Beneath the moss-draped oaks of Church Street Cemetery in downtown Mobile lies the grave of Miguel Eslava, a Spanish colonial official who served as royal treasurer under the king of Spain during Mobile’s time as a Spanish possession. More than two centuries after his death, Eslava’s tomb has become one of the city’s most enduring pieces of local folklore.
According to long-standing local tradition, people hoping for good fortune in business can symbolically "pay Eslava’s taxes" by leaving coins at his grave. Visitors to the historic cemetery have left pennies, other loose change, and even Mardi Gras doubloons on the tomb for generations, treating the ritual as a small offering for luck.
A Curse for Taking the Coins
The legend carries a warning as well as a promise. Local storytellers say anyone who takes coins left on the tomb without returning them will be cursed with financial misfortune until the money is put back. The tale has been passed down informally among Mobile residents and cemetery visitors, and it remains one of the better-known ghost stories associated with the city’s historic burial grounds.
Church Street Cemetery, established in the early 1800s, is one of Mobile’s oldest cemeteries and the final resting place for numerous notable figures from the city’s Spanish, French, and early American periods. Eslava’s role as royal treasurer places him among the officials who managed the colony’s finances during Spain’s control of the Gulf Coast, a period that shaped much of Mobile’s early civic and cultural life.
Whether or not visitors believe in the curse, the tradition of leaving coins at the Eslava tomb has helped keep the story of Mobile’s Spanish colonial treasurer alive for new generations exploring the cemetery’s historic grounds.