Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Evergreen Cemetery, known locally as “This Wondrous Place,” began with the burial of a baby girl in 1856. The infant, Elizabeth Thomas, was the daughter of wealthy cotton merchant James T. Thomas and his wife, Elizabeth Jane Hall Thomas. The baby was laid to rest by a young cedar tree on family land. Eight months later, her mother was buried alongside her. Their double grave is marked with a simple headstone carved by a noted stonemason from Charleston, W. A. White. In 1866, Thomas sold his 720-acre parcel, reserving roughly one acre around the burial for a graveyard. The Evergreen Cemetery Association operated the cemetery, beginning in 1890, until it was purchased by the City of Gainesville in 1944. The cemetery now includes 53 acres, and is the final resting place of more than 10,000 people. Some of the persons interred here are Gainesville founder James B. Bailey, anthropologist William R. Maples, ecologists Archie and Marjorie Carr, Florida’s first female physician Sarah L. Robb, Major General Albert H. Blanding, U.S. Commissioner of Education John J. Tigert, and Gatorade inventor Robert Cade. Veterans of nearly every American conflict since the 1830s are also buried here.