Chasefield Plantation Cemetery Preservation Project

Chasefield Plantation cemetery exhibit at Fort Pickens State Park, ca. 1950s–1960s.

GUIS archives

In 1957, the US Navy and the State of Florida’s Board of Parks and Historic Memorials worked together to relocate 10 memorial stone markers from the Chasefield Plantation Cemetery on Naval Air Station Pensacola to Fort Pickens State Park on Santa Rosa Island. While the stone markers were moved to Fort Pickens, now part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, the human remains were left behind on the air station.

For almost 70 years, these historical stone markers comprised the Chasefield Plantation Cemetery exhibit at Fort Pickens, one created by the US Navy and Florida Board of Parks and Historic Memorials to replicate the original cemetery site.In 2026 the National Park Service, working with the Florida State Historic Preservation Office, retired the exhibit to protect and preserve the original stone markers and enhance the interpretation of Fort Pickens as a former US Army post. After the exhibit’s removal, the area will revert to a natural maritime forest and become part of the larger ecosystem.

Painting of William H. Chase

John Wesley Jarvis

The Chase Family

Chasefield Plantation Cemetery was originally established by William Henry Chase. A senior officer with the US Army Corps of Engineers on the Gulf Coast, Chase supervised the construction of several coastal fortifications, including Fort Pickens (1829–1834), Fort McRee (1834–1839), and Fort Barrancas (1839–1844). He started building Advanced Redoubt (1845–1870) but resigned from the army in 1856, before the fort’s completion.

As senior officer, Chase played an important role in Pensacola’s economic growth, a growth that stemmed from a reliance on purchasing, selling, and renting enslaved African Americans. He directed Congressionally appropriated funds into the local economy, and in the process became one of the city’s leading figures. He formed relationships with the rich and powerful and worked with family, friends, and business partners in real estate speculation, banking, various railroad companies, a canal project, and other business ventures. Chase’s prominence was strengthened through his 1824 marriage to Anne Paul Matthews, who came from a notable Louisiana slaveholding family.

The couple had one daughter, also named Anne.While born and raised in New England, Chase ultimately identified as a southern enslaver. He favored disunion in 1860–1861 and supported the creation of a new and independent slaveholding republic. “The great cotton zone of the world must never cease to be cultivated,” Chase wrote in 1861, arguing that “the plough, and the hoe, and the cotton gin, must never cease to move …” When Florida seceded from the Union, state leaders looked to Chase to capture US military property on Pensacola Bay.

Under Chase’s leadership, Florida and Alabama militia captured the property but they failed at taking Fort Pickens. In March 1861, a new Confederate general arrived in Pensacola to replace Chase, who then sat out the remainder of the Civil War in Louisiana. He returned to Pensacola after the war but resided in the city. He passed away in 1870 and is believed to be buried with his wife in a cemetery at Grace Episcopal Church in Saint Francisville, Louisiana.

Chasefield Plantation

The Chase family owned property in both Louisiana and Florida. Around 1835, they acquired 150 acres two miles west of Fort Barrancas and named it Chasefield. Due to its sandy soil, Chasefield may have functioned as a country estate rather than a traditional agricultural plantation. Chase resided there while overseeing the construction of Fort Barrancas, frequently penning letters and reports from the residence. Any description of structures like the main house, slave quarters, and outbuildings have not been located.

The Civil War’s impact on Chasefield’s grounds and structures may never be known. From January 1861 to May 1862, the plantation sat between opposing Confederate and United States forces. Soldiers on both sides fought and camped on and around the property. After Confederates withdrew from the area in the spring of 1862, the US Army reoccupied Fort Barrancas and maintained a presence at the post through war’s end.

Memorial marker to Jasper Strong Jr.

NPS/Wade

Decline and Rediscovery

By the early 1900s, Chasefield had largely disappeared from the Pensacola landscape. Beginning around 1905, the US military became interested in the private lands in the Fort Barrancas area but various individuals, including Chase’s daughter Anne, still held title to their properties. By 1916, Anne had sold her share in Chasefield to Fernando M. Blount, a Pensacola businessman. Little evidence of the Chasefield site remained by 1934. In addition to the outline of a missing house and a standing brick well, a neglected cemetery spoke to the site’s history.

With the US Army still active at Fort Barrancas, remnants of Chasefield sat in the path of a highway construction project that ran across the property. Twenty years later, Blount sold his property to the US Navy, which moved forward with plans to construct Forest Sherman Field and what is now Blue Angel Parkway on the former estate. This construction threatened the cemetery, and rather than destroy the stone markers, the navy chose to relocate the tablets to Fort Pickens State Park.

Relocation of the Stone Markers

In 1957, the US Navy relocated 10 stone markers from the Chasefield cemetery to Fort Pickens State Park, then administered by the State of Florida’s Board of Parks and Historic Memorials. While all human remains were left in their original burial sites, the location of those remains today is unknown.The relocation was carried out by the navy’s Southern Division, Naval Facilities Engineering Command.

