Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainAn 1881 orange-grove cemetery in DeSoto County where three Lott infants are buried with no family connection to the Cokers — and where tax records show the Lott family simply vanishes.
Rural DeSoto County (unmarked dirt road, orange grove), Arcadia, FL 34266
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No admission; rural cemetery on unmarked property
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Limited Access
Unmarked dirt road through active orange grove; no paved access or parking area
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Photos OK
Est. 1881 · 1881 rural DeSoto County cemetery · Lott children burials — unconnected to Coker family · Christopher Balzano genealogical research (2020)
Coker Cemetery sits at the end of a winding dirt road in the orange groves of DeSoto County, roughly west of Arcadia — a town founded on cattle ranching and citrus. The cemetery dates to 1881, established by the Coker family and their extended kin on what was then frontier agricultural land. For decades it was a family burial ground, with markers for Cokers and related families from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The anomalous element is a cluster of three small headstones bearing the surname Lott. Folklorist and paranormal researcher Christopher Balzano documented these graves beginning around 2020, working with genealogical and county records. His findings: no family connection exists between the Lotts and the Cokers or any other family buried in the cemetery. The Lott children — Mary Lucile, Nellie Ray, and Freida Mae — each died before reaching their second year, in sequential births to the same parents. Why they were buried in the Coker family cemetery rather than a family or municipal plot is undocumented.
The tax record finding is the detail that has drawn the most attention from researchers. Balzano found that the Lott family appears in county tax rolls year after year — consistent with a farming family paying property taxes — until the period surrounding the children's deaths, after which the family simply drops from the records. No death certificates, no probate, no subsequent land records. The gap is real; the explanation for it is not.
The cemetery was restored in recent years with fencing and interpretive signage, giving it a more formal presence than its remote location would suggest. Visitors still leave coins on the Lott graves, following a local tradition that doing so brings good luck.
Sources
The curse legend attached to Coker Cemetery follows a structure common to folk curses: a laborer — described variously as a gypsy or a traveling farmhand — completed work for Luther Lott, who refused payment. The worker cursed the family before leaving: that their children would not survive to their first year. The three sequential infant deaths, Mary Lucile, Nellie Ray, and Freida Mae, are the physical evidence the legend points to.
Christopher Balzano, who has documented the site more rigorously than most paranormal researchers, found that the folk account aligns with the genealogical record in ways that are unusual. The Lott family's disappearance from tax rolls after the deaths cannot be explained by the available documentation — no estate sale, no death certificates for the parents, no record of relocation. The family stops appearing in county records and does not reappear.
Visitor reports from the cemetery focus on two phenomena: balls of light described as floating or moving between headstones, most often observed at dusk and dawn, and faint sounds described as crying or children's voices. These accounts appear consistently across sources and across years, without centralized organization or a single storyteller amplifying them.
A separate tradition — leaving coins on the Lott graves — developed independently of the curse narrative. Local custom holds that the gesture brings good luck to the visitor. The coins accumulate on the small headstones and are periodically removed during cemetery maintenance.
Notable Entities
A small rural cemetery established in 1881, set within an active orange grove off unmarked dirt roads west of Arcadia. The site holds graves of the Coker family and relatives, plus the three Lott children's headstones — the anomalous burials that anchor the curse legend. Recently restored with fencing and signage. No formal facilities.
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