After One Century, Adams Grave Found
Key West, Florida (United States):
In the northern corner of Key West's grand but tattered cemetery, between the Veliz clan and Mary and John Barrett, beneath a patch of freshly mowed grass that heaves ever so slightly, lies a tale buried in history.
It's the story of the first law-enforcement officer in the Keys to be killed in the line of duty. His name was Frank E. Adams, a man who carried a gun and badge as a deputy sheriff in a year -- 1901 -- when few black people held such jobs.
For more than a century, the location of Adams' simple pine coffin remained a mystery. No longer, thanks to another local lawman, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Roth, who spent years tracking down the grave site to give a fallen comrade his proper due. Felled by stolen bullets from his own gun, Adams died 104 years ago this month. One of the bullets pierced his heart.
The deputy had been trying to arrest a man who interfered when he tried to break up a brawl between two drunkards. The man was the brother of one of the recreants. He scuffled with Adams, grabbed his pistol and wounded him in the face, arm and fatally in the left part of his chest. The man, Robert J. Frank, fled. He was later caught and sentenced to life in prison. To the end, he insisted it was self-defense and bore no remorse.
But Adams' widow, Clementine, had remorse to spare.
Days after her husband's death, the Monroe County Commission offered her some assistance. It gave her $20.
When Clementine begged for more help months later, the commissioners refused, according to minutes of the meeting that have been preserved.
That was the last anyone heard of Frank Adams.
Enter Roth, Monroe County's longtime sheriff. He began considering Adams' plight 10 years ago when the Sheriff's Office started designing a memorial to honor officers killed in the line of duty.
Intrigued by accounts of the death briefly mentioned in turn-of-the-century Jacksonville newspapers, Roth made at least six trips to the city cemetery in an effort to locate the grave of the man who died at age 42. For years, he foraged headstones in the graveyard's historically black section. No luck.
Then Roth enlisted the assistance of Russell Brittain, the cemetery's sexton. From a dark-gray file cabinet whose drawers hold the only organized records that exist on the circa-1847 burial ground, few of which are computerized, Brittain retrieved a 3-by-7-inch card.
In wobbly type, Adams' date of death was listed as Oct. 7, 1901; the next day, he was reported buried in the cemetery. But the card provided no other clues.
Grave number? Lot number? Block number? Section? Next of kin? Blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.
This black deputy warranted half a footnote in the rambling cemetery -- where droopy trees, roosters and elaborate stone homages consume 19 acres.
At least 80,000 dead people -- more than the current population of the entire Keys -- are thought to rest there.
The break in the search for Frank's grave site came when Brittain and Roth took their mystery to Tom Hambright, a Monroe County historian.
He pored over baptismal records from a local Catholic Church, and a burial book recorded in Latin with curly black script.
That book would lead Roth to finally solve his mystery. Francis Adams -- a k a Frank -- was about to be found.
Turns out Adams wasn't buried in the cemetery's traditionally black section because he was Catholic.
It made sense.
During Adams' time, Key West was the third-largest city in Florida, behind Jacksonville and Tampa.
And it was considered one of the most liberal toward blacks, who served as sheriffs and aldermen and in other key posts.
Hambright examined census records and soon discovered Adams' son, James. Cemetery documents showed a spot where James was buried in 1944, followed a dozen years later by a sister, Lillian. Given the local custom of interring immediate family members together, often stacked atop one another, Adams should have lain below.
The location: J. Pinkney Lot 39, Section B -- marked today by nothing but grass. A vault casts a shadow over Adams' vista.
Not for long. In the coming weeks, Roth plans to place a marble headstone there.
"His services and sacrifices to the citizens of Monroe County will never be forgotten," it will read.
Said Roth: "His grave was not even marked, and I think that was a shame. It needed to be done."
