Marler Memorial Cemetery is located in Destin, Fla., a playground for pale-faced sun-seeking vacationers since the 1970s. According to the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, over 80 percent of the Emerald Coast’s 4.5 million visitors each year visit Destin. The first time I ever visited was in the 1980s with Christi when we were in college. When you ask most people what comes to mind when they think of Destin, they’ll tell you go-carts, mini golf, beaches, and seafood. Not necessarily in that order, of course.

But once upon a time, Destin was a sleepy fishing village. Most of its pioneers are buried at Marler Memorial Cemetery, whose earliest marked burial is 1868 and 241 memorials recorded on Find a Grave.

How Destin Got Its Name

Thanks to Destin historian H.C. “Hank” Klein’s articles in local newspapers, I found some great information on the cemetery and the folks buried in it. I’m just sharing what he wrote here so thank you to Hank! It all starts with a fisherman named Leonard Destin, who was born in New London, Conn. in 1813 but left it for warmer climes in Florida.

Around the time Leonard married local miss Martha McCullom in 1851, he started a fishing village in Moreno Point. When their son Willie died at age 10 on Aug. 1, 1868, they needed a place to lay him to rest. Leonard put aside some land east of their home and that’s how Marler Memorial Cemetery came to be, although it wasn’t called that at the time.

According to Leonard Destin’s memorial on Find a Grave, he and his descendants fished and navigated the only channel passage to the Gulf of Mexico between Panama City and Pensacola, known as Destin’s East Pass.

Leonard and Martha’s son, Gaines, would die on April 6, 1873 at the age of 7. He was the second burial at the cemetery.

Over the years, Leonard and Martha would have nine children together. Leonard died on July 24, 1884 at age 70. He has a handsome monument beside Martha (who died in 1896 at age 61) and some of their children.

So how do the Marlers figure into all this? As a teenager, William “Billy” Thomas Marler came to the area from Boggy (known now as Niceville) in the early 1880s to work for Leonard Destin. Billy talked his brothers, sisters, and mother into leaving Boggy for Moreno Point, too. Eventually, the village was named Destin after Leonard and his family sometime around the turn of the century.

According to Hank Klein, Moreno Point had no undertaker at the time. So it fell to Billy Marler to shoulder the task of of building coffins and burying of the dead in the cemetery from 1884 until his died in 1960. I would say that’s more than a good enough reason to name the cemetery Marler Memorial Cemetery. Plus the fact that there are more than 60 Marlers now buried there.

The Heartbreak of Carrie Marler

Back in 2019 when I was wandering around Marler Memorial Cemetery, one of the first graves I saw was for Carrie Marler. That got my attention because back in the 1980s, thanks to Christi’s influence, I watched the CBS soap Guiding Light. One of the more colorful characters was named Carrie Todd, who fell into a romance with local attorney Ross Marler. They got married and she became Carrie Marler. Unfortunately, poor Carrie had multiple personalities and to make a long story short, much drama ensued and the two eventually split up.

Sadly, the Carrie Marler buried at the cemetery also endured a great deal of tragedy but it was all too real.

Born in 1873, Carrie Bowers was the first wife of Billy Marler. They wed around 1891. Over the next years, Billy and Carrie would have several children together. And one by one, eight of them would die.

Next to Carrie’s marker is one for the eight babies she lost. Since Billy made the caskets and performed all the burials, I feel almost certain it was he who laid his little ones to rest. I cannot imagine the heartbreak this couple felt. Why they all died is unknown.

Fortunately, Billy and Carrie did have two sons who survived infancy, Ernest (born 1899) and David (born 1901, died in 1978). But while Ernest did make it to his 30s, his life would also come to a tragic end in 1938. Perhaps it’s fortunate that Carrie, who died in 1903 at age 29, was not alive to suffer yet another death of a child.

Ernest, by then married with four children, was living in Cape San Blas (about 125 miles east of Destin) and working as an assistant lighthouse keeper. On March 17, 1938, one of Ernest’s daughters went to call him for lunch and found him dead. He was lying in a pool of blood, with several wounds in his neck and chest.

