The Pandemic of 1918 at Marianna's School for Boys

264 sick and thirteen dead in 48-hours.

by Dale Cox

The African American dormitory at Florida Industrial School
for Boys, where 196 of 198 students fell ill within 48-hours.

The Florida State Reform School became the Florida Industrial School for Boys (later Dozier School for Boys) in 1914. Four years later, it was devastated by the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918.

The flu hit with a vengeance, and the best efforts of doctors, nurses, and public health officials were quickly overwhelmed. Reports prepared by the latter indicate that 371 Floridians lost their lives to the flu during a twelve-day period that ended on October 17, 1918. And these deaths were just the beginning.

Jacksonville officials quarantined their entire city and urged citizens to wear masks. St. Augustine closed its schools, theaters and soda fountains while banning public gatherings and even church services. The month was remembered for years there as “churchless October.”

The Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 was the most severe and deadly pandemic in recorded history to strike the United States. Estimates vary, but between 500,000 and 650,000 Americans lost their lives, as did millions of people worldwide. The number of deaths from Spanish influenza was higher than the number of battle deaths suffered in World War I.

Children wearing masks during the
1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic.

Influenza spread like lightning, and in Jackson County, as much as 50% of the population fell sick within a matter of days. The Florida Industrial School for Boys, tragically, was not exempt.

Of the 267 students at the school, 264 fell ill within 48 hours. The assistant superintendent of the North or “colored” campus became sick, as did his entire family. All three of the school's engineers succumbed to the illness, along with all of the students that helped them run the school’s power, water, and sewage systems. With no one to run the pumps, the school’s water dried up.  With no water, the toilets and sinks stopped working. The small hospital, a wooden building measuring only 16 by 16 feet, had no water, power, or sanitation.

The African American North or “colored” campus (as it was called in that day) was overcrowded before the Spanish flu. Within three days, 196 of the 198 students and eight of the ten employees there fell ill. The matron of the North campus was the first person at the school to die. Her body lay unburied for 24 hours because there was no one to dig a grave. On the white or South campus, meanwhile, 68 of the 69 students became sick along with all but one or two of the employees.

The situation deteriorated so quickly that “horror” is the only word to describe it:

Nurses helping sick soldiers during the 1918 pandemic. The
Spanish Influenza killed more American soldiers than died
from enemy fire in World War I.

Conditions at the school are very bad. Sewerage imperfect, no sanitary rules at all, screens broke, fleas by the thousands. There were thirty-five cases of pneumonia, lack of medicine and lack of proper nourishment. No linen, boys lying under wool blankets, naked, with dirty mattresses on the cement floor; the reason said to be that the husks would all run out if put on a cot. The condition was one of filth, body lice, improper food, no bathing for lack of towels.^[i]

Dr. George W. Klock, who wrote the above, was an official with the U.S. Public Health Service. He arrived at the school as influenza was raging and conditions were at their worst:

 The dinner of the well colored boys the day I was there being hoecake and bacon grease thickened with flour. The dinner of the white boys being rice and bacon grease gravy. One boy said he was flogged for refusing to cook peas full of worms; that meat sent to the boys was kept until spoiled and then fed them and they all were sick.^[ii]

Klock did not note in his report that the citizens of Marianna were also suffering from the flu. Only one of the city’s doctors remained on his feet and was so overwhelmed that he simply could not care for the hundreds of patients pleading for his help. Most citizens had to care for themselves as deaths multiplied across Jackson County. Graves dating from the fall of 1918 dot the landscape at cemeteries throughout the area. Many of the dead were children.

Eleven students and two employees died at the Florida Industrial School for Boys during the Spanish Influenza pandemic. Although the University of South Florida, citing a Miami Herald report, claimed that all were African American, school records indicate that both white and black students were among the deceased:

Wilbur Smith, 1918; Influenza; African American; Student

Willie Adkins; 1918; Influenza; African American; Student

Lloyd Dutton; 1918; Influenza; White; Student

Hilton Finley, 1918; Influenza; White; Student

Puner Warner, 1918; Influenza; White; Student

Ralph Whidden, 1918, Influenza, White, Student

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, African American, Female Employee

Unknown, 1918, Influenza, White, Male Employee

The "Boot Hill Cemetery" on the Dozier School
campus was shown on topographic maps as
early as 1948. 25% of the people buried there
died of the Spanish flu in one week.

