The Florida Keys are a storied string of islands with tremendous history. Some of those stories are told repeatedly, like when Henry Flagler brought the Key West Extension of his Florida East Coast Railway to its southernmost terminus.
Other stories of historical importance connected to the Florida Keys are told, but not very loudly and not often enough. The story of Andrew “Sandy” Cornish falls into this category of stories that are not told loudly enough or repeated as often as they should for what they reveal about the human spirit.
Andrew “Sandy” Cornish was born in Maryland, into slavery, in 1793. While there is little insight into his early life, specific details have found their way into the historical record. While still an enslaved person, his owner hired him out to work on a railroad project in Florida. He likely worked for the Tallahassee Railroad, one of the two oldest railroads in Florida. The company was incorporated in 1834. Work on the line would begin the same year and would reach Port Leon, Florida, on the St. Marks River in Wakulla County, in 1839. Port Leon was destroyed by a hurricane in 1843 and is today an extinct town.
In this instance, Cornish was able to earn money for his own labor, too, and made a reported $600 per year. With that, the story suggests that over nine years, he was able to save up enough money to purchase, from his owner, emancipation papers for himself and his wife, Lillah. The cost has been stated as $3,000 in some accounts and $3,200 in others. As his early story is summed up in sometimes graphic detail, those precious papers were destroyed in a house fire.
As a result, Cornish could not prove his free status, and subsequently, a group of slave traders captured him to take him to New Orleans. Fortunately, he escaped his captors and, to remain a free man, Cornish took extraordinary steps. Where this event took place is up for debate. Some say it occurred in the river port town of Port Leon, Florida, and others report the gruesome scene was acted out in Louisiana. In every story, he declared that he would never again be another man’s property. He proceeded to make his body undesirable for the slave trade to ensure that fact.
In full view of the crowd assembled, Cornish stabbed himself in the leg, slashed a muscle in his ankle, and cut off one of the fingers on his left hand. Friends who had gathered for the event placed Cornish in a wheelbarrow and brought him home, where he eventually recovered from his self-inflicted wounds. As for the severed finger, it is said he or at least someone sewed it back on with a needle and thread.
Andrew “Sandy” Cornish and Lillah would eventually make their way to Key West in the late 1840s. Circa 1850, they bought a farm in the present-day Truman Avenue and Simonton Street area. They grew fruits and vegetables on the farm that were sold to locals, soldiers and Key West markets. The Cornish farm is said to have been the island’s first successful farm, and Sandy, as those around him knew him, grew to become one of the richest men on the island. He also became one of Key West’s civic and spiritual leaders.
In 1864, the future parishioners of what became the Cornish Chapel of the African Methodist Episcopal Church began to meet under the shade of a Spanish lime tree. That same year, Reverend Wilbur Garrison Strong of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Hartford, Connecticut, came to Key West to serve the growing congregation. Strong is considered to be the first black ordained minister in Florida.
Cornish died in 1869 and would never see the church that bears his name. The Cornish Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church, at 702 Whitehead Street, was built by its parishioners in 1885. It became the first church organized by and for the island’s black community. When completed, it served as a place of worship, a school and a place of retreat when a safe place was needed.
Cornish was buried at the Key West Cemetery. Over the years, the marker that had been placed to honor him disappeared, and the location of his body was lost. It took time, but in 2014 a plaque was installed at the cemetery to honor his memory. His likeness can be found at the Mallory Square Sculpture Garden, as he is one of the busts of those men and women who have played significant roles in Key West’s remarkable history.
