Nineteenth-century quarantine hospital and cemetery discovered underwater in Florida

A cemetery and a quarantine hospital relationship again to the Nineteenth century had been discovered underwater off Garden Key island in Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park, the National Park Service introduced.

Both areas had been initially constructed on dry land on small islands close to Garden Key, after which submerged over time by storms and the ensuing motion of stated small islands.

The cemetery, uncovered in a survey underwater that started in August 2022, has been recognized by archaeologists because the Fort Jefferson Post Cemetery. The fort nonetheless stands as a historic website on Garden Key.

The solely identifiable grave discovered underwater belongs to 1 John Greer, who’s listed within the information for Fort Jefferson as a civilian laborer who died on Nov. 5, 1861.

While Fort Jefferson was deserted by the Army in 1873, the location nonetheless served as a coaling station – together with for the well-known USS Maine, whose sinking in Cuba’s Havana harbor in 1898 sparked the Spanish-American War.

Military personnel, each these stationed there and people imprisoned through the Civil War, make up the vast majority of the interred. Several had been civilians engaged on and on the fort, development of which started in 1846 however was by no means accomplished earlier than the Army deserted it.

The hospital, in the meantime, was used between 1890 and 1900 to quarantine yellow-fever sufferers.