PENSACOLA — Using trimmers and saws and a lot of brute force yanking on vines, a team of Gulf Power volunteers from Plant Crist and Environmental Affairs carved a path into a patch of overgrown woods to uncover a black section of the Old Muscogee Cemetery.
A smaller group fanned out to collect garbage — 1 ton of discarded fuel tanks, a broken toilet, paint cans, tires, clothes, a cooking pot, drink cans and pounds and pounds of beer bottles — surrounding the cemetery’s white and black sections.
The cleanup was a partnership between Gulf Power Environmental Stewardship and Northwest Florida Water Management District to help restore the late 1800s cemetery, located near the Perdido River in west Cantonment.
Steve Brown, senior land manager for the Water Management District, said it would have taken him and his three-member team weeks to do what 18 Gulf Power volunteers did in half a day on May 6. By the end of the workday, the team revealed six headstones and numerous indentations that are believed to be unmarked or vandalized graves.
Among the graves are three marked sites of the Owens family — Elise Owens, 1885-1961; Sam Owens — 1880-1957; and what may be a son or relative, Huston Owens, 1927-1962. Huston’s head stone indicated he served as a steward’s mate 2nd class in the United States Navy Reserve. When volunteers carefully brushed away layers of decaying leaves from his cracked, concrete tomb, they discovered a weathered U.S. flag, dusted it off and gently draped it over his headstone.
Muscogee, founded in 1857, once boasted four timber mills, a school, post office, train depot and fire station before the lumber industry pulled up stakes and moved on. Eventually, many of the estimated 500 citizens moved on too, leaving behind their family plots.
About two decades ago, a citizens group began restoring the cemetery’s neglected white section, but many of them died or become too old to do the work, according to local historian Helen Allen, who has championed the area’s restoration. At the time, with no apparent family members to tend to the black section, the woods reclaimed that land. And no one had any idea how many graves rested underneath the brush and vines.
Because of its location on the Perdido River, the Water Management District purchased the land encompassing the cemetery from International Paper Company in 2006 and took over maintenance, according to Brown.
“As the new owners, we’ve taken over the responsibility of the cemetery because we want to do what we can to restore its integrity,” he said. “That’s why we are so thrilled to have the portion of the cemetery cleared out. In the future, we hope to find a university or volunteer historians willing to survey the cemetery and further the restoration.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Gulf Power staffers help restore access to forgotten cemetery