Markers Help Keep History Alive

CLAY SINK - Some of the most poignant stories from the Clay Sink Cemetery are about the children buried there.

Harrison and Martha Ann Slaughter, members of a one of the area's founding families, had the sad fortune of starting the community cemetery when their infant daughter died in 1873. Harrison Slaughter carried his baby's coffin to a spot of high ground he thought would be safe from flooding and buried her there, local historical accounts say. The cemetery gradually grew up around the girl's grave.

Descendants of the founding families now own and maintain the cemetery, less than an acre in size. In 2006, the cemetery's stewards installed two headstones honoring two boys who perished in dramatic events, 50 years apart. Until now, their stories have been passed down through the families orally, but not in writing.

Frances Pritchett, 94,
Her parents came to live in
Clay Sink where she has
lived all her life.

The markers sit on either side of Baby Slaughter's headstone to ensure the boys' stories aren't lost in time, even though their gravesites remain on private farms nearby.

Frances Pritchett and Vera Boyett, members of the cemetery association, talk about the boys whenever they can, hoping their stories will travel.

Boyett answered some questions about the gravestones.

The gravestone reads: "A memorial to Sylvester, killed and scalped by Indians about 1850 at Little Withlacoochee River in Hernando County." What do you know about his story?

Vera Boyett - Oral History
in Cemetery

His father died, and his mother had about five children. And he came to live with the Sumners, and they took him in like he was their child. And in this community at that time, the Indians were really bad. But they the white settlers thought that everything was fine.

Everybody had cattle for the taking here. If you roped a cow, put your brand and mark on it, it was your cow.

So, they had a rope that they called a community rope. And they sent him to carry the rope to Linden, to somebody, or else go to Linden and bring it back. I don't know which.

His horse come home with his suspenders platted in the horse's mane. They knew immediately that something was wrong.

They put out to find him. They also found he never did get to the place where he was going to get the rope.

So, they put out to find him. ... On the Little River, they found him by a tree, and his body was covered with rocks and pine limbs and all that.

And they got him, brought him home, and they buried him, up here behind where the Sumners lived, which, eventually, the Slaughters bought from the Sumners.

Also, the next day, they captured the Indians, three of them. And they put them in a log barn. And the next morning, the settlers went out there, and the Indians had stripped their clothes, their buckskins, and hung themselves. Because the Indian chief, if you got a scalp and didn't bring it to him, you was thrown out. You was an outcast. So they'd rather die than to have done that.

So that's the story of that little boy.

This gravestone says, "In memory of six year old Mobley boy, who burned to death in fire about 1900 in Green Swamp, Sumter County."

About five or six miles out here, these people lived there. They had cattle, and they farmed and all that.

And this little boy had wanted a hat. And of course, you know, back then, you know, people didn't go to town every day. So, when they went to town, they bought him a hat, a little red felt hat. And he was so proud of it.

Well, they was cleaning new ground. ... They had dug around a stump and was burning it out. That's the way you cleaned it at that time. You didn't have tractors, bulldozers and all that.

He was going around that fire, the stump, and his little hat fell in there. Well, he tried to retrieve it, and he burned to death ... fell in there and burned. His mother and father couldn't get him out.

So, he was buried out there, like this little boy Sylvester was buried up here.

And we never knew where he was really buried. We did know where Sylvester was buried, but we didn't do anything about the grave. We just made the two markers as a memorial to these two little boys.

And that was one of my main aims, before I'm put out there, to have this done. And we got it done.

They needed to be here. I thought about this little boy, way out there in the woods, which the forestry division owns now. And I thought about this little boy was up here, by himself. ... I just wanted something to show what had happened in this community and how we, in our lifetime, took care of it. I don't know if that makes sense to a lot of other people, but to me, it was important.