Ernest’s murder was never solved, and rumors flew about who the killer might have been and the motive. According to his Find a Grave memorial, some thought he was murdered by moonshiners. Others felt it was a revenge killing for his testimony a few days earlier against some thieves.

The Patriarch of Destin

Billy soon remarried to Camela Catherine Brooks, who was 20 years his junior. Having endured so many losses, Billy felt blessed to father nine children, most of whom lived well into adulthood, with his new bride.

By this time, Billy Marler had taken on the moniker of “Captain Billy” because not only was he a superlative sailor after having worked for Leonard Destin, he learned how to build a sloop of his own. I read that he’s credited with building more than 100 boats during his lifetime.

In addition to being the village undertaker/coffin maker, Capt. Billy was Destin’s first postmaster and set up a post office in his own home. He handled the mail for 46 years. His daughter, Nellie, would later serve as clerk and postmaster for 27 years. Church services were also held in the Marler home during the early years. You might say Capt. Billy’s home was the center of Destin’s action because he also ran a store out of it for a time.

Capt. Billy’s role in making Destin a tight-knit fishing community could fill up several blog posts but I’m sure the locals could tell you that story much better than I could. Even if you don’t know his name, you can see it on the William T. Marler Bridge (Destin Bridge) where US 98 crosses East Pass connecting Destin to Okaloosa Island.

When Capt. Billy died in 1960 at the age of 94, it was very fitting that “Patriarch of Destin” was inscribed on his grave marker. I can think of few people who deserved that title more than he did. Camella, the “Matriarch of Destin” died in 1979 at age 92.

To Light the Way

One Marler grave that caught my eye was for Capt. Billy’s grand-nephew, Glen Marler. He was the son of Billy’s nephew, Clarence Marler (1901-1991).

Born in 1924, Glen was the oldest surviving Marler at the time of his death in 2012. From what I could tell, he loved fishing and being out on the water as much as Capt. Billy. He remembered the early days of Destin as a humble fishing village before it became a haven for pale-faced tourists (like me) who descended every summer like a swarm of locusts.

One article I found from 1986 mentioned a local ordinance up for consideration concerning fishing practices. What Glen said at the meeting echoed what Capt. Billy might have remarked if he was still alive.

“Let’s remember what Destin was founded on…fishing,” he said. “Let’s not make this a yacht territory and do away with the charter boat fleet.”

I think Capt. Billy was smiling in Heaven when he heard that.

I’ll be back next week for more stories from Marler Memorial Cemetery.

This is going to be one of my shorter blog posts simply because this cemetery is small and I didn’t take many pictures. That may surprise you since my posts usually go over 1,000 words, and often much longer than that.

Thompson Cemetery is located a mere two miles away from Gulf Cemetery, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. Find a Grave lists a total of 34 memorials with the earliest marked burial happening in 1914. Seven of them have the last name of Thompson. It’s interesting to note that the earliest Thompson burial in the cemetery is for Lucy Berard Thompson, who died in 1932. It makes me wonder what it was called before that. There are several graves simply marked with crosses, their identities unknown.

There isn’t much online about Thompson Cemetery. I did find a website called “Walton Past to Present” that focuses on Walton County, Fla. history. A May 2021 post includes a 1984 newspaper article concerning a new Eagle Scout named John Fleury, then 16 years old. The article notes that Fleury’s Eagle Scout Project was to clean and upgrade the cemetery.

Part of that entailed marking 24 unmarked graves and using a 60-year-old map of the cemetery. That would date that map to 1924. I suspect it was John Fleury who put up those white crosses I mentioned.

Where John Fleury is today and what happened to the map he used at the time is unknown. But the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation is hoping to find John and see if he knows where that map is.

Who was Mrs. M.J. Potter?

The oldest marked grave in Thompson Cemetery also raises the most questions. Since it’s uncertain if Mrs. M.J. Potter went by the name of her spouse or if her initials “M.J.” are her first and middle names, researching her background is difficult. I could find nothing about her beyond her marker. She is the only Potter in this small cemetery.

