Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: The Mt. Pleasant Cemetery was established c. 1883 by the Mt. Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church as a final resting place for its members and other African Americans in the city of Gainesville. Founded in 1867, the church purchased the 5.38-acre property for $125 in 1886. Among the earliest graves are those of Helen H. Wall (1847-1883) and Jefferson Garrison (1871-1884). Some headstones are of marble or granite carved with symbolic designs, others are simple vaults of stuccoed brick or concrete. Early African American community members and their descendents are buried in individual and family plots here. Among them are civic and religious leaders, educators, physicians, dentists, craftsmen, servicemen, and business owners, some of whom began life as enslaved people. Buried here are the Reverend Alexander DeBose, pastor of the Mt. Pleasant church in the 1870s; Dr. R. B. Ayer and Dr. Julius Parker, the city’s first black physicians; Dr. E. H. DeBose, Sr., Gainesville’s first black dentist; and Lance Corporal Vernon T. Carter, Jr., Gainesville’s first Vietnam War casualty. The cemetery is still maintained by the Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church, located in Gainesville’s Pleasant Street Historic District.