Walking Tour in North City Cemeteries of St. Augustine

Walking Tour in North City Cemeteries of St. Augustine is a two-hour walk from Early Haunts, sold on Viator from $25 per person at our August 2, 2026 check. It is the cemetery specialist among the twelve bookable St. Augustine listings we compare: six stops are named, and both of the old town's cemetery anchors, Huguenot and Tolomato, sit on the same route. It rates 4.8 from 132 reviews. One planning fact matters more than the rest, so here it is early: bookings close for the day at 6pm.

The booking card lower down carries a longer in-house name of our own, which mentions a group size and equipment. The listing states neither. We are Arizona guides who research haunted history in other cities, so read this as a write-up of somebody else's tour, not one we run.

What you will see

The Huguenot Cemetery is a half-acre plot immediately outside the Old City Gate, and its historic name is the more useful one: the St. Augustine Public Burying Ground. It was set aside in 1821, during that year's yellow fever epidemic, because Tolomato, the only cemetery then in use inside the town, was Catholic ground and could not take the new territory's Protestant arrivals. The Presbyterian church has owned it since 1832, the city closed it to burials in 1884, and it was listed on the National Register in 2021 (Florida Department of State). Its best-documented figure is John B. Stickney, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, who died in Washington on 5 November 1882; the Evening Star reported pneumonia the next morning (Evening Star). Three corrections travel with this stop. No Huguenots are buried here, the name being 1830s local shorthand for non-Catholic. It is not the city's oldest cemetery. And the gold-teeth exhumation tale told about Stickney has no contemporaneous source.

Tolomato Cemetery at 14 Cordova Street is Catholic ground, still owned by the diocese. A Guale mission village was resettled on it after English forces destroyed the Guale mission on the riverbanks in the 1702 siege, and its use as a cemetery alone begins in 1777, when Fr. Pedro Camps obtained the British governor's leave to bury his Minorcan parishioners there (preservation association). The defensible superlative is the association's own, oldest extant planned cemetery in Florida. Two burials carry the stop. Georges Biassou, a commander of the 1791 Haitian Revolution who later served Spain, died here on 13 July 1801, though his grave is unlocated and unmarked. Augustin Verot, the first Bishop of St. Augustine, died on 10 June 1876 and has lain in the memorial tomb at the center of the cemetery since 22 January 1988, not in the chapel vault a guide might point at (diocesan archives). The head of the preservation association told NPR in 2012 that the cemetery holds nothing but happy dead (NPR and WUSF).

Casa de Suenos at 20 Cordova Street is a working seven-room bed and breakfast, which makes it a sidewalk stop. Built about 1904, it is a contributing building in the Model Land Company Historic District, listed in 1983 (NRHP 83001439). The interesting fact is under the street: Cordova Street is the filled east bank of Maria Sanchez Creek, and the Rosario Line, a Spanish earthwork thrown up west of the town by about 1720, ran along it. Flagler had the creek filled in 1885, which made this block buildable. The building was the Garcia Funeral Home in the middle of the twentieth century and has been an inn since 1998 (inn history). The resident ghost is called Randolph, and the operator reporting him says the origin of the name is lost. George Colee did not build the house, and the 1904 building was probably a frame one.

The other three named stops carry no research file here: Potter's Wax Museum is flagged as a pass-by, and San Marco Avenue and 18 Cordova St are named without further detail. Nothing on the listing states interior access, and both cemeteries are locked at night.

Who it suits

Two hours for $25 is the most tour per dollar in the guided St. Augustine set we compare, though the route is the better reason to book it. Children can be booked from 6, and the listing shows wheelchair accessible.

• Choose it if you want both Huguenot and Tolomato on one walk, read from the fence, with the history rather than a jump-scare treatment.
• Choose it on time: at two hours it is the longest of the sub-$30 guided walks among the twelve bookable listings we compare.
• Choose it if you are walking with a child of 6 or older, since the booking bands start there.
• Skip it if two hours on foot after dark is more than your party wants, because the same $25 buys a 90-minute walk from Spyglass Tours.

How it compares

The closest comparison is Ghost Tour of St. Augustine: The Original Haunted History Tour from Spyglass Tours, which shares the $25 floor, rates 4.9 from 426 reviews, and passes both cemeteries inside a wider loop that also takes in St. George Street and the Castillo. That one runs 90 minutes; this is two hours built around the cemeteries themselves. Guardian Angels of St. Augustine Walking Tour covers the same two in 75 minutes at $27, on a far smaller review base.

Questions people ask

When do bookings close?

At 6pm for the day, per the listing, so book early.

How long is it and what does it cost?

Two hours, from $25 per person, checked on August 2, 2026. The operator is Early Haunts.

Do you go inside the cemeteries?

No. Huguenot opens with docents on the third Saturday of the month, 11 to 2, and Tolomato on the third Friday and Saturday of most months. Evening groups read them from outside the fence.

What ages can join?

The booking bands are children 6 to 13 and adults 14 to 71. We do not write age guidance beyond what those bands state.

Is there a group cap or any equipment?

Neither is stated on the listing. Our own card name for this product is longer than the listing's and mentions both; treat that as our shorthand, not verified detail. The listing was shown as wheelchair accessible at our August 2, 2026 check and carries free cancellation.