The flu continued with deadly effect at the school until doctors and nurses from the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee reached the scene. The arrival of trained medical personnel stopped the spiraling death rate and improved conditions at the school.

Governor Sidney Catts ordered an investigation of conditions. A group of three physicians made this inquiry and issued a report in January 1919. On the defensive, the doctors scalded Dr. Klock for his failure to investigate better the causes of the horrific conditions he witnessed:

…Did Dr. Klock say that the superintendent was not a well man? That the assistant superintendent, in charge of the colored department, with all his family were stricken? Did he say that one of the matrons died and remained for hours without attention because the few not in bed had to give aid to the living? Did he say that the attending physician, the only doctor on his feet in Marianna and surrounding community had ten times as much to do as any human being could perform? Did he say that the school was without water for lack of help to run the pump, causing the sewers to choke? Did he say that sixty-eight out of sixty-nine white boys and one hundred and ninety-eight colored boys were down practically at one time? Did he say that the dining room…with cement floor, was temporarily converted into a hospital by a physician, to relieve the congestion in their dormitory?... Did he say that the good people of Marianna had been acting as nurses of this institution until the needs of their own families and surroundings took them away?^[iii]

Spanish Influenza affected the region for decades to come. Families struggled without their lost loved ones, while children still in the womb later suffered much higher rates of learning and physical disabilities than babies born just one year later.

Physicians and scientists study the pandemic of 1918 to this day, searching for lessons to help them rates of death and infection from new worldwide outbreaks.

References:

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[i] Report of Dr. George W. Klock, U.S. Public Health Service, reprinted in Tampa Tribune, November 2, 1918.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Report of the Physicians’ Committee to the Commissioners of the Board of State Institutions, Marianna, Florida, November 5, 1918.

Death at Dozier School (Part Two: The 1914 Fire)

Dormitory destroyed by fire in 1914.

Note:  This is part two in a series on known deaths at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. The focus is on probable burials at the school's "Boot Hill" cemetery. Please click here to read Part One of this series.

Death at Dozier School

A History of “Boot Hill Cemetery” at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida

by Dale Cox

Part Two: The 1914 Fire

The deadliest single day in the history of the facility later known as Dozier School for Boys was November 18, 1914. Ninety-nine years ago this month, a fire erupted in the “white” dormitory of the school, burning it to the ground and killing seven students and two employees.

The year 1914 was a momentous one in history. An estimated 1,047 people died when the barely-remembered RMS Empress of Ireland went down after colliding with another vessel in the St. Lawrence River, just two years after the legendary RMS Titanic had carried 1,500 to the bottom. Central America witnessed the passage of the first vessel passed through the now famous Panama Canal.  In Sarajevo, a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, sparking World War I, while in Siberia an attempt to assassinate the brutal Rasputin failed. In the United States, Babe Ruth played in his first major league baseball game, Charlie Chaplin appeared in the first feature-length silent film comedy, Ford Motor Company introduced the 8-hour workday and the Federal Reserve Bank opened for business.

In Jackson County, an unexplained series of fires continued on the campus of the Florida Industrial School for Boys (future Dozier School) in Marianna.

Building identical to burned dormitory (at right, notice the tower)
Florida State Archives, Florida Memory Collection

These fires took place with alarming frequency over the first 14 years of the school’s operation. One in February 1906 had killed six mules and three horses and destroyed corn, hay and 32 barrels of syrup. The cause was arson and the suggestion was raised that former guards had been responsible. “It is supposed that the barn was set on fire to spite the superintendent,” reported the Pensacola Journal, “as several guards have been discharged for various reasons.” Tracking dogs brought to the scene, however, failed to detect the trail of the perpetrator.[i]

The fires continued over the next five years with growing frequency and on January 25, 1911, a new brick barn burned to the ground with almost disastrous consequences:

That the school’s loss is not greater is miraculous, as the dormitory for colored inmates is within fifty to seventy-five feet of the barn. None of the livestock or farming implements were lost. This will badly cripple the school as all of the supplies of this kind [i.e. hay and cattle feed] were in this one barn.[ii]

The outbreak of a fire described as “spectacular and fierce” so close to one of the school’s two dormitories alarmed employees, authorities and reporters alike. Damage was estimated at $10,000, a massive figure in that day and age, with 1,000 bales of hay and several tons of cattle feet being destroyed, along with a supposedly “fireproof” barn.[iii]

Newspaper clippings indicate additional fires took place over the next three years, although none resulted in destruction on the scale of the 1911 blaze. All were blamed on an “incendiary” or arsonist.[iv]

The escalating series of fires came to a dramatic end in the predawn darkness of November 18, 1914:

Closeup of building identical to burned dormitory.
The superintendent and older boys escaped through the tower.
Florida State Archives, Florida Memory Collection

W.H. Bell, acting superintendent, has just wired from Marianna that main building white school was destroyed by fire last night, and eight boys and two officers dead. Please call meeting of Board of Managers with least possible delay. Have matter exhaustively investigated and let me have report.[v]

Immediate reports from the scene indicated that the fire had been discovered by a night watchman at around 3:30 a.m. The watchman passed the main dormitory and saw no problems at 3:15 a.m., but when he returned from his rounds fifteen minutes later, a large fire was burning on the ground floor near the base of the main stairway. He began to call out to the boys and employees sleeping on the second and third floors of the building, trying to alert them to the danger.[vi]

The calls of the watchman alerted Severino Gustinez, a student considered so trustworthy by administrators that he had been given employment at the school and assigned to watch over the younger boys who were housed on the second floor of the east wing of the dormitory. Although some media reports of the time claimed that fire drills had never been held at the school, the opposite appears to have been true.[vii]

Realizing the danger, Gustinez called out “fire drill” to awaken the young students under his charge. Sleepily rising from their beds, they immediately formed into the proper lines for evacuating the building. Realizing that he could not take them down the main stairway due to the fire, he led them down the western stairway to safety. Thanks to “Toto,” all of the younger students made it out of the building without incident.[viii]

Leaving the small boys in charge of a guard named Register, Gustinez then went back into the building where he found an older boy nicknamed “Monkey Wrench” lost in the smoke.  Carrying “Monkey Wrench” in his arms, he made his way back to the stairway but found the door now in flames. Risking his own body to bring “Monkey Wrench” to safety, Gustinez leaped through the burning doorway. Both survived, although the heroic rescuer suffered slight injuries.[ix]

Another older student named Walter Tucker made it out, but was unable to find his bunk mate Button Shaw. Desperate to save his friend, he went back into the burning building, found Shaw still in bed, pulled him out and carried him up to the third floor of the building. The tower that rose above the center of the structure had windows that also functioned as skylights. Dragging Shaw up into the tower and through one of these windows, Tucker carried him across the roof and down the fire escape to safety.[x]

The acting superintendent of the school – later claims to the contrary aside – was in the building and asleep when the fire broke out. Making his way up to the tower, W.H. Bell helped most of the older boys escape through a window and then down the fire escape to the ground.[xi]

Having already saved many lives, Bell now joined a desperate effort to save two employees and a student who could be seen trapped inside a locked grate that blocked access to the fire escape from the second floor:

…The office being in flames, he procured an axe and with the assistance of Mr. Allen, one of the guards, he climbed to the landing of the fire escape at the second floor, where three men were trying to make their escape. He succeeded in breaking the locks of the barred grating to the window, but was unable to get the metal frame out of the window. In the meantime, the floors gave way and the inmates were hurried to their doom.[xii]

Two of the men who died as Bell and Allen tried to save them were Bennett Evans, the school carpenter, and Charles M. Evans, his son who was employed as a guard. Charles had made it out of the building, but was unable to find his father and went back inside to save him. He found Bennett looking for him in the smoke and tried to bring him and a student they found lost in the smoke to safety, but found their escape barred by the locked grate. All were killed when the floor collapsed beneath them.[xiii]

Despite folklore repeated second hand by researchers from the University of South Florida, there was no mention of any kind in the eyewitness accounts of the fire, let alone any actual evidence, that any of the students were chained to their bunks or that they had to break locks to get out of the building. In fact, original reports indicate that all who died were moving freely inside the building, that the western stairway was open and that the fire escape could be and was accessed via the roof of the building. Reporters noted that had some students not panicked, all could have escaped.

