One of the best ways to improve your photography is to undertake a photo challenge. Photo challenges are a routine part of many online groups and web sites. For example, the Beginning Photography Facebook group which routinely sets up challenges to street hawkers your photography skills.

THE CHALLENGE

About a year ago, I took up a challenge to photograph and share my photos of “Sacred Places”. A lot of options suggested themselves to me. A church’s stained glass windows, a local battlefield, or war memorial came to mind. However, for whatever reason, I decided to go to a local cemetery.

In reality, I was looking for something I could get to quickly and not have to worry about a property release. [link to DPS release article] The closest option was Oaklawn Cemetery. It was a reasonable distance from my home and something I could access without paying exorbitant parking fees. I’m on a budget after all.

RESEARCHING THE TOPIC

A quick internet check lead to a Wikipedia entry that showed Oaklawn Cemetery is the first public burial ground in Tampa, Florida. It was located north of old Tampa just outside the then city limits. The location was deeded in the mid-19th century and was described as the final resting place for "White and Slave, Rich and Poor". Oaklawn Cemetery is located at the intersection of Morgan Street and Harrison Street in downtown Tampa, about two blocks South of I-275. It has approximately 1,700 graves.

Oaklawn Cemetery includes a section for Catholic burials called St. Louis Catholic Cemetery. Established in 1874, it had its own entry gates and was for many years completely separated from Oaklawn by an iron fence.The two graveyards were added as a Historic District to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on September 19, 2017.

THE QUEST

Oaklawn sounded like an interesting place, so I grabbed my tripod and camera bag on a fine Sunday morning and drove off to look at a fine example of a cemetery of the "Rural Cemetery" style per Wikipedia.

Entrance to Oaklawn CemeteryThe gateway to the Oaklawn Cemetery, Tampa, Florida.

The rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. They were typically built one to five miles outside of the city, far enough to be separated from the city but close enough for visitors and are known for the use of elaborate monuments, memorials and mausoleums in a landscaped park-like setting.

From their inception, they were intended as civic institutions designed for public use. Before the widespread development of public parks, the rural cemetery provided a place for the general public to enjoy outdoor recreation amidst art and sculpture previously available only for the wealthy.

Ironically, the cemetery is administered and maintained by the Tampa Parks and Recreation Department.

ON LOCATION

As I hoped, Oaklawn was filled with a lot of photogenic grave sites. Unfortunately, I also saw a lot of evidence of vandalism.

Evidence of VandalismUnfortunately, Oaklawn Cemetery was neglected for a number of years and the memorial stones suffered for it. As beautiful as parts of the cemetery are maintained, other sections are showing neglect and abuse.

What initially struck me was the ornate detail evident at many of the sites.

Details and StatuesOaklawn has a number of mid-19th century headstones that a beautiful representations of the stone cutters art.

After shooting too many pictures of details, I decided to take some time to just walk about and read some headstones. I was struck by the number and intermingling of “Yankee” and “Rebel” headstones. I also saw a fair number of markers spanning the from creation of my Nation to more recent conflicts.

National MemorialOaklawn Cemetery has a mix of headstones that reflect the conflicts that built the American Nation, They range from the Revolution to modern conflicts. The interesting mix were the Civil War headstones from South and North.

And then I came across this remarkable headstone. Note that the spelling is what is on the headstone.

William and Nancy AshleyHeadstone of William and Nancy Ashley. Master and servant in public life. Husband and wife in eternity.

Here lies

Wm. Ashley and Nancy Ashley,

Master, and Servant,

Faithful to each other in that relation

in life, in death they are not seperated.

Stranger consider and be wiser,

In the Grave all human distinction,

of race or caste, mingle together

In one common dust.

To commemorate their fidelity to each other

this stone was erected by their Executor.

John Jackson, 1873.

Those are astonishing words. I’m from the North and seeing this statement in stone in a Southern cemetery was jarring considering the date on the headstone. This was relatively shortly after the Civil War. And here was a white man and former slave sharing a grave in ground reserved for Old South bourbons. What a bold testament to the human spirit and the power of love.

