02/13/2026
🌿 Honoring Our Ancestors – Black History Month 🌿
This month, the Wimauma Cemetery Project proudly honors the lives of those interred at the Historic Wimauma Memorial Cemetery.
Within this sacred ground rest the founding Black families of Wimauma, the farmers and laborers who built the region’s agricultural economy, the church leaders and educators who sustained faith and learning, and the veterans who served our nation despite segregation and inequality.
Their resilience, sacrifice, and leadership shaped the community we know today.
Black history lives here. Let us remember, reflect, and honor their legacy.
Mr. Joe Don Carrie- Oct. 29, 1904- July 18, 1978
Rosewood Massacre Survivor January 1923
* The family's given name was Carrier, however they changed it after escaping Rosewood.
Henrietta Bailey (1861-1934)
Born around 1861, Henrietta Bailey represents the first generation of African Americans to build new lives in freedom following the end of the Civil War. By the early 20th century she had established herself in Tampa, residing along Highland Avenue where she
supported herself as a laundress and later as a truck farmer. Her household included several agricultural laborers who boarded with her, evidence of the networks of mutual support common among Black residents working in and around Hillsborough County.
Bailey’s life reflects the perseverance of women who carved out economic independence despite limited opportunities
John Barr (1893-1960)
John Barr’s life illustrates the migration of African American laborers from the Carolinas into Florida’s turpentine and agricultural industries. Born in South Carolina with only a second-grade education, Barr moved to Hillsborough County by 1930, where he was employed at a turpentine still and lived along Johnston Community Road. By 1940 he had settled in Wimauma with his wife, Rosa Lee Barr (1889-1967), herself a Florida
native who would later be interred beside him. Their story echoes the journeys of many Black families who followed the ebb and flow of the rural labor economy across the South.
Elliott Chambers Bruton Sr. (1893-1942)
A World War I veteran and railroad laborer, Elliott C. Bruton Sr. demonstrated both service and resilience. Born in McIntosh, Florida, he served as a Private in the 330th Labor Battalion until 1919. After the war, Bruton worked as a railroad section hand,
married Rosa Bolden, and by 1940 was living on a dirt road in Wimauma where he labored to support his family. His trajectory reflects the heavy burdens placed on Black servicemen who returned from war to low-wage manual labor, yet remained committed to building stable community lives
Nathaniel Cobb (1925-1956)
Born in Sarasota during the height of Florida’s agricultural expansion and land boom,
Nathaniel Cobb grew up in a working-class family tied to both railroad employment and celery farming. By 1943 he worked on the docks for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad while his mother lived in Wimauma. Cobb enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve in 1944 and
served aboard the USS Tadgen during World War II. Cobb died young in 1956 in Manatee County, but his burial in Wimauma connects him to a community where his family maintained long-term roots.
John D. (“Jim”) Dorsey (1891-1955)
John D. Dorsey represents early 20th-century migration from Georgia into Florida’s expanding timber industry. Born in Georgia, he married Annie Lee Morrow in 1915 and farmed in Brooks County before relocating to Hillsborough County. During the 1930s he
worked in a sawmill and continued laboring through the Depression and post-war years. By 1950 he was known locally as Jim Dorsey and lived on Railroad Avenue in Wimauma while working in a chemical plant. His life reflects the steady movement of Black rural
workers toward jobs that supported Florida’s booming economy
Lonnie Lattienore (1877-1936)
A Georgia-born farm and mill laborer, Lonnie Lattienore followed the migration stream of African Americans who entered Florida’s turpentine industry in the early 1900s. He lived and worked in Conyers, Georgia, before relocating to Ruskin by 1918, where he found employment with regional turpentine companies such as West & Williford and G. Smith’s Turpentine Still in Boyette. By 1930 he lived in St. Catherine in Sumter County, still laboring in turpentine production. Lattiemore’s long career reveals the harsh but vital
industry that drew many Black families into central Florida.
John Edward and Susie Levins (1878-1958; 1876-1965)
John Benjamin Edward (“Ed”) Levins and his wife, Susie, represent the many married couples who moved through a succession of rural labor jobs before settling in Wimauma.
Ed worked as a common laborer, turpentine chipper, and later as a sawmill and truck farm laborer across Santa Rosa County. Susie, born Susie Goodwine, came from a Bradford County family rooted in North Florida’s agricultural communities. By the 1930s
the couple was employed in truck farming and by 1940 had relocated to Wimauma, where Ed worked as a farm laborer. Their son Josiah later registered for the World War II draft while employed by local grower Bennett Elsberry, demonstrating the family’s sustained presence in regional agricultural work
Wade H. West (1859-1942)
Born in Alabama to parents from Virginia, Wade H. West represents an earlier generation of agricultural settlers. By 1930 he lived on Johnston Community Road as a farmer, later working as a truck-crop farmer near Fort Lonesome. Also a Spanish American War veteran, he is representative of the story of Black military service that predates the 20th century.
Reverend David J. Johnson, born in South Carolina in 1876, worked in the naval stores industry in Jacksonville before migrating to Wimauma after 1910.
Reverend Ben J. Smith, a North Carolina native and truck farm laborer, would go on to organize the Mount Moriah Missionary
Baptist Church in Wimauma in 1921.
Both Smith and Johnson are recorded in the 1920 U.S.
Census as the two Black Baptist ministers residing in Wimauma, providing pastoral leadership to the growing community.
Prospect Baptist Church trustees were also prominent early residents. Willie Teart, born in Georgia in 1886, operated one of Wimauma’s few African American–owned truck farms by 1920 after earlier employment by D. M. Dowdell, son-in-law of town founder Captain C. H. Davis. Edward Hugee, another South Carolina migrant, farmed successfully for decades. Alex Gay, born in Georgia in 1880, and his wife Ella, originally from Jefferson County, Florida, also migrated to Wimauma in the early 1910s and contributed to the agricultural economy.
DiscoverWimauma acknowledges Ayres and Community Planning Collaborative for researching and providing this valuable information.