The Tampa Tribune, for example, reported that most of the dead were in the west wing of the building farther from the fire than the smaller boys who were led to safety by Severino Gustinez. They became “panic-stricken” the newspaper reported, and lost their lives as a result.[xiv]

According to the Tribune, the guard named Register went back into the building after getting the smaller boys to a safe place. He found a group of older boys still inside and led them to a stairway by which escape was still possible. Frightened by the smoke that filled the stairwell, however, they panicked and went back deeper into the building to a locked window that opened onto the fire escape. They lost their lives as a result. 

The windows had been locked to prevent boys from using the fire escape to run away during the night. The school grounds were not fenced at the time and escapes had been a problem for the staff, which had been overwhelmed by judges around the state with many more students than the facility was designed to handle. The stairways and doors were not locked, nor was the entrance to the fire escape from the top of the building, but the windows opening onto it had been secured.

Within thirty minutes of the time the fire was discovered, the “white dormitory” of the Florida Industrial School for Boys burned to the ground. By the time the sun rose over the horrible scene, only the ruined sections of walls could still be seen.

Although researchers from the University of South Florida have made questionable claims that as many as twelve people died in the fire, initial reports from the scene placed the number at ten (two employees and eight students). Subsequent investigation revealed that the actual number was somewhat lower.  

I will provide more information on the true number of deaths from the fire and some of the controversy surrounding it in my next post in this series.  Be sure to check back regularly at http://twoegg.blogspot.com.

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[i] “Fire at State Reform School,” report from Marianna dated February 28, 1906, Pensacola Journal, March 1, 1906, p. 1.

[ii] Pensacola News, January 1911, clipping in Singletary Collection.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Clippings from the Marianna Times-Courier, 1911-1914, Singletary Collection.

[v] Gov. Park Trammell to Hon. W.H. Milton, President of the Board of Governors, November 18, 1914, Singletary Collection.

[vi] “Heroic Tampa Boy saves many lives at Marianna Fire,” datelined Marianna, November 20, 1914, Tampa Tribune, November 21, 1914, p. 1.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Anonymous, “Ten Lives Lost When Florida Reform School Burns at Marianna,” November 18, 1914, report reprinted in numerous newspapers across the United States.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] “Heroic Tampa Boy saves many lives at Marianna Fire,” datelines Marianna, November 20, 1914, Tampa Tribune, November 21, 1914, p. 1.

Death at Dozier School (Part One: 1900-1913)

Memorial Crosses at Boot Hill Cemetery
Dozier School for Boys - Marianna, Florida

Note:  What follows is the first installment in a series I plan to post on the history of deaths and probable burials at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida.To check for additional posts in this series, please check back regularly at http://twoegg.blogspot.com.

Death at Dozier School

A History of “Boot Hill Cemetery” at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida

by Dale Cox

Dozier School for Boys, originally known as the State Reform School, was a facility for juvenile offenders that operated for more than 100 years in Marianna, Florida. During the course of that long history, a number of students and employees of the school died from a variety of causes. Many were buried in the school cemetery, which is known locally and by former students and staff members alike as “Boot Hill.”

The cemetery is now the focus of a controversial research project by Dr. Erin Kimmerle and a team from the University of South Florida (USF). They are exhuming graves from the cemetery, which has been a known part of the local landscape for some 100 years.

Groups of former students claim that murder of juvenile offenders by staff members was common at the facility, even though no documentation or evidence has surfaced thus far.  The matter was investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), which determined there were no grounds for criminal charges against former employees of the school and that the graves in the cemetery should not be exhumed.

