THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH AT MARTIN, FLORIDA

The story of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Martin, Florida, is brief, but not without it’s complexities.  It starts with the Martin Family who moved to Marion County in the 1850s from Edgefield County, South Carolina. The Martins established a 3,000 acre plantation called Sugar Hammock about seven miles north of Ocala.  While the Martins were a very influential family the local patriarch Col. John Marshall Martin (nephew of the U. S. Chief Justice John Marshall) moved from his plantation to the city of Ocala in 1881 and started subdividing and selling off his land. The unincorporated town that grew up in the area after a railroad depot was established was called Martin. According to a local history magazine “Salty Crackers,” among those purchasing land in the area between 1885 and 1900 were a group of Pennsylvanians who established orange groves.  They also established the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Martin.

Several names among the purchasers of land could very well belong to Lutherans from Pennsylvannia: Mary Werner, West Kuhn. Priscilla Kaufmann, Bucher H. Geigerich, Wilbur Webb, Aaron Kroh, Mary and Sarah Gnagy.

There is this brief mention of the church in Martin in Old Salem in Lebanon by Theodore E. Schmauk: “About this time the congregation built a small frame mission in Martin, Florida.” “About this time” is terribly vague, but the context suggests sometime after 1884 which fits the time the Pennsylvanians arrived in Martin. Were they from Lebanon? Perhaps, but there is one more clue. Wikepedia has a lengthy article about the Rev. Luther Alexander Gotwald which includes a paragraph about his brother the Rev. William Henry Harrison Gotwald. “ He served as a Presbyterian minister in Ocala, Florida, where he had gone due to his health. However, he built a Lutheran church at Martin, Florida.” The move to Florida could not have happened before 1887. A curious thing is that while W. H Gotwald was serving in the Union army during the civil war, his brother Luther was a pastor in Lebanon. Was Gotwald the reason the Salem church constructed the building in Martin?

I found the following in The Ocala Banner for December 28, 1888. “Rev. W. H. Gotwald is again in our community to spend the winter. He has urgently been solicited to fill the Presbyterian Pulpit recently made vacant by the resignation of Rev. G. A. Hough.” This is very interesting. G. A. Hough had served as the Presbyterian pastor at Kanapaha, 1885, Reddick 1886-1887, and Ocala 1887-1888. (Each of these charges moves further south in Florida.) From 1881 to 1884 he was pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Lake City, Florida, the first Lutheran church in Florida. E. P Webber’s History of the Lutheran Church in Florida relates that Hough’s early ministry at Bethlehem had been quite successful, but conflict arose and he resigned the call. This would have marked his transition to the Presbyterian Church.  We can see why the Presbyterian Church in Ocala might have been interested in Gotwald as a pastor, since they had already had experience with a Lutheran.

I don’t believe that Gotwald actually became a Presbyterian for at some point he became the founder of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Washington, D.C. I am still researching to discover how long Gotwald was in Ocala, but I suspect it was not long.

Now this story takes an odd turn because Martin became one of the preaching points for Missouri Synod Reiseprediger. In 1890 F. J. W Reinhardt was preacher on this circuit, in 1891 C. F. Brommer was preacher. The last preacher in 1894 was Ed Fischer. Investigations by Webber indicate this was the same group that moved from Pennsylvania “According to the Rev. Eagar Brammer, pastor of the Gainesville-Ocala parish from 1938-1941, a cornerstone was removed upon his request from a church in Martin which is now occupied by negroes. Pastor Brammer, with whom the writer was in correspondence, stated that the negroes gave him some torn documents taken from the cornerstone, on the basis of which he was inclined to believe that the Lutherans who originally occupied the building were German Lutherans from Pennsylvania, who Later moved back to the North. It seems that it was these Lutherans who were served by these early missionaries.”

This fits with local history that the Pennsylvanians returned home after the Big Freeze of 1894-1895 that destroyed the orange groves.  The church came to be the school house and then was used by an African Methodist Episcopal Church. I have read a report that the derelict church was still standing in 1988, but my exploration of Martin has shown no evidence of it. I hope someday to discover a photo of the church. (Anybody who has a photo of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church that was in Martin, let me know.)

I’m continuing the local research. I believe I have identified the site of Pr. Bernheim’s Freestone Springs Academy, but I am not sure. If anyone has information about Cedar Grove Methodist Church, Marion County, let me know.  Some research will have to wait until I can make a trip to the ELCA Archives in Columbia, South Carolina.

In the meantime, may the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne









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