Volunteers find American history in overgrown Sanford cemetery

SANFORD, Fla. — Throughout central Florida, thousands of graves are lost in overgrown cemeteries.

Local volunteers are beginning to cut through the woods and brush to find pieces of American history among those gravestones.

One such cemetery is the Page Jackson Cemetery in the heart of Sanford.

A landowner gave away free grave plots for decades, but Channel 9's Steve Barrett found out that man's charity means no one is responsible for its upkeep

Courtney Lanier is searching for his great-grandfather, Harvey Martin, who is buried somewhere in the woods.

Lanier spends his weekends chopping through history one branch at a time. And he's already found plenty of surprises.

“When I looked down, I saw the last name, Grice, then I looked again (and it said) Lexy Grice. And she was my next door neighbor when I was a young man growing up in Sanford,” said Lanier.

And it's not just Lanier's history - it's the nation’s history. Drew Bundini Brown, whose crypt was found in the old cemetery, created one of the most famous marketing lines: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

Along with being Muhammad Ali's corner man, he wrote many of the poems the boxer used to taunt the competition.

Lanier and a group of dedicated volunteers come to the Page Jackson Cemetery two Saturdays a month, and almost every time they come, they find something special, including the plot for Zora Neale Hurston, the famed folk artist and author who claimed Eatonville as her home. The woods are filled with African-American history, so what's discovered brings immediate attention from local historical societies.

“I was going to Winn-Dixie and he texted me and I just made a U-turn and came on because I had to see it for myself,” said Francis Oliver of the Goldsboro Historical Society.

What might lie beyond the next branch is what motivates volunteers.

“A lot of veterans. We just found a World War II veteran again,” said Lanier.

“(In) this particular crypt is interred the first postmistress of Seminole County,” said volunteer Tom Ward.

It’s history lost for a brief time, but never forgotten or unrecoverable.

WFTV