This warranted further investigation. But, first I needed to finish my photo challenge. On the way out, I stopped to grab a photograph of a local church just outside the cemetery grounds.

St. Paul AME ChurchLocated just outside Oaklawn Cemetery is the Saint Paul AME Church.

When I got back home, I was torn between culling and processing my shots and doing more research on this amazing headstone. Photos won.

POST ASSIGNMENT ACTIVITIES

The next day I spend some time tracking down the Ashley’s.

The most succinct information came from a Tampa Bay Times article by By Morris Kennedy, published February 2, 2013. I have shortened the article to the pithy points. Please see the Tampa Bay Times archive for the complete story.

William Ashley, of Virginian, came to Tampa in 1837 and sold supplies to Army troops. In 1856, he was elected Tampa's first city clerk. Nancy was a slave from Georgia.

The assumption has long been that they lived clandestinely as husband and wife. Historians have called them "sweethearts,'' and Tampa's official guide to the cemetery says as much.

The censuses of 1850 and 1860 list only William in his household. No wife, no children. Slaves were inventoried like livestock in the Slave Schedule, catalogued by age, sex and color — black or mulatto. We find Nancy here. The 1850 Slave Schedule showed Ashley owned one slave, age 40, female, black.

Seven years later, Nancy is cited by name in another, albeit private, document — William Ashley's will.

He ordered a plot be purchased for himself, along with "the body of my servant girl Nancy when she may die,'' and that, upon his death, she receive "all my real and financial estate'' and her freedom. That was generous at a time when a dead owner's slaves were routinely sold or handed down like heirlooms.

This was explosive stuff in 1857. Tampa was coming apart at the seams as the nation moved inexorably toward war. Amid the peril around them, William thought of Nancy and how she would fare if he were gone. He took steps to provide for her and ensure she would be free. What's more, he made it plain that he wanted them to be together for eternity.

In Real Women of Tampa and Hillsborough County, Doris Weatherford gives William credit for being monogamous, unlike some of his married neighbors with slaves on the side. "Neither law nor custom allowed such emotions to be openly acknowledged, . . . and courageous men such as William Ashley were extremely rare. He speaks to us from the grave about what truly matters.''

The war freed nearly half the state's population, Nancy among them. Yet she stayed with William, perhaps daunted by the prospect of starting anew in her 60s in the post-war turmoil.

Something happened five years after the war that must have been bittersweet indeed. The 1870, the U.S. Census counted Nancy by name, as a citizen, not property. It noted she was a cook and could read.

William died the following year, on Oct. 30, 1871, and Nancy's health began to fail. She wrote a will on Aug. 8, 1872, leaving everything to her nephew and other relatives. She asked for "a respectable burial,'' evidently something she felt she needed to demand amid the intensifying racial strife and oppression.

John Jackson was executor of both William and Nancy's estates. A former mayor, Jackson had known William for years; in 1847, he had surveyed Tampa streets and named Ashley Drive after William. Jackson had been a lieutenant in the Silver Grays, a home-guard of men too old for the Confederate Army. Canter Brown's Tampa in Civil War and Reconstruction says he was allied with opponents of Reconstruction.

Nevertheless, probate records show he scrupulously carried out his friend's wishes, paying for doctor visits and 19 months of "attendant'' care for Nancy until May 31, 1873. Then he paid for her coffin and her burial.

With a post-war power struggle raging, Jackson had a lot to lose by helping bury a black woman in a white man's grave. And yet, he did it. Not only that: He had it carved in stone and signed his name.

CONCLUSION

The strength of character John Jackson to carry out his friends’ final instructions is an example from which all of us could benefit. More fitting is the acknowledgment of life-long love presented on the headstone of William and Nancy Ashley.

It’s amazing what a photo challenge can do for your understanding of your local history.

Have any of you had an experience during a photo challenge or other photography project that resulted in an unexpected revelation? Please share if you have.