The three-member Florida Cabinet subsequently overruled FDLE, the circuit judge of the 14^th Judicial Circuit, the State Archaeologist and the Secretary of State and authorized USF to begin a project to exhume the graves. That project is underway at this time.

The purpose of this series is to present a documented history of known deaths at the school, with a focus on probable burials in the school cemetery.

--

The earliest known deaths at what would become Dozier School for Boys were not included in “Documentation of the Boot Hill Cemetery”, the interim report prepared in 2012 by Dr. Erin Kimmerle and other researchers from the University of South Florida (USF).[1]  

According to an October 1906 article written for the Marianna Times-Courier by Frank McDonald, two deaths took place at what was then the State Reform School during its first six years of operation:

The inmates are rosy-cheeked and robust, and their health is and has been excellent. There have been but two deaths since the institution was started, and of these one came to the school with organic disease of the heart, while the other was recaptured escape, who succumbed, notwithstanding the best of care and medical attention, from the inroads of long exposure at an inclement season.[2]

The identities of the students were not included in McDonald’s article, in which he noted that the population at the school then consisted of 39 boys and 4 girls. In the six years that had passed since the opening of the reform school, he reported, 171 juveniles had been received there and 128 discharged. Several of those discharged were escapees who were recaptured and sent on to other correctional facilities.[3]

The earliest records of the school were destroyed when the dormitory that also contained the superintendent’s office was destroyed by fire in 1914, so nothing else is known at this time about the two student deaths mentioned by McDonald. It is not known whether they were buried at the school or returned home for burial.[4]

USF researchers evidently did not locate this article while preparing their interim report for the Florida Division of Historical Resources.

Dr. Kimmerle, the head of the university’s research team, was invited by State Archaeologist Mary Glowacki to attend a meeting in Marianna on April 15, 2013, the purpose of which was to discuss concerns over the nature of the research at the Dozier School Cemetery and to improve communication so documentation could be presented to the USF team. Although Dr. Glowacki attended the meeting, as did I and Julia C. Byrd of the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research, Dr. Kimmerle did not show, indicating that she was having lunch with her team members instead.[5]

Ms. Byrd subsequently requested that I continue to maintain an open stance with regard to sharing information with Dr. Kimmerle and her team. I notified her on April 16, 2013, that I was open to doing so. In the six months that followed, I received no contact from them and my only attempt to contact the school was referred to USF’s legal team.[6]

Believing that all information regarding deaths and potential burials at the school should be of significance to a team researching deaths and potential burials at the school, I sent the article quoted above to Gerard Solis, of the Office of General Counsel for USF. He has been cordial in his communications with me and informed me by email on September 24, 2013 that he had forwarded my email to Dr. Kimmerle.[7] 

The next known deaths at the State Reform School took place in 1914, but it is certainly possible that others occurred between October 1906, the date of the article quoted above, and November 1914, the date of the fatal fire that destroyed a dormitory and the school’s records. Future research in newspaper archives may reveal information on additional deaths that may have taken place in this 8 year time period.

The next installment in this series details the facts of the deadly fire that took place at the school in 1914. To continue to it, please visitDeath at Dozier School (Part Two: The 1914 Fire).

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[1] Kimmerle EH, Estabrook R, Wells EC, Jackson AT. 2012. Documentation of the Boot Hill Cemetery (8JA1860) at the former Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, Interim Report, Division of Historical Resources, Permit No. 1112.032, December 10, 2012.

[2] McDonald, Frank, “History and Progress of State Reform School,” Marianna Times-Courier, October 1906, reprinted in The Pensacola Journal, October 24, 1906, p. 4.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Ten Lives Lost when Florida Reform School Burns at Marianna,” Tampa Tribune, November 19, 1914, p. 1.

[5] Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research, to Dale Cox, April 12, 2013; Dale Cox to Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research, April 15, 2013; Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research, April 16, 2013; Mary Glowacki, State Archaeologist, to Dale Cox, April 16, 2013.

[6] Julia C. Byrd, Bureau of Archaeological Research to Dale Cox, April 16, 2013; Dale Cox to Mary Glowacki, State Archaeologist, April 16, 2013.

