Stage Stand Cemetery - Homosassa Springs, FL
Posted by: 
debbado
N 28° 47.745 W 082° 34.419
17R E 346415 N 3186372
This large cemetery on US 19 in Homosassa Springs has approximately 1,000 graves.
Waymark Code: WMHCF4
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 06/23/2013
Views: 6
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Stage Stand was a stopping place of the mail wagon run by the U. S. Army during the 1800s. It became a cemetery by chance. U. S. General Andrew Jackson first invaded Florida in 1813 to repel British settlers from the Pensacola area. He stayed to drive out the Seminole Indians and confiscate their land.
The Seminole wars lasted intermittently from 1818 until 1858. During that time American settlers moved in to hunt and cull cedar and pine from the forests.
Circa 1830 mail came from Fort Brooke (now Tampa) roughly along the old Indian Road (now US-19) to Stage Stand. From there it went to Lee’s Mound (now Rock Crusher) and down to Brooksville before returning to Fort Brooke. The Homosassa Stand, just a rough shelter, bordered the farm of the Harrell family, running along Spring Cove Road east to present day State Road 490. They were squatters hoping to settle and own land.
Resenting forced migration, the Indians were fighting back, resulting in the Second Seminole War from 1835 to 1842. During this time, when the Harrells did not come one morning for mail call, neighbors traveled through their woods to seek them out. The Indians had murdered most of the family and scalped them: father, mother and three of their youngsters. Only one boy had survived, the sixteen-year old was out duck hunting.
Neighbors helped bury the family on a knoll just south of the Stage Stand, the first internments.
In those days, grave markers were simply a large stone, un- etched with dates or names. That practice continued for many decades and they are still in place today.