“From the courthouse in the town of Bunnell, go east on Moody Boulevard four blocks. Turn left (North) on Bacher Street and go 5/10 mile to cemetery which lies on the right (East) of road.”
I live about ten miles from the former Bunnell Colored Cemetery. I followed the directions from the 1940–1941 Works Progress Administration’s Veterans Registration Graves Project. I ended up in the Colony Park subdivision in Bunnell, FL, with no sign of a cemetery.
The Bunnell Colored Cemetery began in the 1900s when Isaac I. Moody, one of the Bunnell Commissioners, set aside a plot of land for Bunnell’s Black community. Moody was likely a Klansman; I say that because the local KKK chapter bore his name, the I.I. Moody Klan, № 14, Realm of Florida. One could speculate he wanted to ensure Black people weren’t buried alongside whites, including the one he “adopted” at age ten and who worked for him for 17 years until Moody’s death.
There’s no question the cemetery once existed, but where is it now? More specifically, what happened to the 50–100 bodies buried there? The property was sold to Lewis Wadsworth in the 1940s. Wadsworth said the last burial was in the 1950s when he closed the cemetery because it was “full.” In 1960, the land was included in a large sale to Dewey D. Moody and Tom Holden, who subdivided the area for development.
Wadsworth said in 1978, when interviewed by the Flagler Tribune that he verbally agreed with the developers to protect what he now refers to as the Bunnell Black Cemetery. An investigation at that time led to the discovery of a gravesite and an intact tombstone leaning against a tree in a vacant lot.
There are competing stories as to what happened to the graves. One debunked story was that the bodies were relocated to the Black Masonic Cemetery on Kings Road, but there are no records in church documents or local publications, and nobody living at the time has memories of a relocation.
Another story tells of a Black man hired to operate a bulldozer to prep the area for construction. He allegedly bulldozed all the remains into a big hole and covered it up. He reportedly went to a saloon that night and died mysteriously.
A third story says that surrounding sand and dirt mounds were excavated and used to level the property. No reasonable theory suggests anything other than dozens of graves lying directly under the homes in Colony Park.
Bunnell, FL, is the County seat in Flagler County. I live in Palm Coast, which I recently learned was designed in the 1970s as an all-white city. Flagler County was one of the last in Florida to desegregate; they mounted a legal battle saying that Congress failed to sufficiently define the word “Negro.” If I keep finding things like this out, I could begin to form a bad impression. Just saying.
This article originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium.