Port Orange in Volusia County, Florida — The American South (South Atlantic)
Settlement at Spruce Creek
Photographed by Tim Fillmon, April 11, 2024
1. Settlement at Spruce Creek Marker
This cemetery is all that remains of a small community of pioneers who settled this area in the early 1880s. The name Spruce Creek showed up on maps as early as 1859 as the name for the creek that winds through the area, but Orange and Oriana were used as alternate names. In 1909, the Spruce Creek name was formally adopted by the community. By that time, it boasted a community house, sawmill, church, two cemeteries, and a one-room schoolhouse. In this cemetery are interred 56 United States military veterans, with records of service that include the Florida Seminole Wars, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Civil War veteran John Allen Jackson has the distinction of being the earliest recorded grave. Families that called Spruce Creek home in the 1900s included the Bennetts, Chandlers, Fairs, Johnsons, McDaniels, Prevatts, Selfs, Sparkmans, and Yelvingtons. Eugenia Fair was the schoolteacher, and her husband, Andrew, was a watchmaker. Other notable residents included: George Self, a minister; LaFane McDaniel, butcher; Simmons Bennett, carpenter; George Prevatt, watchman; and John Yelvington, steer raiser. Descendants of the original pioneers still call Spruce Creek home.
A Florida Heritage Site
Erected 2022 by The Daughters of the American Revolution
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Topics. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Settlements & Settlers. A significant historical year for this entry is 1880.
Location. 29° 4.757′ N, 81° 2.608′ W. Marker is in Port Orange, Florida, in Volusia County. It is on Slow Flight Drive just west of Wright Drive, on the right when traveling west. Marker is located in the Spruce Creek Fly-In gated community. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Port Orange FL 32128, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Florida’s First Coast. It is also in the American South. Globally, it is in the North Atlantic Region, North America, a Gulf of Mexico state, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once New Spain, the territory of the Mississippian Culture, one of the Confederate States of America, and the Antebellum South.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 5 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies: Gamble Place (approx. Ύ mile away); Port Orange Veterans Park (approx. 3.6 miles away); POW-MIA Chair of Honor (approx. 3.6 miles away); Battle of Dunlawton Plantation (approx. 4.8 miles away); Historic Sugar Cane Machinery (approx. 4.8 miles away); Florida Hammock Trail (approx. 4.8 miles away); Destruction of Dunlawton Plantation (approx. 4.8 miles away); The Dunlawton Sugar Factory (approx. 4.8 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Port Orange.
Photographed by Tim Fillmon, April 11, 2024
2. Settlement at Spruce Creek Marker
Photographed by Tim Fillmon, April 11, 2024
3. Spruce Creek Cemetery
Credits. This page was last revised on April 12, 2024. It was originally submitted on April 12, 2024, by Tim Fillmon of Webster, Florida. This page has been viewed 743 times since then and 127 times this year. Photos: 1, 2, 3. submitted on April 12, 2024, by Tim Fillmon of Webster, Florida.
