Jacksonville's oldest established city burial ground, dating to 1852, where the unsolved 1897 murder of 'Cigar Princess' Marie Louise Gato anchors the city's best-documented cemetery ghost story.
East Union Street (bounded by Jessie, Ionia, Union and Washington Streets), Jacksonville, FL 32202
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during daylight hours.
Access
Limited Access
Older urban cemetery with grass plots and uneven ground.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1852 · Jacksonville's oldest established city burial ground · Land donated by Captain Charles Willey, 1852 · Designated Jacksonville historic landmark · Burial site of Marie Louise Gato (1878-1897)
Old City Cemetery was established in 1852 on land donated to the Town of Jacksonville by Captain Charles and Frances Willey. Located immediately northeast of downtown Jacksonville, the cemetery sits along East Union Street and is bounded by Jessie, Ionia, Union, and Washington Streets. It is Jacksonville's oldest established city burial ground and is designated a local historic landmark.
The cemetery contains nineteenth-century markers, Civil War-era burials, and the graves of many of Jacksonville's early civic and commercial figures. By the late twentieth century portions of the cemetery had become neglected and a number of older graves — including that of Marie Louise Gato, the 19-year-old daughter of cigar manufacturer Gabriel Hidalgo Gato who was murdered in 1897 — lost their original markers.
Members of the Port of Jacksonville Pilot Club rediscovered Gato's unmarked grave at the rear of the cemetery while preparing for a historical tour and successfully campaigned for a replacement headstone. The cemetery remains accessible to the public during daylight hours and is a subject of regular local historical and ghost-tour interest.
Sources
Marie Louise Gato was the 19-year-old daughter of Jacksonville cigar manufacturer Gabriel Hidalgo Gato. According to contemporary newspaper coverage cited by JaxPsychoGeo and The Jaxson, she was shot five times around dusk on April 20, 1897, at the gate of her father's house in the North Springfield neighborhood. She survived long enough to identify Edward Pitzer, a spurned former boyfriend, as her killer. Pitzer was tried May 26 - June 5, 1897 and acquitted after 22 hours of jury deliberations on the strength of an alibi witness; the murder was never officially solved. Marie Louise's father died the following year.
Marie Louise was buried at the rear of Old City Cemetery, and her grave eventually lost its marker. Visitors to the cemetery have for many years reported the sounds of a young woman weeping near her plot, along with unexplained lights and the sensation of being watched. Members of the Port of Jacksonville Pilot Club rediscovered the unmarked grave during preparations for a historical tour and campaigned successfully for a replacement headstone, restoring her resting place.
Reports remain anecdotal. The Gato story is the most-documented paranormal narrative associated with the cemetery; secondary claims include general 'sense of presence' reports near older nineteenth-century plots. The legend is best understood as a community-memory ghost story anchored to a real and well-documented unsolved murder.
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Explore Jacksonville's oldest established burial ground and locate the rediscovered grave of Marie Louise Gato near the back of the cemetery — a memorial restored after Pilot Club members campaigned for a replacement headstone.
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