Canova Family To Donate Monument For New Park

(left to right) Angie Crawley Gordon, Bert Canova, Jane Canova Bush, Bill Canova, and Viola Canova Clarke at Heritage Park. David Worthington.

Four members of the renown Canova family gathered in Heritage Park this week to look over the place a 3,500 pound eight foot tall historical monument will stand that will pay homage to members of their pioneering Sanderson family. Jane Canova Bush, of Starke, whose husband Mike once played football for the University of Florida, Bert Canova of Yalaha, Florida, Bill Canova of Belleview, Florida and Viola Canova Clarke of St. George, Utah represented the Canova family on their visit to discuss the monument with Heritage Park Chairman, LaViece Smallwood, who is also related to the Canova clan. George Paul Canova moved to the Sanderson area in the mid 1800s as a teen-ager with his businessman father, Bartola, who purchased huge tracts of land in the area, and opened a large mercantile store. Eventually Bartola returned to Jacksonville where he was captain of a steamboat up and down the St. Johns River, but his only son, George Paul, remained in Sanderson to run the family business. He met and married Diana Greene, the beautiful and talented older daughter of Sanderson pioneers Elisha and Betsy Ann (Driggers) Greene. The couple, through wise investments became very wealthy and built a large spacious home to rear their growing family of nine boys and three girls who were educated in private schools in near-by Jacksonville. All were accomplished musicians. The Canova family may have stayed in Baker County but for an incident that took the life of George Paul in 1898. The couple, and most of their children, were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1897. Afterwards George was sent an anonymous letter from ‘a committee of eight’ threatening to take care of him if he did not stop encouraging and feeding the traveling missionaries of that religion. On June 5th 1898, he was ambushed south of Sanderson on his return home from a church meeting at Oak Grove and killed. At the time of his death, George was considered the wealthiest man in Baker County. He owned about ten thousand acres of grazing land, one thousand head of cattle, turpentine trees, timber land, a large mercantile store, a hotel, a large cotton gin and orange groves in Sanderson. He was a Democrat and elected to the Legislature in 1879 serving on the Committee for Finance and Taxation, and chairman for the Committee on Claims. He was elected to a second term. He was also Chairman of the Baker County Board of Commissioners when he was killed. Both government groups and his family offered rewards for the capture of his killer but was never able to formally charge or convict anyone. For a few years Diana lived in the Sanderson area, but eventually moved her family away. One of George and Diana’s granddaughters, Judy Canova, became a popular 1940s hillbilly movie star and later Judy’s daughter Diana, named for her great grandmother, became a recording star. Another granddaughter of the couple was the late Alberta Canova Drummond, owner of The Dummond Press in Jacksonville. In the early 1980s she published and donated 500 weather proof posters for the Save Our Station campaign when the Baker County Historical Society spear-headed a drive to save the historical Macclenny depot now in Heritage Park. Today the family is scattered throughout the world but often meet for Canova reunions. A few years ago they gathered in St. Augustine where they were honored with a private viewing of that city’s newest tourist attraction, the renovation of a block of 18th century Canova homes. St. Augustine was the original place of settlement when the family first arrived in America. While visiting Heritage Park on Monday, the group made arrangements to set a permanent date to return to the park where they now plan to hold an annual reunion of Canova family and friends. The $40,000 monument, designed in the shape of a pyramid, will be of black granite with white engravings. It will depict the life of George Paul Canova, and give a brief outline of the organization of the church he joined and gave his life for. In addition to the Canova family, additional donors of the monument will be Angie Crawley Gordon (a native of Olustee) in honor of her husband Keith, a stanch member of the church he loved and served in his lifetime, Ted McRae, president of Columbia Anderson Paving Company in Lake City whose progenitors were pioneer members of the church in the area and Mr. McRae’s wife Jean, whose Durrance family share the same distinction.

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