ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida’s ever-popular grocery chain has plenty of interesting features, though one location in particular has an odd sight in store for visitors.
Customers at the Publix Supermarket at Town Center along Daryl Carter Parkway near Orlando might have noticed a cemetery sitting in the parking lot.
The small plot — over 500 square feet — hosts the remains of two Union soldiers from the American Civil War and a large memorial pillar with the cemetery’s name.
The two headstones in the plot list those soldiers’ names: Washington Ludwig of the First New York Light Artillery, and Charles H. Foster of the Third Massachusetts Cavalry.
While the cemetery was reportedly set up in the 1920s, the plot’s owner — Scott Henderson, a former land planner — said he got involved back in the 1970s when the surrounding land was all vacant.
Henderson told News 6 he filed a claim for the property under the laws of adverse possession, which allowed people to take ownership of land so long as they occupied it for at least seven years.
Around 2010, the cemetery received a rededication ceremony thanks to Henderson and the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.
The headstones — which had originally been laying down — were redesigned to be placed standing up, Henderson said. This was to avoid issues with theft.
“Back in 1987 (or) 1988, one of the headstones was stolen just before Halloween, and then a few weeks later, it was returned,” he claimed. “So we felt that there was always a lot of mystery around Washington Ludwig.”
After around 30 years of living there, though, he decided to sell the land to a developer and move up north. But he didn’t want the cemetery to be lost.
“I had no objections as long as the cemetery remains in a prominent location,” he explained. “That it’s not going to be set in the back of some type of a commercial center next to the dumpsters.”
As a result, part of the agreement involved the new landowner installing a memorial obelisk, putting up a wrought-iron fence, and perpetually maintaining the plot itself.
Since the redevelopment, several businesses have come to the O-Town West shopping center, including a Jersey Mike’s Subs, a Gator’s Dockside restaurant — and the large Publix Supermarket itself in 2022.
For more stories about the strange locations and mysteries across Central Florida, click here.
For more about what new Publix stores in Florida will be missing, click here.
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