Bosque Bello Cemetery

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The name means beautiful woods, and the live oaks hung with Spanish moss over the older section explain it. The ground holds more than two centuries of the island's people: shrimping pioneers from the fleet that worked out of Fernandina, Civil War veterans, sea captains, merchants, politicians and family after family of ordinary residents. The stonework is worth the walk on its own, with carved angels and crosses, monuments in the styles of several different decades, and tabby walls enclosing family plots, tabby being the local concrete of burned shell and sand. The city maintains it and it is still in use, with newer sections beyond the old one. Free walking guides are available at the Amelia Island Welcome Center, and the museum of history runs a guided tour called Graveside Chronicles. The ground is uneven and root-broken and does not suit a wheelchair or a walking frame. Tickets for the Graveside Chronicles tour are sold through the Amelia Island Museum of History at twenty-five dollars and go on sale in September for an October date. For anyone trying to understand this island, an hour here does more than a plaque: the names on the stones are the same names on the streets, the shrimp boats and the businesses on Centre Street, and the dates show when the yellow fever came through and when the railroad arrived