Please Join Us For the Sandy Cornish Memorial Dedication

On Saturday February 15 at 10:00 am, the newly installed memorial to Sandy Cornish will be unveiled and dedicated in a shady corner of the historic Key West City Cemetery.

Sandy Cornish was a freed slave who lived in Port Leon, Florida and whose freedom papers were destroyed in a fire. Slave hunters tried to capture and resell him, but he fought them off and, the next day, he went to the town square and publicly slashed his calf and thigh and chopped off a finger to render himself useless as a slave saying, “I wouldn’t go for a slave again, for I was free!”

After he healed, he and his wife Lillah came to Key West where they established an orchard that became a travelers’ and Civil War soldiers’ destination for the plates of fruit he served for fifty cents. He was an important figure in the community, leading parades, giving speeches, and preaching at burials.  He was one of the founders of the Cornish Chapel of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, now located at 702 Whitehead Street. Sandy died in Key West in about 1869 and was buried in the cemetery, although the exact location of his burial is unknown. This memorial was funded by the Historic Florida Keys Foundation.

Please enter at the main cemetery entrance on Passover Lane and follow the signs to the memorial site on First Avenue.

RSVP: Russell Brittain (292-8177) or Jane Newhagen (304-9931)