Just across from the historic City Gate lies the Huguenot Cemetery, also called the St. Augustine Public Burying Ground. This small plot was set aside by the new American administration after the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty and the actual occupation of Florida in 1821. Before that change, St. Augustine was a Spanish colonial city and predominately Catholic, and the only burial ground inside the city, the Tolomato cemetery, was reserved for Catholics.
Recognizing the need for a formal Protestant burying ground, officials chose this area just outside the city gate. The first burials here began in 1821, just before a yellow fever epidemic that claimed the lives of a large number of the city’s inhabitants. Title to the property passed to the Rev. Thomas Alexander, who turned it over to the Presbyterian Church in 1832, and burials continued here until 1884, when both Huguenot and Tolomato cemeteries were closed.
Picture the Protestant burials that began here in 1821, just before yellow fever swept through the city and filled this new burying ground.