Great efforts were made to orient the cemetery and arrange the markers in a manner that replicated the original layout. A clay turnout was added to improve visitor access to the markers, which was later paved over with asphalt. A metal picket fence was also installed to frame the site, though the type and style changed over time. Around 2004, a chain-link fence was installed, but this was later replaced by a white picket fence constructed of lumber, which remained in use until 2024.

Preserving the Stone Markers

While relocation may have saved the Chasefield cemetery stone markers from destruction, installation on Santa Rosa Island exposed the markers to other threats.Since 1957, numerous tropical storms and major hurricanes have struck or impacted the Pensacola area. After Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, National Park Service archeologists conducted a damage assessment of the Chasefield Plantation Cemetery exhibit and noted that the stone markers were in a relatively poor state of preservation. Only seven of the stones were still standing, and of those several had been damaged. Continued exposure to nature and people—Sarah Chase’s marker had been vandalized in 1982 and then placed into storage—caused further wear of the markers.

To ensure their preservation for future generations, in 2025 the National Park Service developed plans to uninstall, clean, and package each marker. Before removal, a National Park Service archeologist conducted a geophysical survey of the exhibit site using ground penetrating radar, which confirmed the absence of human remains. The markers were placed into temporary storage to await final transfer to a climate-controlled facility managed by the Florida State Historic Preservation Office, where conservators will work to secure and protect the markers from erosion, organic material, and further degradation.

The Stone Markers

The 10 stone markers relocated from Naval Air Station Pensacola to Fort Pickens State Park in 1957 memorialized the following individuals:

1. George R. Underhill (March 8, 1826–January 5, 1855): Son of Frederick Underhill, friend and business associate to Chase.
2. Jasper Strong Jr. (March 17, 1841–September 22, 1855): Son of Jasper Strong Sr., friend and business associate to Chase.
3. James McDowell (July 20, 1814–December 13, 1851): Relationship to Chase is unknown.
4. Sabra Lanear (September 25, 1774–May 25, 1846): Relationship to Chase is unknown.
5. David Williams (February 8, 1778 –December 11, 1862) and Margaret A. Nicholson (1836 or 1837–January 1863): Relationships to Chase are unknown.
6. Clarissa F. Golay (August 23, 1841–August 28, 1842): Relationship to Chase is unknown.
7. Vincent Golay (March 13, 1822–February 10, 1843): Relationship to Chase is unknown.
8. Betsy Shields (Unknown–Unknown): Relationship to Chase is unknown.
9. George E. Chase (May 2, 1807–March 28, 1844): Younger brother to Chase.
10. Sarah A. Chase (February 21, 1775–January 27, 1856): Mother to Chase.

Bibliography and Further Reading

George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY, from its Establishment, in 1802, to 1890 with the Early History of the United States Military Academy (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1891) 142–143.

Ernest F. Dibble, William H. Chase of Pensacola: Gulf Coast Fort Builder, Park Library.

William H. Chase, “The Secession of the Cotton States: Its Status, Its Advantages, and Its Power,” De Bow’s Review 30, no. 1 (January 1861), 95; “The Leader of the Florida Troops at Pensacola,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 23, 1861, 1.

Thomas Hulse, “Military Slave Rentals, the Construction of Army Fortifications, and the Navy Yard in Pensacola, Florida, 1824-1863,” Florida Historical Quarterly 88, no. 4 (Spring 2010): 524.

Edwin C. Bearss, Historic Structure Report and Historic Resource Study, Fort Barrancas, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida (Denver: Denver Service Center, National Park Service, 1983), 113.

Bearss, Edwin C. Historic Structure Report and Historic Resource Study: Fort Barrancas, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida. Denver Service Center: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1983.

Dibble, Ernest F. Ante-Bellum Pensacola and the Military Presence. Volume 3. Pensacola, FL: University of West Florida, Escambia County Board of Public Instruction, Pensacola Action ’76, and the Pensacola News-Journal, 1974.

Dibble, Ernest F. Slave Rentals to the Military: Pensacola and the Gulf Coast. Park Library.

Dibble, Ernest F. William H. Chase: Gulf Coast Fort Builder. Wilmington, DE: The Gulf Coast Collection, n.d.

Hulse, Thomas. “Military Slave Rentals, the Construction of Army Fortifications, and the Navy Yard in Pensacola, Florida, 1824–1863.” Florida Historical Quarterly 88, no. 4 (Spring 2010): 497–539.

Florida, Escambia County. 1850 U.S. Census. Population Schedule. NARA microfilm publication M432, roll 58. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.

Florida, Escambia County. 1860 U.S. Census. Population Schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 106. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.

Pearce, George F. Pensacola During the Civil War: A Thorn in the Side of the Confederacy. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000.