Readings from the Tuttle History

of the First Presbyterian Church

of Dunedin, Florida

The Earliest Days

The little town of Dunedin is the oldest on the West Coast of Florida, between Cedar Key and Key West. The cities of St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Bradenton, Clearwater and others, larger and better known, were yet unborn when Dunedin was the metropolis of this section. Fort Brooks, later called Tampa, was the only settlement which antedated Dunedin, but it was then only a military post used in warfare with the Seminole Indians.

People of Scot ancestry were quite prominent among the early settlers here, hence the name Dunedin, which is derived from the word Edinburgh, and this name was chosen by Douglas and Somerville, who owned the first store and were among the first settlers. The original name was Jonesboro.

It was to this primitive little village of Dunedin that the Reverend Joseph Brown came, arriving by boat on May 31, 1868, only three years after the close of the Civil War, and landed at the end of what is now Main Street. He evidently lost no time as it is recorded that he preached in a small school-house nearby on the first Sabbath in June.

The school-house was located at about where Main Street and New York Avenue meet and was known as the Hagler School-House. It was made of logs with a mud and stick chimney and had wooden shutters.

At that time there were scarcely 200 people living in what is now Pinellas County.

The only account of the organization of the first church which has been preserved was not written until 1882. The Rev. Angus Johnson was then pastor and to him we owe our gratitude for assembling and recording the facts pertaining to the life and growth of the early church which was known as the Bethesda Church and later as the Andrews Memorial Church.

However he does not mention the first name by which the struggling little church was known, but it is remembered by one of our members, Mrs. W. Y. Douglas, that when she was a very little girl and the people worshiped at the Hagler School-House the organization was known as the Ebenezer Church.

There is no record of the time the name was changed to the Bethesda Church, but we do find the name Ebenezer was properly recorded and from the records at the Historical Foundation, Montreat, North Carolina, we copy the following data:

Ebenezer Presbyterian Church

Clearwater Harbor, Florida

April 11, 1872....Organization of Ebenezer Church. Mr. Brown also reported that he had organized a Church at Clear Water Harbor, to be called Ebenezer, consisting of 15 members, 2 Elders and 2 Deacons. Ordered, that the church be enrolled. [see records Pby of Fla V @ 1860-1877, p. 296]

Mr. Brown was absent from this meeting of Presbytery. He assigned as his reason for absence ‘the want of means’. His excuse was sustained. (id) He was laboring as a Home missionary in Hillsborough County in 1870. [Rec. April 1870 p 250]

Item from the Curator at the Historical Foundation at Montreat: “The above is the only record of the organization of Ebenezer Church, exact date not given. There is no ‘Bethesda’ church listed in the tables of the General Assembly.”

The following is copied verbatim from the oldest record book. It apparently was compiled by the Reverend Angus Johnson at the time he assembled other data which appears in this history, and seems to be in his own handwriting as evidenced by later notes in the record book:

Organization of the Church

In the Spring of 1871 according to public notice, a meeting was held at the school-house, the usual place of worship, for the purpose of organizing a Church. After Divine service Revered Joseph Brown called for the names of persons who were members of the Presbyterian Church that desired to unite in the organization.

Whereupon

Mr. E. M. Beckette and wife

Mr. M. G. Anderson and wife

Mr. John M. Brown and wife

Mr. J. Morrison Brown

Mrs. Saddler

Mrs. C. C. Brown, wife of Rev. Joseph Brown

After professing to believe in the doctrine, discipline and government of the Presbyterian Church, they proceeded to elect two Elders and two Deacons.

Whereupon

E. M. Beckette and M. G. Anderson were elected Elders and John M. Brown and J. M. Brown were elected Deacons. These brethren each accepting the office to which they were elected, were duly ordained and installed, according to the provisions of our form of government.

The Church was then declared duly organized, and on motion it was named Bethesda, and recommended to be received under the care of the Presbytery of Florida.

