YUKON CEMETERY 1896 ON MAP

[Ocklawaha]

Interesting find by our reader Bridge Troll:

A very thorough 1898 Duval county map at Library of Congress... with zoom capability...

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3933d.la000075/

Following the line of the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad south from Yukon, just west of the tracks the map marks the location of the historic cemetery I recall as a kid playing in the (then new) Ortega Hills subdivision. We were always amazed by the many headstones most of which dated at least to 1900, and many back to Civil War years. Some of the MJ team and I searched for the cemetery a number of years ago but found absolutely nothing. It would be interesting to find out if the cemetery was removed or if vandals eventually destroyed every trace of it. If it were the later it would be nice to find a map and remark the many graves I recall hidden in that woods.

Other history trekkers might find the old highway which ran north from Yukon a fertile search area. There is a tiny remnant of it in the Tilly Fowler Park but there must be more between the park and Timuquana west of the tracks. Long ago there was a railroad crossing roughly opposite of the Boca Bargoons fabric store that went into the woods and

[spuwho]

https://jaxpsychogeo.com/west/yukon-ghost-zip-code/

The Yukon Cemetery is a graveyard for slaves and freed blacks in the woods between a trailer park and suburban subdivision and the present location of a place that has moved from two other places. It was last moved just before World War Two, when the federal government moved it off land it wanted for a military base. When Yukon moved to its present location, it disbanded the black community living there, and the slave cemetery was left for the forest to hide it and take it back.





Some kids from the trailer park had gone into the woods and were coming back with arm bones and skulls.

[spuwho]

http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/duval/cemetery/yukon.txt

YUKON CEMETERY (BLACK), Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Jon R. Ferguson,
(jonadineferguson@aol.com).

USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information
on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as
this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot
be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation. This file
may not be removed from this server or altered in any way for placement
on another server without the consent of the State and USGenWeb Project
coordinators and the contributor.

***********************************************************************

Location: Across from NAS, off Roosevelt Blvd. Turn on Avent Drive, cross
the railroad. The cemetery is on the right in the deep woods.

Condition: Badly neglected and overgrown. There are no visible grave markers,
but many sunken areas.

History: This is the probable burying place for many who lived and worked at
the "Mulberry Grove Plantation" owned by the A. M. Reed's located on the
property which is now part of Naval Air Station. The names below are from family members and neighbors.  If you have further data, please contact the contributor. There may be another cemetery nearby which was for white folks.

AUGUSTUS, Rhodie Ann, No Dates
AUGUSTUS, Tom, No Dates

BIRD, Alonzo, No Dates
BIRD, Andrew, No Dates
BROWN, Charles, No Dates
BROWN, Harry, No Dates
BROWN, Ned, No Dates

CALHOUN, Florence, No Dates

FLOWERS, Charlie, No Dates

HICKS, Ervin, No Dates
HICKS, Evalena, No Dates
HICKS, Mamie, No Dates
HICKS, Richard, No Dates
HICKS, Richard, Jr., No Dates
HICKS, Viola, No Dates

LYLES, Charity, No Dates

MOORE, Mariah Lyles, No Dates
MOORE, Morris, No Dates

PILOT, Henry, No Dates
POLLOCK, Ellen Casterlow, No Dates
POLLOCK, Henry, Jr., No Dates
POLLOCK, James, No Dates
POLLOCK, Rebecca, No Dates

REESE, Abraham, No Dates
REESE, George, No Dates
REESE, Ike, No Dates
REESE, Johnnie, No Dates

SMITH, Emmitt, No Dates
SMITH, Henry, No Dates
SMITH, Maddie, No Dates
SMITH, Mattie Flowers, No Dates

THOMAS, Albert, No Dates
THOMAS, Dora, No Dates
THOMAS, Ike, No Dates

WRIGHT, Roosevelt, No Dates

[spuwho]

Per Jacksonville.com

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/063001/ner_6551548.shtml#.VzKr9_krJpg

Cemetery site is their topic

Published Saturday, June 30, 2001
By Sandy Strickland
Staff writer,

Its graves have been desecrated, tombstones destroyed and plots heavily overgrown with brush.

Little remains to mark Yukon Cemetery as a burial ground.

But Ortega Hills residents say the small African-American graveyard has significance and should be designated a city historic landmark.

At a public hearing last month, the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission recommended approval of the request. A public hearing before the City Council's land use and zoning committee is scheduled for 5 p.m. July 17.

The cemetery, in a heavily wooded area at Avent Drive and Roosevelt Boulevard between Ortega Hills and Yukon, may have originated as burial grounds for slaves serving the Mulberry Grove plantation.

After the Civil War, the plantation's owner, A.M. Reed, deeded property to his former slaves. The plantation itself, located where Jacksonville Naval Air Station is now, was converted into a farm with hired workers. Many of those workers from the 1870s and '80s, as well as early African-American families in the Yukon area, are buried at the cemetery, according to longtime residents.

With NAS's construction around 1940, most of Yukon's black families relocated. That leaves the cemetery "as one of the only tangible reminders" of the plantation and the community, said Joel McEachin, the city's senior historic preservation planner.

Some Ortega Hills residents also want landmark status because they are concerned that an apartment complex may be built on the adjacent property, said community activist Holly Robertson. That site also may contain graves, she said.

Today, shallow depressions are all that remain of the marked plots that once dotted the cemetery's saw palmetto and pine forest. The only physical evidence is an open concrete block vault that is not visible from the cleared path that crosses the cemetery.

[spuwho]

Per Jacksonville.com

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/032101/bus_5699918.html#.VzKsafkrJpg

Mapping the past

City's 120-plus burial grounds being documented


Other burial grounds are not so fortunate, said Waters.

He points to the Yukon Cemetery, which maybe dates to the pre-Civil War Mulberry Grove plantation, now occupied by NAS Jacksonville.

The site is overgrown, graves have been vandalized and markers removed.

Plans call for an apartment complex to be built alongside the cemetery. It is unclear how far the burial ground of the 1800s extends beyond the 1910 boundaries of the cemetery.

Ferguson the genealogist says Works Progress Administration interviews from the 1930s indicate there were not one but two cemeteries located there, one for blacks, one for whites.

Some of the neighbors would like the plans for the apartment complex to go away, the burial area cleaned up and a memorial stone placed there.

[mbwright]

They recently did a ground penetrating scan of an old black cemetery in Tallahassee.  While a few markers remain here, they were able to plot out and discover many unmarked graves.  They also recently used cadaver dogs in Thomasville, Georgia, to help identify a burial of Civil War era soldiers that died in battle.  The resources are out there. 
What ever happened of the historic marker plan from 2001?

[BridgeTroll]

Interesting find by our reader Bridge Troll:

A very thorough 1898 Duval county map at Library of Congress... with zoom capability...

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3933d.la000075/

Following the line of the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad south from Yukon, just west of the tracks the map marks the location of the historic cemetery I recall as a kid playing in the (then new) Ortega Hills subdivision. We were always amazed by the many headstones most of which dated at least to 1900, and many back to Civil War years. Some of the MJ team and I searched for the cemetery a number of years ago but found absolutely nothing. It would be interesting to find out if the cemetery was removed or if vandals eventually destroyed every trace of it. If it were the later it would be nice to find a map and remark the many graves I recall hidden in that woods.

Other history trekkers might find the old highway which ran north from Yukon a fertile search area. There is a tiny remnant of it in the Tilly Fowler Park but there must be more between the park and Timuquana west of the tracks. Long ago there was a railroad crossing roughly opposite of the Boca Bargoons fabric store that went into the woods and

This is an awesome map Ock!