ARTICLES: Not Even the Dead Were Spared: Charley’s Power Unleashed in Greenwood Cemetery by Michael GavinNo--it is the last and final awakening.
--Sir Walter Scott
Nestled in over 100 acres, Greenwood Cemetery lies beneath luscious canopy green. It is the final home for many of Orlando’s founding fathers. On Friday, August 13th the grounds were a well-groomed, stately tribute to families that made Orlando what it is today. Within 24 hours Hurricane Charley unleashed its fury and the city’s cemetery resembled more of a war zone than the beautiful park envisioned by her founders in 1881.
While calls of concern for the status of family plots poured in from distant relatives around the country, the state’s largest public cemetery remained unsafe. With winds of 105 miles per hour, the Class 4 Hurricane uprooted 80 Oak tress [seen above] and shattered the limbs of some 300 more.
Initially, the early settlers of Jernigan (a small community that sprang up around Fort Gatlin in the mid 1800’s – the area now known as Orlando) would bury their loved ones in remote corners of family land. Small cemeteries like the Powell Cemetery on Orange Avenue and the Mizell family cemetery (in what is now Leu Gardens) are reminders of this era. Around 1870 a block of land in downtown Orlando was set aside a final resting place for the dead. The Union Free Cemetery (named for the small wooden church/school building that stood on the property) was deemed too small and the property too valuable to remain a graveyard. That’s when the stock company formed by 8 prominent Orlando citizens purchased 26 acres of land, about 3 miles south east of town. The “residents” of the Union Free Cemetery were “relocated” to the new graveyard (at least most of them, on three accounts unmarked graves were unearthed during construction projects, one coffin still remains under a prominent downtown building today).
Perhaps the operations of a community cemetery was more than the men bargained for; within several years the graveyard was overrun with brush, a source of many complaints to city officials in 1890.When a fire destroyed all but two of the original cypress tombstones in 1892, the city took over control of the land and its burials.
It was around 1911 that the name Greenwood attached itself to the still small cemetery. Over the next hundred years property was added entrances moved. Today, Greenwood boasts over 100 acres of land, has 4 veteran’s areas, 3 infant “baby land” sections, and still accepts new internments. Historic Orlando family names like Hand, Beecham, Parramore, Bumby, and Cheney adorn proud tombstones throughout the graveyard.Have an article you like to submit for publishing on this site? Submit it to the email address below and include you name, web site, email and sources for the article. We'll contact you promptly.
