Welcome to The Official Citrus County FLGenWeb Project
Pine Hill Cemetery
Historically Significant
Used with permission of the Citrus County Historical Society
Located in a southeast corner of a section of the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Inverness, Florida, Pine Hill Cemetery was and is used for the burial of the blacks in the community.
The one and eight tenths acre cemetery had been long neglected until 1988 when it was learned that the county owned it and was responsible for its maintenance. The area was cleaned and with the use of a ground penetrating, radar device, a large number of unmarked graves were located and white cement column markers were placed on those. Several other in-ground markers were discovered while clearing the area.
Small metal markers, some showing the name of the deceased plus the name of the funeral home that directed the burial are still in place at some of the graves.
The name Dampier-White appears on a number of these markers, designating the East Dampier Street Funeral Home, with Mr. Eli White as manager-owner placed the markers at the sites.
Mr. White ran the funeral home for 43 years and personally saw to the cemetery's maintenance until he became unable to do so.
During a personal walk through of the cemetery on August 16, 1991, a total of one hundred and twenty five headstones or markers were found that were legible enough to read the name of the deceased person or their date of birth and death. The lettering had been obliterated on several of the stones, perhaps fifteen altogether.
Added to the above sites, the white markers recently placed at other sites numbered eighty two by my count, making an approximate total of two hundred and twenty two gravesites in Pine Hill Cemetery. The most recent show the date of this year, Nineteen Ninety One! The earliest noted - Nineteen Twenty One.
Twenty Three servicemen, from all branches of the United States armed services are buried here, serving in World War I, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.
Simply stated epitaphs or inscriptions included 'At Rest' and 'Gone So Soon'.
The list of burials can be found here