Big Bayou Cemetery (Pensacola, Warrington: house, school, living in)

[Domacafe]

Does anyone know where this is located? I've found it listed on a genealogy forum but there is no location information and no information on the web. Might be a small family cemetery, I suppose. Thanks!

[m1a1mg]

Any indication as to general location? Big Bayou is a very popular name.

[Domacafe]

No, not a hint. Even just thinking "somewhere around Bayou Grande" doesn't really narrow it down much.

[Roxanne l Wells]

Domacafe and everyone interested in information about this cemetery. I discovered it about 25 years ago. I want from my house to my son's school where he was playing out in the back and we took a walk across the field beyond the school towards the next street over. We reached a thicket and decided to just go through it. Well we looked around and realized that the headstones and other markers meant that this was a graveyard, a very old graveyard. It was overgrown with brush but you could still push the brush away and read on the marker who was buried there along with their birth date and their death date. This cemetery had been here all this time, who knew? Just beyond the edge of the thicket was a little parking lot in the back of some little shops. These shops were on a major highway, highway 98 that runs through middle of Warrington, Florida. I thought it was kind of sad that these folks that were buried here seem to have been forgotten. Overall the place I don't think was in too bad a shape, very overgrown with bushes and some of the markers had been knocked over. I don't recall but I think some of the dates on the markers were in the 1800s but from what I've researched most of the people buried there were buried in the early 1900s. I was very curious for years about this forgotten cemetery. Well with a little help from Google Earth and Google search, I found The name of the cemetery and a lot of information to go with it. I live in Warrington, Florida which is just out of the city limits of Pensacola, Florida. I recently learned while researching that Warrington was also known as Big Bayou. Maybe that was why it was so difficult find. The Church that this cemetery belongs to is located several miles up Gulf Beach Highway in an area that is known as Big lagoon and is on a Bayou. I will copy paste you some information that I found on the church and cemetery.
30°23'16"N 87°16'32"W(Google Earth)
Big Bayou Cemetery
Good Hope AME Church Cemetery Also known as Big Bayou Cemetery,Warrington,Escambia,Florida
Good Hope A.M.E. Church
Pastor J. B. StallworthHope Lodge #19, F. & A. M.

from "Pensacola News Journal"
The Good Hope A.M.E. Church Cemetery, also known as "Big Bayou Cemetery" in Warrington, Fl was somewhat hidden in dense underbrush for years, though the Church on Gulf Beach Highway was certainly conducting burials in it for years. This is a Black Cemetery, belonging to Warrington’s Good Hope A.M.E. Church, located on Gulf Beach Hwy. The cemetery is located behind the current Warrington Volunteer Fire Department (in 2000) at 2nd Avenue and Barrancas Avenue. In March of 2000, it is chain-link fenced and well-kept. In 1982, this cemetery was again “discovered,” when a robbery sent local businessmen out around the back of their stores and into the middle of the underbrush and headstones.
There are a number of military headstones here, one with the inscription, “U.S.C. Inf.,” which stands for United States Colored Infantry. Reference an article written in the local Pensacola News-Journal, dated Monday, September 27, 1982.
This cemetery was surveyed by Evan R. STROHL and his son, Jonathan, in February 1983, following local newspaper articles about its re-discovery. On March 25, 2000, it was re-surveyed by Evan STROHL and Kathy DUVALL of the West Florida Genealogical Society (WFGS)

I read that the church members are elderly and don't have the ability to maintain the cemetery and that the younger members moved away or don't care. It's not a big cemetery, I don't think it would cost much to hire one man to take care of the grounds. The West Florida Genealogical Society has it surveyed once or twice after it's discovery or rediscovery was announced in the newspaper. And then what? It was forgotten again. I never saw any kind of fence around it. I also read an article that said it was rediscovered when a circus troup over nighted there and when there elephant trip over a headstone, voila, the cemetery was rediscovered again! Yes there are military there. World War I veterans and even one from the Civil war, I believe. I have some pictures but I don't know how to put them up here. Anyway at cemetery is again forgotten. I wonder who will be the next to rediscover it. It had it short moment of fame, and now is overgrown and forgotten. We have a lot of cemeteries in this town and they are all very well kept. The whole thing is disgraceful. Between it's church, the military and the West Florida Genealogical Society, and maybe even the people that live with nothing but a hedge row separating them. It could be a very lovely spot. Our nation's largest military base is less than 5 mi away. It is home to one of the largest military cemeteries, Barrancas National Cemetery. My dad is there and a lot of his friends and my friends are there. I feel like I should do something about this. Haha so the Pensacola News Journal can write an article of its rediscovery in 2023, the West Florida Genealogical Society can survey it again, then clean it up again. Remember that old church hymn? May the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord by and by!

[Sunscape]

There’s the answer for you!

[jamary1]

I know the OP is long-gone, but for anyone else researching a cemetery or a grave, the website Find a grave is a big help. Their listing for Big Bayou Cemetery has photos of gravestones.

[Domacafe]

Thanks so much for the information! I am still around, though I am no longer living in Pensacola. I and Evan Strohl (who became a good friend in the interim) finally made the connection between Good Hope AME and Big Bayou a few years ago, but I had not ready the PNJ article. I appreciate the follow-up and hope that the community is able to help keep up this treasure.