Immortal remains: Every name tells a story in Destin's Marler Cemetery (PHOTOS)

A century before Destin became a city, Marler Cemetery was receiving Destin’s dead.

Elisha Marler’s tombstone in the .36 acre Calhoun Avenue plot marks his death on April 4, 1884, a hundred years and seven months before Destin residents voted to incorporate. It’s the earliest death date on any of the remaining grave markers in the cemtery — more than three months earlier than Leonard Destin, who died July 25 of the same year. Some of the markers refer to the deceased dying in “East Pass, Florida.”

Don’t think the cemetery is just a piece of history, though: The 202 graves include several from the 21st century, and 15 to 20 plots, though sold, remain unoccupied, said John Moore, the secretary of the cemetery board.

“People have been buried in it since 1831,” Moore told The Log, “but there are some relatives who still have spots there.”

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For more photos from Destin's Marler Cemetery, click here.

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Today, Moore said, the duties of the cemetery board are much less demanding: Filing reports and tax payments with the state and paying to keep the cemetery maintained, trimmed and clean. Moore said they finance the work off contributions and donations and anyone who would like to help with that can call him at 837-6329.

Most of the surnames on the stones are familiar to anyone who knows Destin history. Marler. Shirah. Destin. Maltezo.
Some burials have no names at all, Moore said: Unidentified bodies that washed up on the Destin shore were buried there, but even the site of the graves is now forgotten.

“They had grave markers, but they rotted away and nobody claimed them,” he said. “We’ve got spots on a board for ‘unknown graves’ but they’re not accurate either ... The best records have not been kept.”

Crosses mark many tombstones and grave markers while others have a ship’s wheel or Masonic symbols carved into them. Visitors have decorated various graves with flowers; the 2005 headstone of Conner Adams — Nov. 20 to Nov. 20 — is surrounded with super-hero action figures for “our superboy.”

Conner’s grave marker is one of several acknowledging children who lived one day, three days or one month. They are plots occupied by William Marler, Jr., Clyde Marler, David Lee Holmes and others. The stone beside Carrie Marler, Leonard Marler’s first wife, says simply that it’s “in memory of her eight infants.”

“Everybody from Leonard Destin down the line was buried there until they built the new cemetery in the ’70s,” Destin resident Cyron Marler told The Log. “Great-grandpa used to bury the people.”

“Great grandpa” is Destin legend “Uncle Billy” Marler, for whom the cemetery is named. City Councilor Dewey Destin said Marler was “the ringleader” in setting up the cemetery.

Howard Marler recounted the cemetery’s beginnings in a Destin Log article almost 20 years ago: William Marler found one of those unidentified drowned men on the beach, brought him in and built him a coffin out of juniper. He put the casket in a rowboat, took it to a spot along Choctaw Bay, buried him and “preached his funeral.” Uncle Billy fenced the grave in and what would become Marler Cemetery was born.

“Uncle Billy made the caskets around here for many years,” Marler wrote. “He’d paint them up nice and line the casket ... He never would charge anyone any money for them either.”

It wasn’t until years later — late 1960s or early ’70s, according to longtime residents — that the Community Center, the seat of government in pre-incorporation Destin, took on the task of building a city cemetery. Destin resident Jerry Najarian said the community raised $6,000 to buy land on Stahlman Avenue — Phase II on Sibert Avenue was added years later — from Ida Calhoun.

“We had some good legislators that helped us out,” Destin resident William Ming recalls. “We were able to buy the property with the donations, we were recognized by the state as a cemetery ... Nobody wanted to work with us, but we finally got some cooperation and got it established.”