It’s frustrating not to know. But as I am finding out through my research of these early Florida graves, sometimes people arrived in this promising paradise near the end of their lives without leaving much evidence (if any) of how they got there.

Father and Son

Thankfully, someone has done the research on the next oldest grave at Thompson Cemetery and that is Andrew Nicholls. He has two markers, one of which I photographed. I did not see the other one that is on Find a Grave, photographed in 2011. This one is flat on the ground and looks like it was carved by the same person who did Mrs. M.J. Potter’s marker.

Here’s the information from Andrew’s Find a Grave memorial:

Andrew was the son of Henry and Elizabeth (Richards) Nicholls/Nichols. The family moved from England to the U.S. where Henry worked as a miner. It is not known where Henry or Elizabeth are buried. Elizabeth lived with Andrew and his family for many years, so she may be buried in Minnesota.

Andrew had a sister, Alice Broad, who is buried at Evergreen Cemetery, Eagle River, Keweenaw County, Mich., and a sister Sarah/Sara Elliott/Elliot, who is buried at Lake View Cemetery, Houghton County, Mich. The burial locations for his brother Henry, and his sister Susan, are unknown.

Besides his daughter Bessie, Andrew also had a son, Thomas.

According to the 1900 U.S. Census, Andrew and his wife, Mary Jane, were farming in Kittson, Minn. with two of their children, Bessie and Thomas. The record indicates they had two other older living children but I don’t know where they ended up.

Bessie, who married Herman Miller in 1902, died a week after giving birth to a son in June 1905 at age 22. She is buried in Stephen, Minn. Sometime between 1910 and Andrew’s death in 1917, Andrew and Mary Jane moved to Santa Rosa Beach.

I located Andrew’s will, which was written only seven days before he died. After his debts/expenses were paid for, he left his estate to Mary Jane. Mary Jane remarried in 1921 to a Thomas Crookshank.

We do know that son Thomas Nicholls made it to Santa Rosa Beach with his parents because he is also buried in Thompson Cemetery, although his marker is barely readable. There’s one very much like it over at Gulf Cemetery.

According to the 1930 U.S. Census, Mary Jane was again a widow and living with Thomas, who was divorced and working as a carpenter. Mary Jane died in 1933 in Santa Rosa Beach but I could not find a burial site for her. I believe she is likely buried at Thompson Cemetery under one of the white crosses. Thomas died on Sept. 20, 1969 at the age of 85.

A Story-Telling Sea Captain

Born on August 5, 1918 in Millville, Fla., Ichabod Mitchel Raybon was something of a rarity in that he was a Florida native. Mitchel shows up at two different residences in the 1930 U.S. Census, so I suspect he split time at both the home of his widowed mother, Mary, and his older married brother, Pasco. Mary died in 1934 when Mitchel was 16. He would go on to spend much of his life as a sea captain, as the anchors on his grave marker testify.

Mitchel has a World War II draft card but I could not find a record of him serving in the military. He married and divorced twice over the years. He died on May 31, 1976 at age 57.

One family story that I found on Ancestry.com noted that Mitchell had a talent for drawing. It also included this quote: “He never lived in one place too long and was known for telling stories.” I can imagine with his occupation being that of a sea captain, it was quite fitting for his personality.

Next time, I’ll be further down the road at Marler Cemetery in Destin.

Happy 2022!

Yes, I’m still at Gulf Cemetery in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. In my last post, I shared some of the history behind this burial ground and some of its oldest markers. Today, I’m going to branch out into some more recent ones since this is an active cemetery.

There are a number of military graves at Gulf Cemetery. One of my favorites is this one for Rick Pfieffer. His military marker is underneath the wreath and I wasn’t inclined to disturb it when I photographed his grave.

A native of Milwaukee, Wisc., Richard “Rick” Pfeiffer (1942-2004) was a Vietnam veteran who spent his final years in Florida. His grave is covered in many different kinds of shells. There’s also a bench positioned across from the grave which tells me there are folks who come to sit a spell with Rick and share a cup of coffee from time to time.

