Hunters Glen

"Hunters Glen Cemetery"

Cemetery = "Hunters Glen Cemetery" (stand-in name)

Vicinity = St. Marks N

Status = not located

Community = unknown

Mike Kinsey reports seeing two or three brick structures that he took to be grave monuments in what is now Hunter's Glen Subdivision, a subdivision of large-acreage tracts north of Coastal Highway and northwest of the St. Marks Powder works. Mr. Kinsey found this feature more than a decade ago - perhaps about 1990 - when he was operating a tractor for the Goddard's who owned the property at that time. He recalls walking over and looking closely at the structures. However, a search by Mr. Kinsey and members of the historical society in April 2002 did not locate the feature.

Once on the property again in 2002, Mr. Kinsey identified an area a little east of the present-day Hunter's Trace (Road), and on the west flank of an older drive or trail coming south from the high-tension powerline at the east boundary of Hunter's Glen. One article appearing to be a piece of a red brick, and a couple of small shards of china lying nearby, were found, but otherwise nothing indicating any gravesite. Mr. Kinsey is not certain that this place searched (in formidably thick broadleaf shrub re-growth after timbering and other work of recent years) was the place where he saw marked graves earlier; the terrain being considerably altered, identification of the minor drive he references by is not a certainty. But he picks this, on site, as the place best matching his recollection. A GPS fix made in the small area he indicated is:

30°11.745'N -X- 84°13.968'W

The fix is 10 yards west of the old, minor drive and probably on Lot 13, Hunter's Glen, but possibly on Lot 14. The piece of brick and the small china shards lay 20-30 yards north of this spot.

Hunter's Glen property owner Douglas Davis reports a cemetery in Hunter's Glen at some distance north-west of his property - perhaps in the southwest part of Lot 21. He says it is beside one of the old, minor roads that meander through Hunter's Glen and that gravestones mark it plainly as a cemetery. Another person long acquainted with the Hunter's Glen and River Plantation tracts, Bruce Duncan, says that he knows one grave or graves site in the territory, and that the marker is of bricks. Mr. Duncan says that this feature lies in Hunter's Glen about due east of the sewage treatment plant of River Plantation.

Observations by members of the historical society in permissible walks in the interior of Hunter's Glen did not bring to light any grave sites. Large areas are covered by thick, shrubby re-growth like that mentioned above, where visibility is very short, and other sizable tracts are recently cleared. Relatively undisturbed high pine land does stretch several hundred yards east from the sewage plant and visibility is good there, but no feature such as Mr. Duncan recalls was found in crisscrossing walks through it in 2002. Whether the feature he recalls was indeed a grave, whether it could be the same feature that Mr. Kinsey remembers as lying near the southeast extremity of Hunter's Glen, and whether it relates to the site Mr. Davis reports as a cemetery all remain questions.

Tommy Faircloth of Cairo, Ga., and William Clark of Tallahassee, developers of Hunter's Glen, both say that they do not know of any gravesites in the entire property. Mr. Faircloth has hunted over and otherwise traversed a good bit of the property (and still owns much of it). He knows of certain relic structures from turpentining or cattle operations, but says that he hasn't found any graveyards and that none of the timber cruisers and loggers who have been all over the property have reported any. Yet he is not averse to further searches. Mr. Clark says that he is well acquainted with the general vicinity of the sewage plant, as a good many people are, and that no grave has been reported. He says, however, that he would be interested in such a feature if one is found.

Date of site report narrative - April 2002

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