Photo
by: JACKLYN MELTON
Nathaniel Boatwright and Mary
Crockett, great-grandchildren of Richard Quarls, have a family legacy in Tarpon
Springs.
Former
Slave's Family Sees Him Honored At Last
Published: May
31, 2003
TARPON
SPRINGS - After church on Sunday,
baked chicken, yellow rice and cabbage wait on the stove, and a glass-encased
carrot cake sits on the table in Mary Crockett's kitchen.
The screen door creaks as it
opens for family, friends and occasionally Ms. Kitty, her adopted gray cat.
This Sunday is no different
from many days at Crockett's house, built on property her great-grandfather
secured a century ago.
``Each one of my kids walks
through my door every day,'' says the 66-year-old woman, whose close-knit family
has a special place in local history.
It's a place not widely
documented in largely Greek Tarpon Springs. But because of her
great-grandfather, Crockett can sit in a wooden chair and create an unusual
picture of a black family growing from the Civil War through the civil rights
era and beyond.
Today, great-grandfather
Richard Quarls is honored with a gravestone at a cemetery recognized this month
by the National Park Service.
Born Into Slavery
But his family history began
when he was born into slavery on a South Carolina plantation and joined his
master's sons in the fight for the Confederacy.
``They freed him after he
fought,'' Crockett says.
And figuring his peers might
not appreciate his war service, ``he changed his name from Richard Quarls to
Chris Columbus - mainly because he couldn't read or write, and the only person
he knew was Christopher Columbus.''
Columbus arrived in Florida
in 1866, where he married his second wife, Mary Cornelius. Big Mary, as she was
called, worked in several prominent family homes and nurtured relationships
across the community.
Eventually, she began to be
invited to visit even when she wasn't working. And she kept Columbus' memory
alive after he died in 1925 - when a Tarpon Springs newspaper called him
``probably the best-known colored man in this section of the state.''
``The community took on the
role of being friendly to [her] in part because of him,'' says Crockett, who was
raised by the aging Big Mary even though she was a great-granddaughter from the
war veteran's previous marriage.
``It was really interesting
for me to grow up in that time because I interacted not only with the blacks but
with the white community,'' Crockett says. ``My great-grandmother and I felt
camaraderie when we went to town.
``If my great-grandmother
and Dr. Bayner would talk at Bayner's drugstore, they would send me up to the
counter and ask the soda jerk to fix me whatever I wanted. I was just a little
tot, but I could sit and eat at the counter when we weren't allowed to. ... I
didn't grow up with the prejudice even when I rode the bus with my
great-grandmother. The bus driver would say, `Mary, you can sit up in the
front.' ''
A generation later, it was
hard for Crockett to see her four children experience bigotry when they became
the first to integrate Tarpon Springs Elementary School.
``Some of the kids looked at
us as if we didn't belong there,'' recalls daughter Kathleen Crockett. ``In
middle school it was really bad. They used to stand on the sidewalks in huddles
to keep us from going. We would have to go around the sidewalks, and if you went
through them, they would push you.
``They would use the n-
word, and they told us we didn't belong there.''
But their mother knew they
most certainly belonged in Tarpon Springs. Around Crockett, strangers don't stay
strangers very long.
``Once you make a friend
with them, you've got them,'' she says. ``We still have that bond, and it's good
to be here in Tarpon.''
That explains why more than
200 friends, from the neighborhood bus driver to former Mayor Anita Protos,
showed their support in a February ceremony that honored Chris Columbus with a
new, government-issued headstone at the old Rose Cemetery.
Known also as Rose Hill
Cemetery, it spans five acres as the final resting place for hundreds of black
residents. It began at a time when blacks and whites, even if they were fellow
soldiers, weren't buried together. And over the years, its upkeep suffered
dramatically compared to the white graveyard next door.
``My grandfather is buried
in the white cemetery across the street,'' says Tony Leisner, who became
involved with the nonprofit Rose Cemetery Association after meeting Alfred
Quarterman, president of the all- volunteer organization that owns and tries to
maintain the black burial ground.
Leisner initiated a ground-
penetrating radar project to place circular markers over rediscovered graves.
But what took the effort further was the work of local genealogy buff Deborah
Gammon.
Gammon found Columbus'
records while doing research on her own great-grandfather in the local library.
She learned that in 1916, Columbus was in poor health and needed proof he served
in the war to draw a government pension.
``Three white men stood and
swore Richard Quarls was a Confederate soldier,'' Gammon says. ``That was
remarkable for that time.''
Once she discovered his
pension papers, she knew he also was entitled to a tombstone from the
government.
``I have crawled through
bushes in graveyards with a machete and found graves underneath,'' she says.
``Inscriptions would read:
`Gone but not forgotten.' All I could think was, `Yes, you are forgotten.' ''
Hope For The Future
Crockett is delighted by the
recognition of her ancestor.
``I knew he was [buried]
there, so it wasn't really a discovery for me,'' she says. ``But people thought
enough of him to honor him. That's what gets me.''
She also is pleased that the
historic designation from the National Park Service means the cemetery may get
some financial aid.
In the past, families would
pack a lunch and head out on a Saturday morning to clean up the graveyard, but
today, fewer relatives survive to help local Scout troops and others that
volunteer.
``There are so many people
that died off that don't have anyone left,'' Crockett says. ``They need help,
donations or anything that anybody can do to get funding for that cemetery
because it is a national treasure.
``I'm glad that this is out
so that more people can know about some of the black history,'' she says.