Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Side One: The first reported worship service for the settlers around Lake Jesup was in 1869, under a brush arbor. For months, interdenominational services were held for Methodists and Baptists. By 1873, the Methodists were holding separate services under their own brush arbor. That year, the Florida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South appointed a circuit rider, James G. Tyson, to serve the Lake Jesup area. In 1878, the 44-person congregation began construction of a church on land belonging to John R. and Henryetta Mitchell. Many of the new church’s furnishings were provided by Dr. Henry and Mary Foster, who were from Clifton Springs, New York. The Fosters, who had been wintering in the Lake Charm area since 1874, provided the church with a pulpit, altar rail, pews, an Estey reed organ, and stained-glass windows. The Fosters also frequently donated financially to the church, despite not being members of the congregation. In gratitude, the church congregation named the building Foster Chapel. The Rev. Robert H. Barnett preached a sermon in 1879 to dedicate the chapel. In 1882, the congregation purchased from the Mitchells the five-acre lot where Foster Chapel stood. Side Two: In 1887, the congregation decided to relocate the chapel to a “more suitable and convenient location.” Henryetta Mitchell gave the church a lot at the northwest corner of King Street and Lake Jessup Avenue. Two teams of oxen pulled the church on a series of logs down a path cleared through the woods to its new destination. Congregants recalled that Captain Meredith Brock played the organ and children sang as the building rolled along. The original site was converted into a cemetery. Rather than sell burial plots, the church opted to lease them for a period of 999 years. In 1889, a fire driven by high winds swept through the cemetery, burning oak trees and some of the wooden grave enclosures. Having been moved a year earlier, Foster Chapel escaped the fire. The chapel grew with the construction of a belfry and purchase a new church bell. The size of the congregation grew along with the building, and by the 1920s, there were around 150 members. In 1955, after years of fundraising, construction began on a new church building just to the west of Foster Chapel. It remained in use until 1956 when the new sanctuary held its first service.