Historic Captiva Cemetery

The Captiva Cemetery is closely associated with the history of Captiva Island. It served as a pioneer cemetery, and contains the graves of many of the island’s earliest settlers. The land for the cemetery was part of a homestead established by William Binder in 1888. The first interment was the unnamed stillborn daughter of Herbert and Hattie Brainerd in 1897, and a second stillborn daughter was buried in 1899. In 1900, Binder sold the parcel where the infants were buried to the Brainerds’ ten year old daughter, Ann, in exchange for a gold coin she received as a birthday gift from her grandmother. Ann died a year later from tetanus after stepping on a rusty nail. She was interred with her sisters. Other pioneers are buried here, including the original homesteader William Binder, who died in 1932 and was buried in the Brainerd family plot. The graves of two Confederate veterans, George Washington Carter and Henry P. Knowles, are also here. Hattie Brainerd retained ownership until she deeded it to the Methodist Church in 1936. The church deeded the cemetery in 1954 to Captiva Chapel-by-the-Sea, which maintains it to the present day. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.