"Some time since, Mr. C. A. Boone and I, who are the only original stockholders of the Orlando Cemetery Company who now live in Florida, petitioned the Honorable City Council of Orlando to name said cemetery "Greenwood." After the publication in the newspapers of a request that names be sent to the council for consideration, the Honorable Council finally decided upon the name which we proposed.

As you have asked me to give you the history of the aforesaid cemetery, I will reply by giving you a brief outline of the situation from 1876 to the present time.

In 1875, the Town of Orlando was incorporated. It took all of the twenty-five voters living in the two miles square to legally incorporate. The importance of a large burial ground was not contemplated and interments were made in many places in this vicinity. Some were taken to Conway, some also to Powell's, south of Orlando, and some to the Beasley plot six miles west of Orlando. Many were buried at their home grounds, as was David Mizell.

In the north part of Orlando, overlooking Highland lake, many burials were made, but there is now nothing left there to show a single grave. Many were buried north of a building which stood on the north side of Church Street in the east part of the Tremont hotel yard. I think that there is not a vestige of anything left that will show where Samuel Russ and many others were buried. The building above referred to was used as a church and schoolhouse, and was the means of the street being called 'Church Street.'

The above conditions prevailed until about 1880, when people began to wake up to the necessity of a proper and permanent place for burial, but for a long time no one seemed ready to take the full initiative to secure such a place. In the meantime, Mr. Mahlon Gore, the dean of the newspaper fraternity of South Florida, did some valiant work through his newspaper in stirring up people to the necessity of action in the matter, which finally culminated in eight residents of Orlando joining together and buying of John W. Anderson, now deceased, twenty-six acres of land, upon which the original cemetery was laid out.

The stockholders who bought the tract and paid eighteen hundred dollars for it were as follows: l. P. Wescott, C. A. Boone, James K. Duke, J. H. livingston, Nat Poyntz, W. R. Anno, James Delaney, and Samuel A. Robinson. Boone and Robinson only are living in Florida, and Duke and Poyntz are living elsewhere. The others are all dead. l. P. Wescott received the deed.

I designed, surveyed and platted the cemetery, and it has been pronounced by experts as being one of the best original designs.
The City of Lakeland, Florida copied my design in laying out their cemetery last year.
Several years since the city councilmen purchased the cemetery for Orlando, and subsequently fourteen acres lying north of it, together with a tract on the west of it, which has been sold, were added to it.
In 1911, the boundaries of the city were changed by an act of the legislature, so as to include the forty acres owned by the city. The city management of the cemetery has been good, and the present council are very ably upbuilding and beautifying Greenwood.

Respectfully submitted,

Samuel A. Robinson
Orlando
September 14, 1915"