Andrews Memorial Church

The following is the history of the early years of the First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin, as written by the Reverend Angus Johnson.

“The items to be found now in 1882, of the history of this church are very meager and imperfect, as for eight years after its organization there is no sessional record to be found. So, from this imperfect record, and the best information we can obtain from living members who united in the organization, we transcribe the following: (signed) Rev. A. Johnson.”

On the last day of May 1868 Rev. Joseph Brown, formerly of Virginia, then a member of the Presbytery of Florida, landed on Clear Water Harbor, where the town of Dunedin is, with his family, and on the first Sabbath of June collected a small congregation and preached in a school-house nearby, where he continued to hold regular services, and preaching in the surrounding country as opportunity afforded.

By much effort and perseverance on his part and that of the congregation, as they had increased in numbers, they completed a new and commodious house of worship two miles from Dunedin, which was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God by the Rev. Mr. Wm. Brown of Virginia, brother of Joseph, on the last Sabbath of December 1878.

And by special request of Mr. Gouley Andrews, of Virginia, whose son William was a member and recently killed by a tree falling upon him, to name the church Andrews Memorial, and he would give $200 to the building, through sympathy and the proffered aid, they changed the name from Bethesda to Andrews Memorial Church.

From the poverty of the members and the paucity of their numbers, it was a great struggle to build so neat and costly a house, but by their energy they obtained considerable assistance from abroad, and while the enterprise was in progress Mr. Alexander Anderson, a member, died and willed his entire estate to the Church, which afforded it much relief, and the balance passed into the hands of the Trustees, the income of which they utilized in supporting the Gospel in said congregation.

Reverend Joseph Brown ministered to this congregation for over ten years, under many disadvantages, being himself reduced from comfortable affluence which he enjoyed before he came here to poverty, while the poverty of the people forbad their compensating him for his labors.

As the country was new and isolated, he was not only deprived at times of the comforts of life, but he had no visits of assistance of ministerial brethren, to encourage him, only occasional visits from his brother Wm. Brown, D.D. of Virginia. Yet he never failed to fill his appointments, and the good Lord blessed his labors and a goodly number was added to the church by letter and upon examination.

His health and mental faculties failing, he closed his labors here in January 1880 and moved to Bryan, Texas, where he shortly afterward died.

Life of the Early Pioneer

A little historical pamphlet which Elder Moffatt W. Moore published in 1928 sheds interesting light on the lives of early settlers.

The habits and customs of these settlers of the 70's were as primitive and simple as usually go with the vanguard of an advancing civilization. Their isolation made impossible many of the conveniences their time of life provided. Their meager circumstances made necessary many personal sacrifices. But like the hardy peoples of earlier times who broke the virgin soils of other states, they had the courage and fortitude to endure that they might build a new home in a new land.

Home-made clothing and home-made hats were worn by the men, women and children. Flowered calico dresses, topped off with a hand-made palmetto hat trimmed with flowers made of fish scales, constituted a stylish, modish attire for the society belles of those days. Coarse white trousers, hickory shirts, brogans and palmetto hats were worn by the men. Occasionally someone would appear attired in clothing of a better sort, relics of other days, and would cause quite a stir among their less fortunate neighbors.

The furniture used was as simple as the clothing. It was mostly all home-made. The chairs were of maple with sow hide bottoms and tables of rough boards. Those who brought feather beds from their former homes were considered very fortunate. Most of the beds consisted of shallow board frames filled with Spanish moss and palmettoes. Most cabins had fireplaces and some of them had a cast iron stove.

All these early settlers built their cabins of logs chinked with mud and covered with hand-made clapboards or shingles.

Light at night was furnished by bonfires, around which the family would sit in the evening. A few of the really rich had kerosene lamps. There were no lanterns, but pitch pine splinters answered the need very well. Matches at times were scarce, but each family kept a fire going day and night to take care of any possible emergency.

