According to local lore and The History of Martin County by Janet Hutchinson, this cemetery is the family burial ground of the Ashley family and assorted relatives.  Some of these individuals gained fame in the early 1900s as an outlaw group who spent most of their time robbing banks, including the old Stuart Bank - twice.

It is now known as Ashley Park and is maintained in perpetuity, with limited success, by the Mariner Sands Property Owners' Association, who succeeeded to the title of the original developers of the surrounding community.  No further burials are allowed and the latest date shown on the existing headstones is 1946.

Heavily vandalized in the past, the cemetery was restored by the developer and new headstones were erected around 1987.  The inscriptions now show the names of about 15 family members, and others, who are buried there; including two, "Lost at sea - Dec. 1921".

For more information on the lvies and deaths of this colorful family, and their impact on the community, the reader is directed to The Notorious Ashley Gang by Hix C. Stuart (1928)and, more recently, Florida's Ashley Gang by Ada Coats Williams (1996).  Also, The Palm Beach Post columnist, Michelle Mundy, wrote an article on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 about the Ashley Family Cemetery.  A copy of this article is available in the Genealogy Room of the Blake Library at 2351 SE Monterey Road, Stuart, FL.

The records shown here are the result of a field survey conducted by members of the Martin County Genealogical Society's Cemetery Committee and a personal interview with J. Marshall Smith, an Ashley descendant, to whom we are indebted.

Douglas W. Poulter, Chairman, MCGS Cemetery Committee, Apr 1997

Ashley Family Cemetery Aerial View

Ashley Family Cemetery index
Ashley Family Cemetery database

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