[7] Dale Cox to Gerard D. Solis, Office of General Counsel (USF), September 22, 2013; Gerard D. Solis, Office of General Counsel (USF), to Dale Cox, September 24, 2013.

USF Researchers refuse to examine Dozier documents

One of the boxes of documents that USF researchers
refused to examine while "researching" Dozier School.

While claiming they are researching the "truth" about the small cemetery at the former Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, scientists and students from the University of South Florida (USF) today refused to even look at thousands of pages of documents about the school.

The awkward situation developed when a representative of a local historic preservation group contacted me to indicate they had been asked by USF researcher Antoinette Jackson to meet and discuss any documents relating to Dozier that might be in their collection.  Since the organization does not have any Dozier-related documents, its representative asked me if I would be willing to make my collection of thousands of pages of Dozier material available to the researchers.

I agreed to do so and boxed up a wealth of Dozier documentation from my collection and carried it to Marianna so the USF researchers could access it more easily.  After waiting nearly 2 hours, I was told that Jackson and her team members refused to even so much as look at it.

Obviously, they didn't want to so much as breathe the same air as me, even if that meant ignoring thousands of pages of material that sheds considerable light on the truth about the deaths and graves at the former Marianna reform school. 

Not only is this sad, it is silly. It is hard for me to imagine that any serious researcher would turn down the chance to view a collection containing thousands of pages of documentation on a topic of such interest to them.  But, sadly, that is the case with USF. 

The school apparently would rather remain in the dark than so much as talk politely with someone who disagrees with them and their tactics.  Perhaps the researchers would do well to learn that people can be polite, even though they disagree with you. 

Since $600,000 in taxpayer money is being spent on this fiasco, I would have assumed that they would want their research to be as accurate as possible.  I guess I assumed wrong.

The school (USF), as you probably know, is in the process of exhuming graves from the small, known cemetery at Dozier School, even though 80% of the families with loved ones buried there have not been contacted. So far they have found between 30 and 40 humans buried in coffins according to standard mortuary and religious practices of the early 20th century, along with a dog buried in an old cooler.

They have reported finding no graves outside of the traditional cemetery limits, despite often wild claims by a group of former students seeking large payments from the state.

White House Boy now claims "missing" boys must have been eaten by hogs or sent to dump!

Student with a Prize Hog
(State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Collection)

Just when it seemed as if the wild stories told by some of the so-called "White House Boys" couldn't get any wilder, one now says that the reason murdered boys won't be found in the current dig at the Dozier School Cemetery is because they were "thrown in the dump" or "fed to the hogs."

Even though various members of the various White House Boys groups have been demanding for years that the cemetery be dug up by the University of South Florida, they now seem to be hedging their bets. This after more than $600,000 in taxpayer money has been provided for the project they demanded and after Governor Rick Scott and the members of the Florida Cabinet overruled the system set up by Florida law for such projects. A circuit judge, the state archaeologist and the Secretary of State all had denied permission for the project to go forward.

Memorial Area of Dozier School Cemetery

In an interview this week with the Graceville News - a Jackson County newspaper - one of the "White House Boys" said that the world would no longer be able to call him "a liar," but then launched into a long explanation of why the bodies of murdered students won't be found.

The man, who I am not identifying because he has received enough publicity from his changing stories, once claimed he had seen a boy burned to death in a dryer at the school's laundry. According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, however, he changed his story under oath to claim that he hadn't actually seen the alleged event that the Tampa Bay Times breathlessly reported he had witnessed.

Students tend to hogs at Dozier School
(State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory)

He now says that murdered boys won't be found on the campus of the Marianna school because they were burned in the incinerator, tossed in the dump, buried under the road or even chopped into pieces and fed to the hogs!

Apparently these would be the same hogs that were cared for by the students themselves and that they often entered in the Jackson County Fair, just as did students from other schools throughout the county.

The wild story is just the latest in a series of stories that have grown wilder and wilder since the groups surfaced a little over 5 years ago with claims that boys were beaten to death and murdered at the school more than 50 years ago. They have yet to provide a single name of a single boy they allege was murdered, but the claims by some of them grow wilder and wilder.