The roads were sand trails winding around through the forests. There were no bridges and all streams had to be forded. There was a road commissioner who occasionally sent out notices to the settlers of certain districts to meet at a designated time and place to work the roads for three days, or in lieu thereof pay $1.00 road tax.

What money there was in circulation was Spanish gold obtained from the sale of cattle shipped by small schooners to Cuba, or as a rule the men worked out their poll tax.

The wage at the time was 50 cents a day, but when pay day came the laborer was paid off in syrup or sweet potatoes, a gallon of syrup and a bushel of sweet potatoes being legal tender each for a day’s labor.

Occasionally some new settlers would come in with some real money and want work done in clearing up a place preparatory to a crop. Settlers would come from far and wide to get a chance to earn some ready cash.

Recollections of Elder Moore

The Rev. Joseph Brown was also a fisherman. He with some other men made a barrier in a nearby creek after a run of mullet had gone up stream with the incoming tide. Later, their little skiff was almost sunk by the returning mullet, and Mr. Brown was struck on the head by one of the jumping fish and knocked nearly senseless.

At the time the Bethesda Church was erected Dunedin was the center of the business life of what is now Pinellas County and this church was built on the site of what at present is the Dunedin Cemetery where it might best serve the population, people coming from as far as Point Pinellas, Bay View and Safety Harbor to the services.

The land on which the Church was erected was the gift of B. W. Brown. His daughter, Mrs. Margaret Brown Craven was a resident of Dunedin and a member of the Episcopal Church in our city. The building was erected by an uncle of Mr. M. W. Moore’s. The blocks and sills for the foundation were hewn from timber grown on the land. The lumber was floated down the Gulf. The nails and hardware used in the building were brought to Dunedin by Mr. Andrews from a foundry he owned in Richmond, Virginia. His granddaughter, Mrs. Bernice Andrews Gash, was a member of the church for many years.

To this little church, result of their efforts and sacrifices, people came over the sand trails, here and there fording a stream, men and women, and their children, riding in two-wheeled carts, in dump carts, carts drawn by oxen or on horseback.

Mrs. W. Y. Douglas remembers

Mrs. Douglas remembered that on one occasion when some women came to services seated in chairs in a dump cart, someone failed to properly fasten the pin which held the body to the cart in place, with the result that the woman and the chairs all slid unceremoniously to the ground just as they arrived at the church. She tells of riding home on horse-back from “candle-light service” (as the evening services were called) when it was so dark through the forest that she made no attempt to guide her horse, just left it to the horse to find the way. She recalled that the only musical instrument at services was the tuning fork.

Another member recalled that her mother told of driving home from church one Sabbath in one of those primitive carts. One child got spilled out and was not missed for a time. After retracing part of the route, the anxious mother and the worried child were reunited. It was not until some years later that Mr. Moore’s father built a “buck-board” for Mr. Douglas, and four-wheeled wagons.

Times were very hard for the little band of worshipers, yet they took a lively interest in all the activities of the church, and it’s recorded that the officers of the church kept up the Sunday school work and mid-week prayer meetings, even when they were without a preacher, as was the situation from time to time.

A Tribute to Joseph Brown

We quote from the Necrological Report, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1880:

He was the son of the Rev. Samuel and Mary (Moore) Brown. The latter in early life was a captive among the Indians and her history is given in the volume entitled “The Captives of Abb’s Valley.”

He was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, September 24, 1809, and graduated from Washington College, Virginia, in 1820, and from Princeton Seminary in 1826.

From the close of a successful pastorate of ten years (1837-1847) at Spring Creek and Oak Grove, until the end of his life, his ministerial labors were of a missionary character, usually in frontier settlements.

For a large part of his life he included teaching with his preaching labors.

At times his work was among the colored people in the state of Mississippi. Mr. Brown resided in Florida for many years. During ten of these years beginning with 1868, he resided at Clear Water Harbor, Hillsborough County, where he gradually gathered and watched over and supplied the Andrews Memorial Church until 1879,

when he felt compelled by growing infirmities of age, and by long feeble health, to remove to Bryan, Texas, where filial affection had provided for him a comfortable home. At this place, Bryan, Texas, he died February 14, 1880 in the seventieth year of his age.

