell sold this 10-acre “rocky wasteland” to the City of Miami for $750. At that time it was located one half mile north of the city limits on a narrow wagon track county road. The first burial, not recorded, was of an elderly black man on 14 July 1897. The first recorded burial was H. Graham Branscomb, a 23-year-old Englishman on 20 July 1897. From its inception it was subdivided with whites on the east end and the colored population on the west end. In 1915 the Beth David congregation began a Jewish section. Two other prominent sections are the circles: the first to Julia Tuttle, the “Mother of Miami” buried in 1898; the second, a memorial to the Confederate Dead erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Sixty-six Confederate and twenty-seven Union veterans are buried here. Other sections include a Catholic section, American Legion, Spanish American War, and two military sections along the north and south fence lines. Among the 9,000 burials are pioneer families such as the Burdines, Peacocks and Dr. James Jackson. This site has the only known five oolitic (limestone) gravestones worldwide. These and the unique tropical plants make this a tropical oasis.