All graves exhumed so far were inside the traditional cemetery
and within the view of this photo, which shows the memorial
erected by staff members and students in the background.

The Graceville News also joined the growing list of U.S. newspapers to falsely report that the University of South Florida has located graves "outside the known burial grounds." The reporter seems not to understand that the small memorial of crosses erected by Dozier School employees and students in the 1960s is not the known burial ground, but instead is simply a memorial placed by them in memory of the students and employees known to be buried on the hill.

The actual burial ground is larger, was shown on federal and state maps as far back as the 1940s and originally was surrounded with a wire fence that no longer can be seen, although parts of it were found in the dirt that USF researchers had bulldozed from the cemetery along with ornamental cedar trees that once marked actual grave sites.

Partially surviving row of cedar trees at Dozier School Cemetery

The anthropologists, archaeologists and even a reporter they allowed to help them appear clueless to the fact that in the South, cedar trees often were planted at the head of graves. In earlier times, graves often were marked with wooden crosses or markers that deteriorated with time. To make sure graves could always found, people of earlier generations often planted cedar trees to help mark them far into the future.

The Dozier School Cemetery once included rows of cedar trees marking the actual grave sites. USF, however, had some of these trees pushed away using heavy equipment so researchers could search for graves - apparently not realizing the trees actually marked the graves.

Some of the trees survive and, as expected, one stands directly at the head of one of the two graves exhumed so far.

To read more about the real facts of the dig so far, please visit these links:

Facts from the first phase of the Dozier School Cemetery digging

USF digs up a dog at Dozier School

Dozier School "Mystery Graves" were there in 1940

USDA Aerial Photographs Show “Controversial” Cemetery Existed Before World War II
by Dale Cox

The little cemetery near Dozier School that has been the subject of so much controversy of late actually existed for decades prior to the current allegations. In fact, aerial photographs taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture clearly show that the cemetery was part of the Marianna landscape as early as 1940.

Historical records indicate that most of the graves in the burial ground, which is located on the hill behind the Jackson County Correctional Complex, probably date from 1914 and 1918.
A deadly accidental fire took place at what was then the Florida Reform School in 1914, claiming the lives of six students and two staff members. A Jackson County Grand Jury report indicates that the fire was caused either by a faulty heater or spontaneous combustion from a nearby pile of oily rags. Regardless of the cause, however, it quickly spread through a dormitory at the school threatening the lives of everyone inside.

While more than fifty students were led to safety by staff members, five other students and two staff members were trapped by the flames. Grand Jury records indicate that a desperate effort was made to save them. Several staff members, including the facility’s superintendent, received severe burns in an unsuccessful effort to reach the unfortunate individuals. A sixth student died after he ran back into the building to try to save one of the staff members. A letter written in 1914 from the superintendent to the mother of one of the victims indicates that those who died in the fire were burned beyond recognition and were buried on the grounds.

A second tragedy at the school in 1918 claimed at least 13 more lives. According to U.S. health records, what is now Dozier School was severely impacted by the terrible influenza epidemic that year that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A federal health inspector visited the Florida Reform School and found that hundreds of students and all of the staff members were severely ill with the flu. According to his report, one dozen students and one staff member had already died in the epidemic and many others were near death.

These two incidents alone count for the deaths of at least 21 people at the school prior to 1920, all of whom are believed to have been buried on the grounds. Records also verify the deaths of other individuals at the school over the years, from causes ranging from accidental drowning to the murder of a student by another student.

The fact that the little cemetery there existed during the early 1900s can be confirmed by aerial photographs taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A series of photographs taken through the 1940s show that the Dozier Cemetery then looked much as it does today. The initial photograph, taken in 1940, shows the cemetery on the hilltop where itcan still be seen. . Another, taken in 1960, shows the cemetery surrounded by trees as it is today.

While this new evidence does not prove or disprove the stories of abuse at the school, it does show that the little cemetery has been a part of the Jackson County landscape for nearly sixty years.