Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Cemetery
A cemetery of notable African Americans that fought the systematic injustices of our people and government
The Archer Community
Church Established Circa 1873
The formation of the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Church by Major Reddick in 1873 Credit: Alachua County Ancient Records - Deed Record I
Many of the church founders participated in the Homestead Act to obtain land during reconstruction. Called “Land for the Landless,” the Homestead Act gave homesteaders newfound opportunities. Two million claims were made under the Homestead Act equaling 270 million acres, or 10% of the United States.
Notably, Rev. Major Reddick applied for land under the Homestead Act. According to the State of Florida tract book, Reddick was tentatively granted the land on December 11, 1867 and was deeded November 20, 1875. He was awarded 39.98 acres of land and on August 13, 1873 he granted the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Church 1 square acre for use as a church and cemetery. The 1873 deed lists the trustees of the church as Ronaldo “Nallie” Reddick, Henry Peterson, Adam Moulton, Richard Doby, and Arthur Haynes.
Church & Cemetery are located on 1 square acre on the Northeast corner of the NW quarter, of the NE quarter, of the NE quarter of Section 20, Township 11S, of Range 18E Credit: Ancient Deed Records Property Description
1922 deed listing Nallie Reddick & Junius Jackson as the new trustees Credit: Alachua County Ancient Records - Deed Record 115
The Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Church was transferred through the family on August 15, 1922. Nallie Reddick & Junius Jackson paid $10.00 to list themselves as trustees of the church. The church was signed over by Nallie Reddick and Wife Maggie Reddick, Abe Reddick, (Widower) Romeo "Nallie" Reddick and Wife Patsy Reddick, and Mary E Brown (Widow). The parcel of land passed from the land grant of Major Reddick to Willie Brown and finally to the Means family before it became part of the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Cemetery Restoration Organization (BMECRO) in 2010.
The current extent of the cemetery spans over 2 acres as a result of 1.28 acres of land from the NE quarter, of the NE quarter, of the NE quarter of Section 20, Township 11S, of Range 18E. This acre of land was originally land granted to James Dancy and eventually passed to Henry Penny, Jr. before it became part of the BMECRO in 2004.
A History of Suppression
Jesse J. Finley Vs. Horatio Bisbee, Jr. Testimonies
Many of the church members testified to the legitimacy of the 1876 and 1880 Florida second Congressional district elections. Major Reddick, Rinaldo (Nallie) Reddick, Abe Reddick, Elbert McKinney, Albert Long, testified in Finley vs. Bisbee, Jr., with Finley alleging voting irregularities and fraud following the November 1876 election.
Elbert McKinney, Sr.
Uncle Elbert McKinney distributed tickets during election day for the 1876 election.
Albert Long
Major Reddick
Abe Reddick
Rinaldo "Nallie" Reddick
Expenditures of the Senate
Major Reddick, Elbert McKinney, Amos Haines, & Arthur Haines are listed on the senate's contingent fund payments for sworn testimony mileage.
Verdict in Bisbee's favor
Resolved, That Jesse J. Finley was not elected and is not entitled to a seat in the Forty-fifth Congress from the Second Congressional District of Florida.
Resolved, That Horatio Bisbee, Jr, was elected and is entitled to a sea in the Forty-fifth Congress from the Second Congressional District in Florida (Recommendation from The Committee on Elections).
Bisbee served from March 4, 1877, to February 20, 1879, when Finley successfully contested the election. Finley was seated on February 20, 1879, and served until March 3, 1879, for less than a month.
Horatio Bisbee, Jr. Vs. Jesse J. Finley
After the 1880 elections, another case Bisbee, Jr. vs. Finley came to light, and Elbert McKinney was again called to testify.
Elbert McKinney, Sr.
Verdict in Finley's favor
Resolved, That Horatio Bisbee, Jr. was not elected as Representative to the Forty-seventh Congress of the United States from the Second Congressional District of Florida, and is not entitled to occupy a seat in this House as such.
Resolved, That Jesse J. Finley was duly elected as a Representative from the Second Congressional District of Florida to the Forty-seventh Congress of the United States, and is entitled to retain his seat as such (Recommendation from The Committee on Elections).
Finley served from March 4, 1881, to June 1, 1882, when he was succeeded by Horatio Bisbee, Jr. On June 1, 1882, Bisbee was declared the winner, he then served to the end of term on March 3, 1883.
The ability for African Americans to cast a ballot began to gradually erode after the May 1868 elections. The Jacksonville Daily Florida Union, a republican newspaper, reported on August 6, 1868, that Democrats were secretly plotting to neutralize black suffrage employing violence and intimidation. The Klansmen were coming, and Alachua County alone had five more victims between October 12 and November 30.
The Klansmen and their Conservative-Democrat sponsors planned to unseat Republicans at any cost in the November 1870 election. Suppression of black votes was critical, particularly in Alachua County where there was a 600-vote black republican majority.
