"Without the Spanish Quarter, we're just a tacky tourist town with nothing to say."

                  -City Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline, in debate on no longer funding the living history museum's deficits

"It doesn't make my decisions any smarter to be sitting at an eloquent table."

           -City Commissioner Bill Leary, reacting to an estimated $8,500 to replace the City Commission table being reclaimed by Lightner Museum

"We have found that the hibiscus was named the official city flower in 1956. We haven't found record of official city colors - perhaps Spain's red and yellow?"

- City Clerk Ali Ratkovic, on her department's search through the city archives

   August 14, 1842, seven wagons drawn by "elegant" mules and each covered with an American flag carried the soldiers to their final resting place. The following description of the ceremony was included in Niles' National Register of September 3, 1842:

   The St. Augustine News of the 20th Aug. says: The burial of Major F. L. Dade's martyr'd dead, and those officers and soldiers who have died in Florida, took place on Monday last.

   So solemn and interesting an event excited on the part of our citizens the liveliest sympathy and feeling, and afforded them by joining in with the military, the heartfelt satisfaction of commingling their tears in union with those who had assembled to pay the last sad duties of love to their fallen comrades.

   At half past 10, a gun was fired from the battery in front of the green, when the mayor and council, the Masonic fraternity, and St. Augustine City Guards, proceeded to the St. Sebastian bridge, to await the arrival of the remains.

   In a short time, the melancholy wail of music was heard in the distance - the bright glitter of arms was seen glancing among the deep green of the woods, and the wagons covered with the stars and stripes, containing all that was of the honored dead, moved slowly onward.

   It was indeed a brilliant, a melancholy spectacle. On arriving at the public square, the cortege wheeled to the right, and proceeded up George street, continued down St. Francis street, when moving up Marine street they were brought to the spot appropriated for interment, the garden of St. Francis' Barracks.

   The remains were removed from the funeral train amid the firing of minute guns, and the religious services were performed.

   Half hour guns were fired until sunset, closing the solemnities of the day.

   The tombs, three in number, erected by the troops of the post, in which the remains are deposited, are vaults each about ten feet square, surmounted by a pyramid of five feet height, rising from a grassy mound, enclosing the body of the tomb.

   It is designed to cover these pyramids entirely with marble, on which will be placed the names of all other officers who have died or been killed in Florida, in addition to those deposited beneath.

   Coquina (a native shell-rock) pyramids were later constructed over the vaults. They were originally covered with white stucco. The marble cladding never happened. Instead, an obelisk was also erected to the memory of these brave men.

   The inscription on its east side states, "This monument has been erected in token of respectful and affectionate remembrance by their comrades of all grades, and is committed to the care and preservation of the garrison of St. Augustine." 

   Image: early postcard captioned: Dade monuments five miles from Wahoo Swamp near St. Augustine, Fla.