Ft. Jefferson/Dry Tortugas

[Houmes]

(04-05-2013 09:59 AM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  I believe you are right, Bill.

Also, Liz, wasn't one of the little land masses around Ft. Jefferson named Bird Key? I believe that was where O'Laughlen's body was buried during the Yellow Fever epidemic.

O'Laughlen was buried on Hospital Key (formerly called Sand Key or Middle Key), about 1.5 miles northeast of Fort Jefferson, which is located on Garden Key. Bird Key was about a mile southwest of Fort Jefferson. Bird Key disappeared during a storm in 1935. In 1862 a smallpox epidemic broke out, and ill soldiers were quarantined on Bird Key. It was later used as a burial ground for Union soldiers, but in July 1865 (just before the arrival of the Lincoln conspirators) an uprising occurred between the soldiers and the engineers building Fort Jefferson. One of the engineers had a financial sideline raising hogs to provide meat at the fort, and he used convict labor to move his herd to Bird Key for better pasture land. Hogs forage by rooting, the graves where quite shallow, and you can figure out what they started eating.