He was a man of unusual ability. He came to Dunedin in comfortable circumstances. He was never paid for his labors here. He died in poverty.

A Tribute to Angus Johnson

A period of economic uncertainty occurred after Pastor Brown’s departure to Texas and the calling of Angus Johnson as pastor. The Minutes of Dallas Presbytery include the following:

The Rev. Angus Johnson was born in Robinson County, North Carolina, August 26, 1809. He graduated from the Columbia Seminary in 1836. He was Pastor at Keith, Hopewell, Mount Williams and Rock Fish, North Carolina beginning in 1836. He preached in Water Valley elsewhere in Mississippi beginning in 1844. Toward the last of his career, he spent two years at Andrews Memorial Church. He then went to Texas in 1886 at the age of seventy-seven years and died January 19, 1908 at the age of ninety-eight. He had spent seventy-one years in active ministry.

Elder Moore remembers

Rev. Angus Johnson, a frontier minister who came sometime after Rev. Joseph Brown, visited among the families of his congregation and worked in fields at times with those he wanted to win for Christ, and made himself helpful in many ways.

Most of the people at that time had open wells with a rope and pulley to draw water from the wells. The rope on a certain well was too small in size and was hard on the hands of the lady of the house, who had to draw most of the water. One day Parson Johnson (nearly everyone called him “Parson” when speaking in his absence) brought a new rope of good size and put it on in place of the small one and the good lady told all her neighbors of the Parson’s generosity and liberality, but when the bill from the store came at the end of the month, the said rope was charged on her husband’s account.

What became of the little church

This “large and commodious building” as Parson Johnson called it, that was built out at the Dunedin cemetery by these early settlers, was sold when the early pioneers’ community decided that the current site of the First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin made a bit more sense. Some of the windows, frames and sills were used in City Hall, which at the time was a public school. The remainder of the old church building was converted into a barn on a nearby farm. The land was deeded to the City of Dunedin in 1928 to continue as a cemetery. The center of population shifted. A new building was erected at the corner of Scotland Street and Highland Avenue in 1888. The lot was given to the Church by a William Tate in 1876, the lot for the manse was the gift of J. T. Alderman, also in 1876. The new church retained the name “The Andrews Memorial Church” and it served the people for services until the building of the present sanctuary.

The congregation nearly disappeared between 1879-1881. The Presbytery ended its lengthy tribute to the congregation with the following written on November 20, 1882:

The Committee cannot close its report without special commendation of the steadfastness of this people in adhering to the Church of their choice, and, as far as in their power, using the public as well as the private means of grace, during the long and dark days of their trials. We trust that this devoted band will yet see the fulfilment of the promise that they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. Doubtless this Presbytery will feel called upon, in every proper way, to show these brethren its appreciation of their zeal in the Master’s service.

When the name of the congregation was changed to First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin, the following was inscribed: “A new name, the same Church, the same People, the same Courage, and the same faith in God. Formerly known as the Ebenezer Church, the Bethesda Church, the Andrews Memorial Church.”

EARLY PIONEERS

B. W. Brown came from North Carolina to Dunedin in 1868. He settled on land upon which the Dunedin Cemetery is now a part. He gave eight acres of this land for the first Bethesda Church and the Cemetery. He had a large family and built and maintained a school for their education. The children of other settlers were also accommodated.

J. W. Alderman gave the Church the land on which the manse was built in 1886. This was on Highland Avenue adjoining the other Church property. Mr. Alderman was one of the early elders.

Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Snendecor were members of this church from 1882 to 1890. They later worked at Stillman Institute in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Mrs. Snendecor carried on the work at Stillman after her husband’s death. For years, the African American Synod of the Southern Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was named “The Snendecor Memorial Synod”. From the earliest days of the Women’s Auxiliary, gifts are recorded to the Stillman Institute now a predominantly black college.

