Opening a window to the past: Local church celebrates 150 years

This past Sunday Pastor James Richardson and 4-year-old Hailey Rye share a moment during the Father’s Day Service at Spring Hill United Methodist Church which is celebrating its 150^th anniversary this year.

Americans celebrate a lot of birthdays—birthdays of founding fathers and civil rights leaders, and there’s an especially big birthday that’s coming up on July 4.

This month a local church was recognized in celebration of its 150^th birthday. There weren’t any fireworks, but the history speaks for itself. 

Pat Frazier, who’s been attending services at Spring Hill United Methodist for about 43 years, said her father remembers when men and women sat on separate sides of the sanctuary during worship. He was born in a house just down the road from the church.

“Daddy’s been comin’ here for 78 years,” she said. 

That means her family has been attending the church for at least 121 of the 150 years it’s been in existence.

It was recognized for those 150 years at the 2010 Florida Annual Conference Event of the United Methodist Church, along with 34 other anniversaries, another three of which were for 150 years.

The event took place in Lakeland from June 10 through June 12, and the Spring Hill pastor, James Richardson, attended with his wife, Janie.

The Florida Conference is a regional division of the Methodist church, Richardson explained. It is one of 233 worldwide.

Regional History

  The century-and-a-half-year-old house of worship holds a unique place in Florida’s history. It was originally built as a place for slaves to hold services so they would continue to practice Christianity and not revert to native African religious practices.

The first building was erected in 1860 on a five-acre piece of property off Bellamy Road. According to a history of the church written and compiled by Carolyn Traxler Testrake, a descendent of one of the area’s founding families, the parcel of land was purchased for $50.

The road, known today as Old Bellamy Road, was the first East-West thoroughfare in Florida.                

It was built with federal funds starting in 1824 and completed in 1826. It stretched about 440 miles from St. Augustine to Pensacola, following an old trail called Alligator Road.

Old Bellamy Road still exists today, though it no longer runs straight through the state. There are sections that have been cut up by development over the past 174 years, and its mostly unpaved dirt, gravel and sand.

If you went there today…

But if you follow County Road 235A (also called NW 173 Street) north from Santa Fe High School, it will take you twisting and turning past rural residences and untouched countryside, over Interstate 75 and eventually you will come to a turn-off where the pavement drops off to dust and pebbles.

That is a portion of the original Bellamy Road; the portion the church sits just off of is less than a mile down from the yellow and white-striped asphalt.

In its 150 years, the property has endured deterioration, storm damage and as a popular story goes, a fire, though according to Testrake’s history, there is no official record of it.

During the 1950s, a Sunday school annex was built which included a social hall, a kitchen, classrooms and bathrooms.

For its 100^th birthday in 1960, the church celebrated the addition of picnic tables and an outdoor shelter; all built by men of the church using lumber from cedar trees on the property.

More recently, when church members decided in 2008 that the time had come to do some renovations and repairs on the bell tower, they discovered there was no actual bell. One was donated and remains hanging now, able to be rung.

Amidst the many transformations it has gone through, the church has managed to retain some of its original out-fittings. The pews are the same ones hand-crafted by slaves 150 years ago. They do, however, sport the 1970’s addition of crimson cushions.

There are a multitude of people in the congregation today, who, like Pat Frazier, are descendants of the church’s original founding members and the original settlers of the area.

Carolyn Traxler Testrake represents the living generation of the founding family of the town of Traxler, Florida. Now it’s classified as a ghost town. Her great-grandfather, William H. Traxler, was one of region’s original settlers.

There’s a graveyard situated beside the church that’s brimming with even more history, some of which is documented on gravestones, and some is passed down from generation to generation in the form of stories that may well be true, though there isn’t always proof.

The stories on the gravestones include those of infant mortality and civil war veterans. The ones that aren’t recorded in official records include the death of a gypsy girl, whose family, legend has it, buried her in the cemetery as they were passing through.

Pastor Richardson said the story goes that for years after her death, gypsies would leave trinkets at the girl’s grave whenever they came back to the area.

There are an unknown number of unmarked graves belonging to slaves, too.

Another original feature of the property still intact can be found out around the cemetery.

Testrake’s history of the church and the region makes numerous mentions of early hardships settlers endured, including swarms of mosquitoes, which at that time meant the spread of deadly disease.

Though their bites are generally no longer life threatening in developed nations, the buzzing black insects are still very much a part of the property. Visitors planning on exploring the historical cemetery, are advised to bring bug repellant.

Carrying on a legacy

  On the other hand, the church itself boasts the comforts of air conditioning and a welcoming congregation. It’s obvious during a Sunday morning service that everyone knows everyone, and most of them make a point of extending greetings to any stranger in their midst.

Richardson, who was born and raised in High Springs, has been the pastor at Spring Hill United Methodist for about nine years.

The church has 138 official members, and he said attendance at weekly services average about 105 to 110 people. That can include people who aren’t official members, too.

“I love the people here,” he said, “Spring Hill is a special place.”