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In February of 1856, the ground now known as Evergreen Cemetery received its first burial from the newly named community of Gainesville, Florida. The infant daughter of a well-to-do cotton merchant and landowner James Tilatha Thomas and his first wife, Elizabeth Jane Hall Thomas, died at the age of 10 days. They laid her to rest in a place of serene natural beauty beneath a young cedar tree, roughly in the center of vast acreage owned by Thomas that extended from Boulware Springs north to present-day Depot Avenue. Eight months later, in October 1856, Elizabeth died at the age of 40 years and Thomas buried her in the same grave as their infant daughter. Thus, the grave is a double grave, and is marked by a rare and elegantly simple headstone carved by W.A. White, a well-known stonemason from Charleston.
In 1866, Thomas sold the entire parcel of 720 acres to Watson Porter and William K. Cessna for $6000, reserving roughly one acre around the double grave for a graveyard that remained in his name until his death in 1877, when it passed to his heirs – two sons and a daughter (by his the deceased second wife, Sarah) and his third wife, Annie Maria Clark Thomas, who survived him.
At some time prior to 1888, the original Evergreen Cemetery Association was formed and in that year Jesse H. and Rebecca P. Goss, having acquired land from Porter and Cessna, deeded to the Association four acres already in use for burials, which immediately adjoined the original Thomas acre, plus an additional 30 unused adjoining acres. In 1890, the heirs of James T. Thomas signed a deed dated March 2 (filed April 20), 1900 covering the sale of the one-acre that had been reserved as a graveyard by the late Mr. Thomas to the Evergreen Cemetery Association for the sum of $1…w
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- Kathy McGlone, President
- Jane B. Roy, Vice President
- Geof Gowan, Treasurer
- Katherine E “Kit” Macdonald, Board Member Emeritus
- Anne Barber, Corresponding Secretary
- Don Barber
- Burton J. “Jimi” Brown, Board Member Emeritus
- Mimi Carr
- Joe Hancock
- W. Thomas Hawkins, Sr., Board Member Emeritus
- Dee Dugger
- Beverly Haile Parrish
- Ronna Jackson