John Moffett McClung was born in Lexington, Virginia on May 23, 1847, and died August 14, 1920. Mrs. Annie W. McClung was born in Lexington, August 7, 1844, and died January 29, 1927. They came to the area in the late sixties, and during the reconstruction years passed through terrible hardships. Beginning life in a log cabin near Dunedin, they worked hard, built a new home, reared a large family and gave them a good start in life. Members of the family are active in our church today (1944). Mr. McClung was a ruling elder for forty years (1880-1920). He was a man of wise counsel, both in the Church and in business. He gave a helping hand to many who came to the community in the early years of its existence. Mrs. McClung was a motherly woman to the discouraged, and by her kindly ministrations to the sick and needy endeared herself to the whole community. Their great faith in God and the Church enabled them to be of great assistance in keeping the Church going during the early years. With several others, Mr. McClung always settled Church deficits that might exist at the close of the Church year, thus enabling the Church to pay its annual budget without Home Mission Aid. They were truly pillars of the Presbyterian Church and their memory is safely lodged in the hearts of its members. Generous in gifts, and beloved by all, they left behind a monument of good works and loving service.

M. G. Anderson was one of the first two elders of the Ebenezer Church, as it was first named. He served eleven years. He came here from Mississippi and was a Major in the Civil War. He was an enterprising man and honored and respected in this entire section. He put up the first cotton gin and traveled about on the old gray mule that carried him through the Civil War.

Hugh Somerville was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, April 18,1848. He was a “child of the covenant”, trained in a Christian home, and the results of that early training were plainly manifested in all his after life. He came to Dunedin in 1871 and the following year united with the Andrews Memorial Church. In 1880 he married Miss Mary Alice Anderson, who died on February 9, 1902. November 2, 1906, he married Miss M. A. Neel, of Davidson, North Carolina. They had one daughter, Mary Alice Somerville. In 1890 Mr. Somerville was elected and ordained to the office of Ruling Elder and he served as Clerk of the Session until the time of his death. He was an Elder for 24 years. Dr. Wilkie said of him:

Mr. Somerville was a Christian gentleman who lived his life before man without fear and without reproach, faithful and true to every trust, and devotedly attached to the Church which he served and loved so well.

It was surely fitting that looking forward to the service of God’s house on that beautiful Sabbath morning God should have said to him “Come up higher”, and that while his friends were singing the songs of Zion in the earthly sanctuary, he should have been privileged to join in the services of the upper sanctuary ‘where congregations n’er break up and Sabbaths have no end’.

Hugh Somerville’s brother James opened a general store at the foot of Main Street. He and J. O. Douglas, brother of W. Y. Douglas, petitioned the Government to name the new settlement Dunedin, after their hometown Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Pioneer Ministers

Rev. Joseph Brown 1871-1880

Rev. Angus Johnson 1882-1884

Rev. W. G. F. Wallace 1885-1886

Rev. Richards 1887

Rev. N. D. Viser 1889

Rev. David Kidd 1891

Rev. L. H. Wilson 1892

Rev. A. A. Craig 1894-1895

Rev. James A. Marshall 1896-1898

Rev. W. B. Y. Wilkie 1899-1924

The Pioneer Elders

E. M. Beckette 1871-1897

M. G. Anderson 1871-1882

J. M. McClung 1880-1920

W. F. White 1880-1891

Hugh Somerville 1890-1914

The Presbytery of Florida, November 20, 1882

“The Committee cannot close its report without special commendation of the steadfastness of this people in adhering to the church of their choice, and, as far as in their power, using the public as well as the private means of grace, during the long and dark days of their trials. We trust that this devoted band will yet see the fulfillment of the promise that they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. Doubtless this Presbytery will feel called upon, in every proper way, to show these brethren its appreciation of their zeal in the Master’s service.”