Solving The Mystery of George H. Brown

There are a few Civil War veterans buried at Gulf Cemetery and one presented a bit of a mystery. The only information on his government issued marker is his name and the unit he served in. No birth or death dates. So I got to work trying to find out.

George Hosea Brown was born around 1838 in Rutland County, Vt. He was living in Modena, Ill. and working as a teacher when he enlisted in the 65th Illinois Infantry, Company I, in February 1862. His enlistment rank was that of sergeant so I’m guessing he had some previous military experience.

During the Civil War, the 65th Infantry took part in several skirmishes including the Battle of Resaca, the Siege of Atlanta, and the Battle of Nashville. George served for three years, mustering out with the 65th around July 1865. His final rank with either that of First Lieutenant or Second Lieutenant as some records conflict on what rank he mustered out at.

George returned to Illinois after the Civil War. Records indicate he married during the war to an Anna Lena Raycroft in 1864. Census records show he was a clergyman by 1880, living with his family in the Chicago area. There were a few years spent in Cherokee, Iowa where two sons were born. Anna died in 1901 and Rev. Brown remarried in September 1903 in Michigan to widow Laura Pine, who was nearly 40 years his junior. The couple moved to St. Louis where they had three children together.

Sometime after 1910, the family moved to Pensacola, Fla. and George died on Oct. 6, 1912. His son, George Dewitt Brown, is buried at Gulf Cemetery as well.

“A True Craftsman”

I feature many grand, intricate monuments in this blog and that’s always fun. But there are also times when a more humble marker can get my attention. This small one for James “Jim” Bradford is one of them.

Born in 1977 in Tallahassee, Fla., Jim spent much of his life there. According to his obituary, Jim had many hobbies including playing the drums and guitar, attending music festivals, traveling the country in his Volkswagon bus (which you can see on his marker), and riding ATVs with his father and brother.

His obituary also notes, “When not away on one of his many journeys, Jim was always willing to lend a hand to friends and family. Jim was a true craftsman, he could fix anything and customized practically everything he owned to his liking with meticulous detail. Jim graced the world with a unique flair.”

I think Jim is somebody I would have liked to have known, if I had been blessed with the opportunity.

I noticed on Find a Grave that Jim’s father, Charles Bradford, died in 2020 and is also buried at Gulf Cemetery.

The Unknown Dead

Gulf Cemetery also has a number of crosses marking graves that have no names on them at all. They are scattered throughout the cemetery.

These are close to the road.

In the back corner, I found a plot with these brick markers with no names. I can only guess that the family couldn’t afford markers but wanted to marker the graves in some way.

But I think one of the saddest markers I’ve ever seen was this one for “Unidentified Hispanic Male” who died on February 2, 2008. I have seen temporary funeral home markers like this many times before, which are placed to mark a grave until a stone can be placed. But I have never seen one like this that had no name of any kind, just a date.

Perhaps this poor fellow died and the country provided a space for his burial. I don’t know. But he had a mother, a father…he meant something to someone out there. And they may have no idea what happened to him. Rest in peace, my friend…

The Watchmaker’s Daughter

This last grave is for a child, Lynnette K. Nealley. She was the daughter of watchmaker Lynn Leroy Nealley and Evalina Woodland Nealley. She was the youngest of their four children. The family moved from Kansas to Florida before Lynnette was born. Lynette was only three when she died on Nov. 3, 1922.

Her father, Lynn Nealley, died many years later at age 81 in March 1959. I did not see his marker when I was there, but according to Find a Grave he is also buried at Gulf Cemetery and there’s a picture of his half of what appears to be a shared marker. Oddly, there’s no memorial for Evalina, who died in August 1959. I will be returning to the area next month, so I’ll stop by the cemetery to see if I can solve that mystery.

Gulf Cemetery is a sweet gem of a cemetery that I enjoyed visiting during my vacation. Next time, I’ll be about a mile from this burial ground at a much smaller one with more Florida history.