Stage Stand was a stopping place on a U.S. Army mail wagon route during the 1800s and became a cemetery by chance. The Seminole wars lasted intermittently from 1818 until 1858, and during that time American settlers moved into the area to hunt and to cull cedar and pine from the forests. Around 1830, mail traveled from Fort Brooke, now Tampa, along the old Indian Road, now US-19, to Stage Stand, then to Lee’s Mound, now Rock Crusher, to Brookeville, before returning to Fort Brooke. The Homosassa Strand was only a rough shelter bordered by the farm of the Harrell family, squatters who hoped to settle and own land. When the Harrells did not come one morning for mail call, neighbors went through the woods to look for them and found that Indians had murdered most of the family and scalped them. One boy survived because he was out duck hunting. Neighbors buried the family on a knoll just south of the Stage Stand. In those days, grave markers were simply large stones, left unetched with dates or names, and that practice continued for many decades, with the stones still in place today.