Oct 02, 2005
Jennifer Babson, The Miami Herald
Orlando Sentinel, FL
Key West, Florida (United States):
In the northern corner of Key West's grand but tattered cemetery, between the Veliz clan and Mary and John Barrett, beneath a patch of freshly mowed grass that heaves ever so slightly, lies a tale buried in history.
It's the story of the first law-enforcement officer in the Keys to be killed in the line of duty. His name was Frank E. Adams, a man who carried a gun and badge as a deputy sheriff in a year -- 1901 -- when few black people held such jobs.
For more than a century, the location of Adams' simple pine coffin remained a mystery. No longer, thanks to another local lawman, Monroe County Sheriff Rick Roth, who spent years tracking down the grave site to give a fallen comrade his proper due. Felled by stolen bullets from his own gun, Adams died 104 years ago this month. One of the bullets pierced his heart.
The deputy had been trying to arrest a man who interfered when he tried to break up a brawl between two drunkards. The man was the brother of one of the recreants. He scuffled with Adams, grabbed his pistol and wounded him in the face, arm and fatally in the left part of his chest. The man, Robert J. Frank, fled. He was later caught and sentenced to life in prison. To the end, he insisted it was self-defense and bore no remorse.
But Adams' widow, Clementine, had remorse to spare.
Days after her husband's death, the Monroe County Commission offered her some assistance. It gave her $20.
When Clementine begged for more help months later, the commissioners refused, according to minutes of the meeting that have been preserved.
That was the last anyone heard of Frank Adams.
Enter Roth, Monroe County's longtime sheriff. He began considering Adams' plight 10 years ago when the Sheriff's Office started designing a memorial to honor officers killed in the line of duty.
Intrigued by accounts of the death briefly mentioned in turn-of-the-century Jacksonville newspapers, Roth made at least six trips to the city cemetery in an effort to locate the grave of the man who died at age 42. For years, he foraged headstones in the graveyard's historically black section. No luck.
Then Roth enlisted the assistance of Russell Brittain, the cemetery's sexton. From a dark-gray file cabinet whose drawers hold the only organized records that exist on the circa-1847 burial ground, few of which are computerized, Brittain retrieved a 3-by-7-inch card.
In wobbly type, Adams' date of death was listed as Oct. 7, 1901; the next day, he was reported buried in the cemetery. But the card provided no other clues.
Grave number? Lot number? Block number? Section? Next of kin? Blank, blank, blank, blank, blank.
This black deputy warranted half a footnote in the rambling cemetery -- where droopy trees, roosters and elaborate stone homages consume 19 acres.
At least 80,000 dead people -- more than the current population of the entire Keys -- are thought to rest there.
The break in the search for Frank's grave site came when Brittain and Roth took their mystery to Tom Hambright, a Monroe County historian.
He pored over baptismal records from a local Catholic Church, and a burial book recorded in Latin with curly black script.
That book would lead Roth to finally solve his mystery. Francis Adams -- a k a Frank -- was about to be found.
Turns out Adams wasn't buried in the cemetery's traditionally black section because he was Catholic.
It made sense.
During Adams' time, Key West was the third-largest city in Florida, behind Jacksonville and Tampa.
And it was considered one of the most liberal toward blacks, who served as sheriffs and aldermen and in other key posts.
Hambright examined census records and soon discovered Adams' son, James. Cemetery documents showed a spot where James was buried in 1944, followed a dozen years later by a sister, Lillian. Given the local custom of interring immediate family members together, often stacked atop one another, Adams should have lain below.
The location: J. Pinkney Lot 39, Section B -- marked today by nothing but grass. A vault casts a shadow over Adams' vista.
Not for long. In the coming weeks, Roth plans to place a marble headstone there.
"His services and sacrifices to the citizens of Monroe County will never be forgotten," it will read.
Said Roth: "His grave was not even marked, and I think that was a shame. It needed to be done."
Oct 02, 2005
Jennifer Babson, The Miami Herald
Orlando Sentinel, FL
