Pleasant Point Cemetery

Oct 14

Site Brief:

Founded: 1880s

Location: Green Cove Springs, FL

Additional name(s): Woodlawn Cemetery

Affiliate group(s): N/A

History:

Pleasant Point Cemetery, also known as Woodlawn, is located approximately 50 miles southwest of Jacksonville, Florida, on the west side of the St. Johns River, just outside Green Cove Springs. It lies off County Road 209 (30.16592 N, 81.699639 W). The cemetery covers an area of 1.4 acres.

Currently, 15 monuments are visible as restoration continues, with hopes of completion by Christmas 2025. When the project began in October 2024, only six individuals had been identified as being buried at Pleasant Point. Today, 40 individuals have been identified, with records available on Find a Grave.

Founded in the 1880s, the cemetery served the community of Magnolia, a free Black settlement. In the 1850s, Magnolia became a stronghold for Northern abolitionists and was later occupied by Union troops during the Civil War. After the war, the Magnolia Springs Hotel temporarily housed the Freedmen’s Bureau and an orphanage for Black children.

The land itself has a longer history: originally part of British Governor Patrick Tonyn’s 1,000-acre indigo plantation, it was granted to Thomas Travers in 1789 through a Spanish land grant.

Those laid to rest at Pleasant Point include members of the Forrester family, the first free Black family in Clay County, Florida, as well as Pizel Robinson and Mary Ambrose Robinson, great- grandparents of renowned entertainer Patti LaBelle. Civil War veteran George Forrester is interred there, along with three other veterans. Many others buried in the cemetery were prominent members of the community, including several Freemasons.

Pleasant Point Cemetery stands today as the last surviving link to a once-thriving community that endured the Civil War, Reconstruction, and decades of oppression.

References

-Clay Historical Commission & Clay County Archives, 2011, Restoration Project

-Spencer, E.R. They Are here, Cemeteries of Clay County, Florida. 1973, Privately printed in Orange Park, Florida