Shelfer Cemetery, near Havana

This index is of the section where black people are buried. The section with white people is just to the west.

Surveyed and photographed by Angela Cassidy and Donna Warlick on May 27, 2007.

Directions: From U.S. Highway 27 in Tallahassee, FL, travel north to the town of Havana. At the first traffic light,
turn right on State Road 12-A and travel east. From Georgia, take U.S. Highway 27 south to the town of Havana
and at the 2nd traffic light, turn left onto State Road 12-A and travel east. From Quincy, take State Road 12 east to
Havana and proceed through the traffic light at U.S. Highway 27. You are now on State Road 12-A. Continue past
the City Limits, and from there, it is just over one mile to Leslie Lewis Road. Turn right, and make another right onto
the oak canopied road that runs beside the cemetery. The cemetery is on the right and is immediately visible. The
large live oak trees lining both sides of the road were planted on December 23, 1880, by Nathan Shelfer, patriarch
of the Shelfer family and donor of the cemetery land. The section with graves of black people was set aside by the
Shelfer family for their slaves and later for their long time employees. People who descend from those buried in this
cemetery continue to be buried here.

The older grave stones in the cemetery are badly eroded and no name or date is visible. There are some
depressions without markers and one sunken grave, indicating that there are probably many more graves here than
can be found marked today. The setting is beautiful, with huge live oaks within the grounds of the cemetery, along
with some smaller trees and shrubs, covered by a carpet of Virginia Creeper. The landscape photos of the cemetery
are well worth looking at.

Canopy road entrance to cemetery.
Tall live oak in center of cemetery.
Graves under the trees.
Looking into the cemetery from the canopy road.
Looking east.

Each surname that is in burgundy font is a link to a photo of that person's tombstone. If the given name is also in
burgundy, there is a second photo, either one taken up close in order to read names and dates better or to see a
military plaque or slab.