The Huguenot Cemetery sits just outside the Old City Gates at the northern entrance to St. Augustine's historic district, separated from the Castillo de San Marcos by a few hundred yards and from the present by about 200 years. It is the oldest non-Catholic cemetery in Florida, established in 1821 when Florida became a United States territory, and it is one of the most atmospheric and historically significant sites in the city. Before 1821, the only cemetery in St. Augustine was Tolomato Cemetery on Cordova Street - a Catholic burial ground that did not accept Protestant burials. When Florida transferred from Spanish to American control and a yellow fever epidemic swept through the city that same year, the new American administration urgently needed a Protestant burial ground. The land just outside the city gate was chosen, and the first burials took place in 1821, many of them victims of that epidemic. The cemetery's name is somewhat misleading - despite being called the Huguenot Cemetery, it is not believed to contain any actual Huguenots, the French Protestant sect that was massacred near St. Augustine in 1565. The name instead commemorates those French Protestants, and cedar trees were planted on the grounds in the 1950s in their memory. In 1832 the Presbyterian Church took ownership and has maintained it ever since. Among the 436 known burials are soldiers, merchants, early American settlers, epidemic victims, and some of St. Augustine's most historically signific