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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 81/340

A History of Columbia County, Florida

and is currently in Union County, a part of Columbia County in
1832.45
The first Baptist associational organization in Florida, the
Suwannee Association, was organized at Providence Baptist
Church in 1835. It did not include the first church Pigeon Creek
which later became a Primitive Baptist church. In 1843 the
Providence church became a part of the Florida Association. Other
Baptist churches in Columbia County organized before 1861 in­
cluded the New River Baptist Church established in 1833 about
which little is currently known, Rehoboth (1847), Columbia (1847),
South Prong (1847), Midway (1856), Mt. Pleasant (1856), and
Friendship (1856). Daniel Gillett, an early Columbia County
pioneer moved to Hillsborough County in the late 1840’s and was
instrumental in establishing the Baptist faith in that part of the
state. 46
Methodists were also active in the early period. Methodist
circuit riders began operating out of St. Augustine in 1821 when
the Reverend J. N. Glenn traveled a circuit which included Clay
County, but there is no indication he came into present Columbia
County.47 In 1824 Glenn’s successor, John L. Jerry, expanded the
circuit to include Cowford (Jacksonville), Black Creek, Newnans-
ville, and Micanopy. In 1824 Jerry received Zachariah Randall
Roberts into the church. Roberts is associated with the establish­
ment of “Old Bethel” Methodist Church in Columbia County, but it
is not known precisely when the small log structure on the east side
of Alligator Lake was built. On April 13, 1829, the Reverend Isaac
Boring wrote to “Brother [Abram Isaac] Robarts, living in the
Alligator settlement, stating that if spared I would hold a two-

46 Edward Earl Joiner, A History of Florida Baptists (Jacksonville, 1972), pp.
17-26.
46Joiner, History, pp. 21-22; Marvis R. Snell, Testimony to Pioneer Baptists
(Deleon Springs, Florida, 1974), p. 5.
47 Blakey, Parade of Memories, p. 31.

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