Syfrett

Syfrett Cemetery

Cemetery = Syfrett Cemetery

Vicinity = Sopchoppy NW

Status = neglected

Community = white

Synonymous name(s) = Syfrett Creek Cemetery

A knoll of old cropland in Apalachicola National Forest just south of the south point of Bradwell Bay Wilderness features two or more graves. The site evidently is that recorded by the 1940-41 veterans' graves registration as Syfrett Cemetery. Though quite near Forest Rd. 345, it is hidden by vegetation and not visible from the road.

Jim A. Syfrett of LaVernia, Texas, prepared a brief report on the graveyard in 2002. Some of its passages are:

The cemetery contains two-three grave sites, namely that of Daniel Wester Syfrett, who was born in South Carolina about 1824 and died in Wakulla County, Florida about 1890, his wife Versenoy Miller, who was born in Early County Georgia about 1834 and died in Wakulla County, Florida about 1885. Reportedly an unnamed infant is also buried there...

If the child reportedly buried there is one of Daniel's and Versenoy's, the cemetery could have been started in the early 1850's. Otherwise it could have been started as late as the early to mid 1880's when Versenoy died... 

A nephew, now in his seventies, recently told me that he remembers visiting the cemetery as a child with his parents and at that time there was a "shed", i.e., "roof" over the grave sites. He said that he had been told that Daniel had someone he knew in South Carolina come down and build the "shed" and that it was put together without the use of nails. According to him, this was later destroyed by loggers...  The use of the "shed" over the grave sites has been confirmed by a niece who also visited the cemetery as a child. I understand from others that the use of a roof over grave sites was not an uncommon thing in the 1800's/early 1900's.

...At one time the cemetery was enclosed by a rail fence which was later replaced by a white picket fence.

When I first saw the cemetery, it was surrounded by an old rusty field fence... The two adult grave sites were marked by a large piece of stone, one at the head of each site. One site was also marked by a homemade concrete marker. In addition to the stone, the other adult site was marked with a concrete building block at both head and foot as well as a wooden grave marker at the foot... The site of the child reportedly buried there did not have any type marker raising the question "is there a child buried there?" However, there is adequate room between the two adult sites for the grave of a child or an adult for that matter.

In late 2000 and early 2001, my brother and I put together a plan to re-fence the cemetery and add a headstone for our grandparents...   In January 2002, we proceeded as planned and replaced the old fence and posts with metal posts and chainlink fence. We added a gate and had a new headstone set. The new stone is set between the two adult graves sites and has both names and birth/death dates of each of our grandparents as best as we could determine them. The marker also recognizes the un-named infant buried there. We were not allowed to move the existing markers...

A 1999 memo to the historical society also covers this site in some detail and gives a rather precise locating map (the 1940-41 veterans document evidently was mistaken in giving Land Section 19, a territory of low flatwoods and ty-ty bays lying to the north; the graves are in Sec. 30). Information given there as to persons buried at the site is from Syfrett descendant Frank Revell (b.1931) of Sopchoppy. Site File 8Wa665 in the State of Florida Division of Historical Resources also records this cemetery.

Date of site report narrative - February 2002

Surveyed by members of the WCHS, February 2007

Some information taken from Register of Deceased Veterans 1940-41

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