Peter Crocker was born in Wheeler, Stuben County, New York, on July 16, 1843. At age 18 he enlisted as a private in the Volunteer Union Army and served two three-year terms during the Civil War, fighting at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. He received his final discharge at Key West, Florida, on February 9, 1867, and while there married Sophia M. Crane on April 3, 1867. He was appointed lighthouse keeper at Key West and later at Dry Bank, Florida. In the early 1870s Peter and Sophia Crocker came to Sarasota Bay, bought 20 acres at $1.25 an acre, and built a home southwest of Bay Road and what is now Tamiami Trail. They had six children, but only Fannie lived to adulthood. Crocker served as a trustee for Phillippi School, helped lay out roads in the Bee Ridge and Osprey Roads area, and in 1909 became postmaster of the Crocker Post Office, which he ran from his home along with a store. In poor health, which he attributed to a typhoid attack during military service, he repeatedly sought a veteran’s disability pension, first receiving $2 per month in 1885 and $3 in 1890. He died on December 9, 1911, and was buried by his home near his children. A church was very important to Crocker, and he worked to establish one near his home. On June 27, 1901, the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company deeded two acres near the corner of Bee Ridge Road and what is now Tamiami Trail to T.T. Hamlin and L.C. Demings, trustees of St. John's Chapel Church, for $1, with the property to be used for worship and a graveyard. Crocker helped build a chapel and recruit a minister, but the church failed to attract a resident pastor, and after his death activities declined. In 1927 the Bay Haven Baptist Church congregation bought the chapel and moved it to their site on Bradenton Road, and in 1986 historic preservationists moved the building to Florida Avenue. The grounds of St. John's Chapel Church became one of Sarasota's early cemeteries, with burials continuing under a series of trustees; for a time it also served as a pauper's graveyard. In 1951 the Circuit Court appointed new trustees and renamed it Peter Crocker Memorial Park. In 1985 the county bought a strip of land to widen Bee Ridge Road and some graves were relocated. With new trustees appointed in 1997 and after extensive restoration, Peter Crocker's cemetery continues to serve the community as a reminder of Sarasota Bay's pioneers.