THE MYSTERY OF LUTHERANISM IN MARION COUNTY, FLORIDA

It’s fairly well known that the oldest Lutheran Church in Marion County, Florida, is St. John Lutheran Church in Summerfield, organized 1922. Oldest, however, doesn’t mean first. Lutheranism in Marion County dates back to the mid 19th century. Indeed, the first Lutheran Pastor in Florida was located in Ocala, the county seat of Marion County. And in that lies the great mystery of Lutheran Church history in Marion County.

The Florida Synod of the Lutheran Church in America published a history of the synod with this discussion of Lutheran beginnings.

The earliest record of Lutherans in Florida indicates that there were scattered groups of them in the north central part of the state. Settlers who had located in Columbia County a few miles south of Lake City had come there in the 1850's from South Carolina where they had been members of Lutheran congregations. Their names indicate that they were of German descent.

In 1858 the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Ministerium of South Carolina and Adjacent States (cited hereafter as the Synod of South Carolina) appropriated $300 to send a missioner to Florida. By using this fund the Synod was able to send a pastor into Florida to investigate the need for pastoral services among the Lutherans who had settled there. This pastor, the newly ordained Charles H. Bernheim, made Ocala his headquarters. Having heard of Lutherans in Columbia County, he went to visit them and began holding services. In 1859 he organized a congregation with the name of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church, a congregation still in existence.

This congregation, whose members were engaged in agriculture, was first related to the Synod of South Carolina, and later to the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and Ministerium of Georgia and Adjacent States (cited hereafter as the Synod of Georgia) which was organized July 28, 1860. The pastors of Bethlehem Church were members of these synods.

Meanwhile, Missionary Bernheim explored the territory surrounding his Ocala location. He reported to the Synodical Missionary Society, which held a meeting in connection with the Synod's convention in October, 1859, that he had organized two congregations, and was preparing to organize several others. “Three churches are about to be erected, and a school house large enough to answer as a temporary house of worship. Twenty-four white and twenty colored members have been received, and others are prepared for taking this step as soon as an opportunity is offered.”

The Minutes of Synod list Bernheim's parish as consisting of congregations at Long Swamp, Ocatee, and Columbia County, Florida. The Long Swamp congregation was in the process of erecting a building The Synod received a request signed by twenty-three members of the Columbia County congregation for admission to Synod, and a similar petition from eighteen persons of the Long Swamp group. The Synod accepted both congregations into its membership.

It is not clear why only Bethlehem Church in Columbia County survived, nor what became of the other congregations. For some time in the 1870's and 1880's the pastor of Bethlehem Church ministered also to Ebenezer Church, which is not otherwise identified, and also in 1883 to St. Stephen's Church whose location is not stated.

The members of Bethlehem Church preserved its life during the years of the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period when they had no pastor. Even a hurricane in 1896, which destroyed the church building and devastated the area, did not defeat them, for they rebuilt the edifice and continued the life of the congregation.

The whole story is curious. Why did Pastor Bernheim come to Ocala in the first place? There were other places less wild in Florida to work in. (The Seminole Wars had ended less than 20 years before.) I like solving mysteries, so I have started in on this one.

My first issue was where the information came from that is in this history. Always check your sources. Some of it was from Synodical minutes, the rest from a thesis: History of the Lutheran Church in Florida by E. P. Weber. It took me less than a week to track down the thesis and, $13 later, I have a copy of the pertinent pages before me. Where did Pastor Weber get his informtation? From “The Beginnings of Lutheranism in Florida, and an Outline of the History of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Congregation, Columbia Country, Florida, 1859-1939” by the Rev. E. C. Witt. I need to get a copy of that to see what’s in it, but the source is first-hand information. E. C. Witt was not only the pastor of Bethlehem Church at three different times, he was a son of one of the founding families. The only problem with this is that the whole perspective is from that congregation. As far as I can tell, no one has investigated what was going on in Marion County other than looking at old maps to find out where Long Swamp was. (It’s near modern-day Belleview.)

So off I went to look in local histories for information. The name of Charles H. Bernheim does appear, but always in only one connection. Here’s what it says in "Ocala Prior to 1868" by Eloise Robinson Ott:

There were at this time several private schools, one of which was the Freestone Springs Academy a few miles southwest of Ocala, conducted by Chas. H. Bernheim, a Lutheran minister.

Several sources repeat the same information noting that the school was near Camp Izard,

situated in a strictly moral neighborhood where children and youths are free of the ruinous influence of evil company and the temptation of spending money.

I have confirmed that Pr. Bernheim was living in Marion County in 1860 as his name appears on the 1860 census. However, there is nothing in local records that I can find so far that confirms an establishment of Lutheran Churches here. The history shows that Pr. Bernheim resigned from Bethlehem church in 1861 to be replaced by the Rev. Festus Hickerson. My new discovery is that Charles Bernheim was still in Ocala in 1865 and 1866. I found records of marriages that he performed between January of 1865 and April 1866. Unfortunately the records before that date that are available to me do not record the name of the ministers. I also discovered one marriage performed in 1865 by William A. Julian, the other Lutheran pastor who was sent to Ocala and who would serve Bethlehem church as pastor from 1893-1898 and did subsequent work in Melrose, Florida.

I have some further speculations about Lutheranism in Marion County, but I’ll save them for a future blog.

May the Lord who holds past, present, and future together, bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

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