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An early settlement named Crows Bluff on the west bank of the St. Johns River was formed by Ellison H. Crow and his family which resided there. All them settlements like St. Francis, Hawkinsville, Crows Bluff were in the general vicinity of each other and eventually became ghost towns due to the great freeze and other growing towns in the air. Such as Ponceannah had a settlement which eventually died out and became consumed by Paisley. Back in June 2004 we investigated the Crows Bluff area for our first time which has some small communities and housing being developed along with quite a few miles of just woods and trails. Crow and Rev. Louis Ballard were said to have started the Ponceannah Cemetery. Both men had grown up around the sawmill of Robert L. Kirkland eventually Crow and Kirkland formed a partnership in Ponceannah near the cemetery. Crow donated the land in 1860 to be used as a cemetery which was called The Crow Burial Grounds. Newman Brantley was the first adult buried here in 1861 however there is rumor that a child was buried here in 1860 but there are no records to prove this fact. The fact is though that the cemetery did start in the mid 1800s and had many significant burials over time. The cemetery had its name changed to Ponceannah in 1891 after trustees chartered the land. At the time the cemetery sat on a trail there was no road running through here since the whole area was full of small settlements. In 1918 the cemetery association exchanged some tracts of land with the Crow family so that the main trail would become a road which today cuts through Paisley, Altoona, Forest Hills, and many other small towns in Central Florida. In 1923 a gazebo like Shelter was built with funding raised by Jessie Perkins to construct this Hexagonal shelter within the cemetery almost dead center. They used the shelter as a chapel, meeting place, rest area for workers who would clean up the cemetery. I can imagine it was also used for funerals as there were real uneasy feelings here and near the shelter is a well which is sealed shut. The well was dug in the mid-1950s by Maceo and Ruth Kirkland. The reason it still was left standing is that it was a tribute to the there years of community service. There is alot of energy here perhaps because it serves as a focal point in the cemetery. Perhaps the biggest reason I wanted to investigate this cemetery was that the graves of Walt Disney's maternal grandparents were buried here, Charles and Henrietta Call. Charles was buried in 1890 in Maple Grove cemetery which is not to far from Kismet another once upon a time ghost town which had once a big hotel and 300 settlers. Twenty years later his widow, Henrietta Call passed away and there daughter Jessie Call Perkins had Charles exhumed and buried besides her mother in Ponceannah Cemetery. The grave they are buried in is a real standout you cannot miss it. I knew there was some significance to the gravesite but did not have all the facts till I did more research here. We also heard a strange dog near the Call stone it had to be no more then a hundred feet away. So now I know the reason because I spent alot of time trying to look for the name Disney on various stones when all along the name was Call that I should have been looking for. The cemetery seems to have many early settlers buried here from settlements like the Lightwood Camp, Bayview Settlement, and Ponceannah Settlement. The Ponceannah settlement started during the 1850s and those descendents lived in the original homes surrounding the cemetery all the way till the 1930s. The original homes no longer stand and much woods consume the area now. Just to name a few names here are settlers like William Stokes, J.J. McEwan who lived near this cemetery and the settlement. There is also the Fuller family that is buried
here which moved from Saskatchewana in 1920 and settled outside of
Paisley. Upon there arrival there daughter Thelma passed away and they
buried her in Ponceannah cemetery. The fuller family built a general store
with gas pumps and a house in the back. Niles Fuller then named the town
Fullerville and ran a general store till 1946. Today the fullers are
buried here just as many of the founders of various towns are. Another well know name James Marion Owens and Rosena Chapman lived with there children in the ghost town of the once thriving St. Francis again an area we investigated in June of 2003. One of the first children born here was a child by the name of Rosena E. Owens named after her mother. The child only lived to be three years old and was also buried at Ponceannah Cemetery. Also as far as we can tell John R. Glenn a confederate soldier is buried here. However in another section with rod iron around it there appears to be two more civil war soldiers. So imagine the history alone to these men's burials. Then we have the tragic story of a brother who drowned in Lake Akron and a brother who purchased a stone in 1967 for his grave. It is just quite sad to hear about such deaths but its part of what you see up on your journeys when dealing with the deceased and such historical cemeteries. So as you can see there is alot of history to this area I mean the cemetery is the only last remaining remnant of the Ponceannah settlement and each grave is a symbol of all the settlements which once thrived in the Ocala National Forest. We have drove past these settlements but nothing is remaining just woods and foliage no foundations even. I have a friend I work with that has spent sometime at night during this cemetery. She said there are alot of ghost stories associated this this place and because of it she will no longer visit here. She also has family buried here so she will not visit here for paranormal purposes but she is the one who told me about this place over the last few months so lets just say I was taken with great interest. Further below you will an article which just
recently happened at the cemetery here which to me really upsets me
because it gives Ghostbusters like us a bad name especially when we visit
cemeteries. Its strange enough that the three women who were grave robbing
Ponceannah and Umatilla were the same ones we visited in one night maybe
on a psychic level I felt that they deserved perhaps some positive
attention. Remind me not to recruit these women for our investigative
team. Remember that although the families of the deceased have feelings so
do the dead so respect them. Rick-AngelOfThyNight Women Accused Of Stealing Items From Local Gravesites One thing that is clear is the thefts caused families enormous pain.
"My sister loved the chimes, just to listen to it," says Chester Palacios.
It was a comfort for him to see his sister's gravesite well decorated. "She loved sunflowers, so that was a memory of
what she used to love," he says. Copyright 2004 by wftv.com. All rights reserved. Subject:
Ponceannah
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