Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: This cemetery is all that remains of a small community of pioneers who settled this area in the early 1880s. The name Spruce Creek showed up on maps as early as 1859 as the name for the creek that winds through the area, but Orange and Oriana were used as alternate names. In 1909, the Spruce Creek name was formally adopted by the community. By that time, it boasted a community house, sawmill, church, two cemeteries, and a one-room schoolhouse. In this cemetery are interred 56 United States military veterans, with records of service that include the Florida Seminole Wars, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Civil War veteran John Allen Jackson has the distinction of being the earliest recorded grave. Families that called Spruce Creek home in the 1900s included the Bennetts, Chandlers, Fairs, Johnsons, McDaniels, Prevatts, Selfs, Sparkmans, and Yelvingtons. Eugenia Fair was the schoolteacher, and her husband, Andrew, was a watchmaker. Other notable residents included: George Self, a minister; LaFane McDaniel, butcher; Simmons Bennett, carpenter; George Prevatt, watchman; and John Yelvington, steer raiser. Descendants of the original pioneers still call Spruce Creek home.