By Jenny Pedraza, University Marketing Communications

It began during the midnight hours of Jan. 23 and continued through the early morning of the next day. Vandals entered St. Michael's Cemetery in historic downtown Pensacola and disturbed at least 23 gravesites containing remains of approximately 64 people. They targeted above-ground tombs, box tombs, below-ground tombs, one mausoleum and several headstones with the intent to disturb human remains. They vandalized the 150 year-old-graves of a 98 year-old woman and three-month old baby girl, among many others.

After hearing about the crime in local news, University of West Florida historical archaeology, history and public history graduate students decided to use their training to put the pieces back together and restore the cemetery.

"I feel it is part of my responsibility as a public historian to help preserve the history of our area and the people who lived here before us," said Jessica Stice, a public history graduate student. "Many of the people whose graves were desecrated helped build Pensacola as local politicians, lumber mill owners or homemakers."

As part of the recovery effort, living family members of the disinterred must be located and notified of the vandalism. The students are searching newspaper archives in the UWF John C. Pace Library for individual obituaries. They then retrace the deceased's genealogy to recreate family trees and track down living relatives. Other resources the students are using include the Escambia County courthouse, Pensacola's Historical Society, interment records, marriage licenses, out-of-state newspaper archives, the Internet, funeral home records, church archives, the social security index and the Florida State Archives in Tallahassee.

"St. Michael's Cemetery is a public venue, and it is a public historian's job - it is our passion - to link people today with those of the past," said Stice.

Through the students' work, many relatives of the deceased have been found. It is their hope that associating real lives with the names on the tombstones will raise public awareness and strengthen the commitment to preserving and protecting the cemetery and its history.

"The vandalized graves are more than slabs of granite," said Siska Williams, a historical archaeology graduate student. "Pensacola's present is rooted in the lives these individuals lived."

St. Michael's Cemetery is one of the oldest in the state of Florida, containing approximately 3,200 marked graves. Although the oldest standing marker dates back to 1812, there are a large number of unmarked graves associated with the colonial population of Pensacola beginning in the 18th century. The last burial in the cemetery was in 2005.

For more information on the students' work, contact Jay Clune, chair of the UWF Department of History, at (850) 474-2442 or e-mail jclune@uwf.edu. For more information on St. Michael's Cemetery, contact Margo Stringfield, research associate with the UWF Archaeology Institute, at (850) 474-3015 or e-mail mstringfield@uwf.edu.

Visit the St. Michael's Cemetery interactive Web site at uwf.edu/gis/smc/index.cfm.To volunteer for the St. Michael's Cemetery Foundation, contact President Howard Shores at (850) 476-3491.

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