The lure, and lore, of Palmetto’s Yellow Fever Cemetery attracts an Eagle Scout

Palmetto’s historic Yellow Fever Cemetery is a source of great pride for the neighborhood at the corner of Fifth Street West and 14th Avenue West. With its history, recent renovations and a new project — courtesy of a young man seeking to complete his Eagle Scout project — Palmetto’s coolest little secret is out.

The technical name for people who love old cemeteries is Tapophila, but the layman term is “Tombstone Tourist.” Few can offer an explanation why old cemeteries appeal so much to them.

“They just do,” said Ginger Gilbert, who lives across the street. She sees the cemetery as more of an asset than a liability to her family home, which she has owned for 35 years. She is not only thrilled to live next door to a historic one, but is even happier to see all of the recent improvements.

“I love what the city has done with the improvements, and the new sign, fence and lights are just gorgeous,” Gilbert said. “I was scared to death when they took the other fence down that idiot kids would get in there and do some damage, but thankfully that didn’t happen.”

Gilbert is seeing more activity at the old cemetery.

“I saw a family come in the other day with a bouquet of flowers, and they stopped at one of the gravestones and set the flowers down,” she said. “That really touched my heart.”

The city has had ongoing efforts to restore the cemetery to honor those who succumbed to yellow fever’s long journey to Manatee County. The cemetery had those restoration projects completed in April 2017. Assistant City Clerk Amber LaRowe led those efforts and secured a $37,500 matching grant from the Florida Department of State Division of Historical Resources.

Enter into the picture Palmetto High School senior and Boy Scout Troop 72 member Christopher Miller, who wanted to find an Eagle Scout project that would have an impact.

He decided what better impact than to honor some of Palmetto’s original settlers who gave blood, treasure and life to building Palmetto. Miller picked the Yellow Fever Cemetery, named for the victims who fell to the 1888 outbreak. Many of their names have been victimized again, but this time from Mother Nature and the passage of time.

Miller’s project, which will take place March 10, will be to clean the headstones that mark the final resting places of Palmetto’s original settlers.

“When Christopher broached the idea of his Eagle Scout project, I was pleased that he chose to do one in Palmetto — but particularly one that preserves local history,” Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant said. “Christopher’s plan exemplifies the ‘perfect’ project by reaching out and partnering with the city and educating himself on the strict perimeters of historic preservation, arranging for funding and getting volunteers. All very impressive. I am proud that Christopher is a native of and resides in Palmetto.”

Miller has been in the planning stages for several months now and it took a lot of work just to get his project to the launching point. Miller had to research the cemetery and be trained by the Palmetto Historical Commission in how to clean headstones.

“You just can’t bring in a bucket of water and bleach,” Bryant said.

“I feel very honored that such a young man would come to the city to do this project,” LaRowe said. “After we’ve done all these great restoration projects here it was so fantastic to hear from such a nice young man that he would want to take on the cleaning of the headstones. He took it upon himself on how to do this and prepared everything himself.

“After finding out this was Palmetto’s original cemetery it was pretty cool finding out just how far back the history goes, from the yellow fever to some of the city’s original settlers,” he said. “And the fact that Samuel Lamb (Palmetto’s founder) donated the land to be the original cemetery is something I just thought was a really cool fact.”

Miller learned the headstone cleaning procedure from the Palmetto Historical Commission, and, “after they showed me how to clean off the headstones, I can now put together a group to help clean off the headstones in the cemetery.”

Miller’s project includes getting volunteers to help on March 10. Miller said he will demonstrate how to clean the headstones and, if a lot of people do show up, he will be looking for some to do some general cleanup around the graves.

“I think what that young man is doing is absolutely fabulous,” Gilbert said. “God bless him.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2018 at 5:19 PM with the headline "The lure, and lore, of Palmetto’s Yellow Fever Cemetery attracts an Eagle Scout."