In 1841 a pioneer settlement created by Cornelius Taylor and other pioneers named Enterprise was started. Strangely enough the man who founded this dream settlement was not buried in the town cemetery but rather off in the woods in a different location.  Enterprise  was well known for its steamboat line from Jacksonville FL. The town had the first hotel in Central Florida which was the Brock Hotel as well as a steamship landing across from the very large city of Sanford. At the given time this town had a grist mill, sawmill, school, stores, and even church. Just across from the lake was Fort Mellon.

There was even articles from Harriet Beecher Stowe about how great the town of Enterprise was. As many sick or invalids visited the 50 guest room hotel as the climate was better for the health. Some very famous guest that stayed here were Grover Cleveland, Ulysses S. Grant and William Jennings Bryant all took vacations here. Then in 1887 a courthouse was built around the same time the nearby city of Deland was growing very rapidly which is where I live currently. 

This called the town of Enterprise to diminish then with the great freeze in the 1890s the citrus groves which were a source of revenue for the town were lost. Eventually a railroad service extending out to Sanford FL eliminated the need for a Steamboat service to Sanford which exist across from Lake Monroe. Eventually the town of Enterprise became no more.

Of the following structures that were left over are pier pilings very far out in the middle of lake Monroe, some foundations covered in vines, The 1885 Episcopal Church, A few homes which have been restored and kept up through the years, and the Old Enterprise School. Where the grand two and half story hotel once sat now a Children's home has been built in its place. The oldest and perhaps most noticeable historical part of Enterprise is what still remains today the Enterprise Evergreen Cemetery & Black Cemetery. The cemetery was established in 1842 for the pioneers of this booming town. 

The cemetery was very full of Evergreens and was segregated. It is rumored that 100s of slaves were buried in this area and very few had headstones, markers that most remained unmarked. A fence separated the two but the fence in recent years has been taken down and most of the trees have been removed and piled in an very large woodsy area of the cemetery. You can tell one half of the section is for Blacks since there are a few upper burial stones. There is also another slave cemetery hidden a mile away from here which we will investigate someday in the future. 

Today the cemetery sits in fairly poor condition a lot of stones are very worn, a few are broke, some graves are unmarked, and to top things off the recent hurricanes really had its toll on some of the cemeteries giant evergreens which have been here long before the establishment of the cemetery. But with great surprise despite the heavy trees that fell not one stone seemed to suffer damages. There is even one confederate soldier by the name Charles Thayer and his family buried here from the civil war era and another family plot that is surrounded by rod iron.

So lots of history to the cemetery and of course since the fabled ghost town of Enterprise is now part of Debary and Deltona the cemetery serves as a reminder to some of the earlier pioneers of the area and the attraction of many visitors to the central Florida area which in turn helped towns like DeLand, Orange City, Debary Etc grow in size.

© By

Rick-AngelOfThyNight

Enterprise Evergreen Cemetery

Enterprise Black Segregated Area