Port Mayaca Cemetery

Oct 2022

I love visiting cemeteries, looking at the old tombstones, checking the dates, reading the encryptions. Lots of vets interned here, mostly WW I and WW II. Quite a few hand carved tombstones. If you are a tombstone tourist, stop by if you're in the area...

Feb 2020

Port Mayaca Memorial Gardens is located in unincorporated Martin County on State Road 76. This sparsely populated area is named for the Mayaca tribe. The cemetery was formed when this site was chosen to bury the victims of the 1928 Hurricane that claimed the lives of many Glades residents. An estimated 3,000 people died as a result of the category 5 hurricane, three quarters of which were African-American migrant farm workers. The hurricane caused the earthen dikes surrounding Lake Okeechobee to collapse resulting in flooding that caused many people to drown. Over 1,600 people were buried at Port Mayaca in a mass grave. The marker for the hurricane victims is in the east section under the flagpole. In 2013 Ground Penetrating Radar was used to determine the actual boundary of the mass grave. Three miles west of the cemetery is Lake Okeechobee, the largest fresh water lake in Florida. It is now surrounded by the Herbert Hoover Dike to prevent flooding from ever happening again. The cities of Pahokee, Belle Glade and South Bay formed a Trust that operated the cemetery until 1992. Then the City of Pahokee took sole control of the operation of Memorial Gardens. In 1993 Vencent Henderson built a mausoleum in honor of his wife Louise. After he died he left the City of Pahokee an endowment of $875,000 to maintain the cemetery permanently. The city also has a perpetual care fund and they have acquired more land so burials can still take place here. On September 16, 1928 a lot of people not only lost their lives, but their names as well. Whole families were wiped out and there wasn't time to identify people before they had to be buried. This beautiful and peaceful cemetery stands as a memorial to all of the people who were killed on that day.