Evergreen Cemetery was founded on September 28, 1880, when a group of influential and prominent residents of the city decided to create a cemetery for the community. It is hard to believe that the cemetery was once bigger than it is today, but that is the case. When the cemetery was in the process of being established, 200 acres in the northeast portion of the city were purchased at a rate of $25 per acre, equivalent to nearly $775 per acre today.
Once the cemetery grounds were purchased, J.J. Daniel Sr. was elected as the cemetery’s first president. While Daniel was not born in Jacksonville, he was a surveyor, lawyer, and an esteemed member of the local community, supporting many local organizations. These included his role during the Civil War as an elected member from Duval County at the Secession Convention in February 1861, member of the Jacksonville Board of Trade following the Civil War, president of the Auxiliary Sanitary Association during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1888, president of the National Bank of the State of Florida, and president of the Florida Publishing Company, publishers of The Florida Times-Union. With all of his local involvement and connections, Daniel was well-placed to help develop the newly founded Evergreen Cemetery. Daniel was dedicated to Evergreen Cemetery and when he passed away in 1888, he was buried there within his family’s substantial plot.
With nearly 200 acres of land, the directors of the cemetery quickly decided that to make visiting the cemetery easier, they were going to need an easier way for people to come and go from the property. In October 1880, the cemetery granted a 60-foot right-of-way through the cemetery to the Jacksonville Fernandina Railroad but stipulated that a railway depot had to be constructed in the cemetery to benefit visitors. On the same day, the cemetery directors hired a driver for a horse-drawn cart they purchased, making it easier for visitors to travel from the railroad depot to specific areas of the cemetery.
Evergreen held its first burial less than a year after it was established and three months after a house for the groundskeeper and a meeting room were built. Not much is known about Margaret Jamison, who was buried in the cemetery on April 8, 1881. We do know that she was born in 1805 in South Carolina and was married to William Jamison around 1835. They had at least six children, Alexander, James, Matthew, Ewell, Rebecca, and Isabel. We assume that she lived in Illinois from at least 1837 to 1870, as all her children were born there. In 1870, she moved to Baldwin and by 1880 she was living in Precinct 5 in Duval County. Margaret’s husband William is buried with her, having died soon after her in 1882, and their son Ewell, who died in 1919, is nearby.
To learn more about the history of Evergreen Cemetery and the historic figures who are buried there, attend the Evergreen Cemetery tour offered by the Jacksonville History Center on March 23, 2025. This will be the first of three tours covering three different sections of the vast cemetery grounds throughout the year. To buy tickets for the tours, click here or see promotion below.
Emily Cottrell | Archivist