The University of West Florida is overseeing the on-site restoration of 100-year-old burial markers at Pensacola’s Historic Magnolia Cemetery. The preservation work is being funded by a grant from the Florida Division of Historical Resources through the Abandoned African American Cemeteries program.
In cooperation with UWF Historic Trust, the UWF Archaeology Institute secured $50,000 in funding to support the restoration of five vernacular markers that were created in the early 1900s.
“By vernacular, it’s not something that’s commercially produced. At this time, you could order a headstone out of the Sears and Roebuck catalogue or other similar catalogues, and they would mail it to you, and you would get something that’s pretty stock,” said Jennifer Melcher, faculty researcher for the institute.
“So they are being very resourceful to recreate markers that are sort of the same style that you would see in catalogues, but they’re making them locally with local traditions and locally available materials.”
Melcher says four of the markers tapped for restoration were crafted by the same artisan, believed to be Daniel Wilkins, a talented mason who was known to be working in Pensacola during the period. Altogether, Melcher has identified more than 20 markers across the city that she thinks were created by Wilkins, who used similar templates and the same locally sourced materials that, over time, made those markers vulnerable to deterioration.
“Yes, because we have brick and plaster, and we live in Florida, where we have a lot of rain, and we have a lot of vegetation growth, and these are cemeteries, which, due to being under-resourced, they had issues through time,” Melcher explained. “So, these markers are all experiencing fractures and being at risk of, frankly, collapse. And, if they collapse, then we lose information about the individual who’s buried there, and we lose these beautiful artisan examples of a mason’s work from the turn of the 20th century.”
This is why they’ve contracted with a company out of New Orleans to do the restoration work.
“Today, we are doing the final stucco repairs to several concrete monuments in Magnolia Cemetery,” said Emily Ford, owner of Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation.
On this day, Ford is at the A Street location working to restore the monument of Richard Stallworth, who was born in 1878 and died in 1920. Over the past 100 years, his burial marker has developed a lot of cracks.
“Where we see these cracks are exactly where the masonry failures are, and it gives us sort of a road map from which we can work,” Ford explained. “That’s why there’s more damage on the bottom than the top because the decay kind of starts from there. Yeah, a lot of crack repair.”
The restoration goes far beyond the headstone’s foundation.
“We have a die, that’s what this big part on the top of the base is, with an open book, and then what we would call a vault lid,” Ford said, describing the Stallworth monument and the nice inscriptions that the craftsperson would often do.
“So we have reconstructed the vault lid,” said Ford, sharing the status of their restoration work. “And the next thing we’ll be doing is building out the cornice to drag what’s called a horse, with a stencil, across to build the cornice out, and, finally, we’ll be painting it.”
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Typically, the color white was chosen to mimic marble or stone. But in this case, they’ve chosen a less blinding off-white, with a complimentary color to highlight the inscription and other details added by the artisan.
“You’re pointing, specifically, at the Mason Square and Compass, which is another detail of his that he was very good at,” she stated.
When it comes to the restoration, Ford said the materials used are extremely important. In this case, she’s using Rosendale cement, which is heavier and stronger, but was made from a quarry in New York at the same time the Pensacola monuments would have been made around the turn of the 20th century.
On this visit to Magnolia Cemetery, Ford has been working on other restoration projects, including the 1920 markers of Rosse B. Faulks, who was 43 years old when she died and Liller Williams, who died about a month shy of her 37th birthday.
“This is the reason we’re doing this,” stated Melcher, pointing to a nearby burial marker where the cement face has crumbled beyond repair. “This is another marker by the same artisan and, unfortunately, we’ll never know who this person is, unfortunately.”
Melcher said it’s important to preserve these markers before they all become a pile of rubble like this one.
“If for no other reason, they tell a niche part of Pensacola’s history, where people in the African American community who are very much still very devoted to their families and very interested in engaging with getting these long-term duration markers,” she said, noting that they found a way to get the highest quality they could afford. “So, they’re able to make these with this local brick mason who had an incredible amount of skill, as you can see when you look at these markers, just how skilled of a mason he was.”
Not counting prep work and logistics planning, the Oak and Laurel restoration team spent about 20 days working at Magnolia Cemetery, with a few days set aside to repair the tomb of Dorothy Walton at the Historic St. Michael’s Cemetery in downtown Pensacola.
