Joseph B. Lancaster was Tampa's first mayor. He was also a judge, sitting on the Florida Supreme Court in 1851, and Speaker of the Florida House in 1843-47. A persistent mystery surrounds the grave of this prominent early Tampan. While local records, Masonic accounts and a headstone confirm that Lancaster was buried in Oaklawn in 1856, a memorial stone for the judge also exists in the old city cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida. Some wags have suggested that an astute politician like Judge Lancaster would have had no difficulty lying in two places at once.
