This headstone is in Tampa's oldest cemetery, Oaklawn. The deceased appears from the barely-legible carving to have lived from 1854 to 1888. The part I like is the hands shaking. Apparently, every headstone symbol has meaning. According to the website Cemeteries and Cemetery Symbols, "A handshake symbol on a tombstone usually signifies a welcome into the heavenly world. Sometimes you may see this as a symbol of matrimony on the grave marker of a married couple. If it’s a marriage symbol you may notice that one cuff will look masculine and the other, feminine."
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Oaklawn Cemetery, established in the mid-1800s, is owned by the city and is Tampa's oldest burial ground. It adjoins St. Louis Cemetery, which is owned by the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, and both are surrounded by a stone wall bounded by Harrison, Jefferson, Morgan and Laurel Streets in Tampa's downtown. A fence that once separated the two disappeared long ago. A number of prominent persons from the city's history are buried here including Tampa's first mayor, Joseph B. Lancaster, and 12 other Tampa mayors, a governor of Florida, two Florida Supreme Count Justices, Confederate soldiers, and members of some of Tampa's more illustrious, pioneer families. Vicente Martinez Ybor, the man for whom Ybor City is named, and who brought the cigar industry here from Key West and made Tampa the Cigar Capital of the World, is also buried here. (I posted another monochrome image of the cemetery on August 23. Click HERE to take a look.)
A canopy of ancient oaks entangled with moss silently shroud the crumbling walls and stones of Oaklawn Cemetery, Tampa's oldest burial ground.
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