Between 1868 and 1871, Alachua County was Florida’s second most violent with nineteen murders reported. Five men were held for trial, but all were promptly acquitted by Conservative juries. William Birney, a district attorney of the Fifth Judicial Circuit, had a murder attempt in broad daylight on a Gainesville street.
The Ku Klux Klan’s violent terrorism effectively disenfranchised voters throughout the state. While Republicans still carried the election, their margin was drastically whittled in all but the blackest of counties, and Democrat William Bloxham was elected lieutenant governor. In Gainesville, a U.S. marshal was forced to watch helplessly as white thugs “flung their revolvers around in a very desperate manner,” frightening blacks away from the ballot box. With violence around the state and rampant voter discrimination, there was a loss of five hundred Republican votes in Alachua County. When the legislature met in January 1871, the Republican majority in each house was so small that total unanimity would henceforth be required to pass any substantial measures. As noted by historian Ralph Peek, the 1870’s election marked “the beginning of the end for Reconstruction in Florida”.
Newton, The Invisible Empire : The Ku Klux Klan in Florida.
From Slavery to Massacre
Uncle Elbert McKinney
Elbert McKinney, Sr. was born July 6, 1829 according to his gravestone that was partially recovered from the cemetery. He lived a noble and courageous life challenging the status quo.
Slavery at Yulee's Cottonwood Plantation
‘Uncle’ Elbert was the plantation blacksmith and three times daily, he blew the ‘ram’s horn,’ a prized possession which was allegedly given to Mr. George L. Taylor upon the death of ‘Uncle’ Elbert.
Elbert McKinney, Jr.
Elbert McKinney, Jr. along with Hector Williams, Sheppard Harrison, William Mitchell were listed as trustees to the newly formed Archer Shiloh Church on March 9, 1885. One acre of land was transferred from Charles White and his wife Dorcas White for the creation of a church on aliquot SW4 of NE4 in Section 20 of Township 11S, Range 18E.
William T. Hickson
William T. Hickson, 1859 Aiken Mayor, relocated his family from Aiken, South Carolina to Marion County, Florida, Orange Lake area circa 1852. They were hoping they would be safe from General Sherman or other Union encounters. The Hickson family had 24 enslaved people and 1 free colored - Amos Haines was possibly one of them.
Amos Haines, Sr. owned land in Marion County and was listed next to William and Martha Hickson's name on the 1870 census. Their oldest child seems to be Amos Haines, Jr., and he was shown on the 1870 census as living with his parents in Marion County.
Amos Haines, Jr.
Amos Haines, Jr. was born in 1848 in South Carolina and passed away on September 20, 1909. He had four wives and 12 children. Eliza Newton Haines Thomas Bell married Amos Haines, Jr. when she was 23. Eliza was Amos Jr.'s fourth wife and they had two daughters together.
Arthur Haines
Arthur Haines became a sharecropper farming (cotton and corn) upon the "Oak Grove" Plantation in Alachua County during the year 1867, he was “indebted” to J.D. Matheson & Company. The plantation was located in the Arrendondo district, between Archer and West Gainesville.
Major Reddick
He not only established the church and cemetery, but he also married several local couples after the devastating 1923 Rosewood massacre that brutally murdered hundreds of African Americans in the region. The massacre followed the false claims of a white woman named Fannie Taylor alleging assault by a black man.
Juliann Sams
Juliann Sams, age 14, was kidnapped, roped, and put up for bid on the auction block in Jackson, Mississippi. They were bought by 22-year-old James M. Parchman and were forced to walk barefoot to Archer, Florida, in 1839. Both were separated from Texas and Mississippi families torn apart by the sale, and they never saw their families again.
Mahulda "Gussie" Brown Carrier
She was the granddaughter of Juliann Sams and daughter of Lizzie Sams Brown. Out of the fear of her life, she changed her name several times. Carrier is believed to be the second black female principal in the state of Florida and the first and only black female principal in Levy County until February 28, 2007. She is one of the few survivors of the Rosewood massacre.
The Untold Violence
The 1923 Rosewood massacre's final death toll is disputed to the present day. Seventy-one years after the fact, state investigators counted eight fatalities, six of them black, but there is significant reason to mistrust their figures. A black survivor recalled stepping over “a pile of white bodies”, when she fled, and reports of a higher death toll among blacks are easily dismissed. One of the Cedar Key lynchers claimed that twenty-seven blacks were killed, and a story in the St. Petersburg Times quoted another white witness who saw “nearly twenty” black corpses, including several infants, buried in a single mass grave. Rosewood survivors, for their part, referred to forty dead or more, one report claiming that “close to a hundred” blacks had died in the riots.
Following the Civil War, Alachua County was known as one of the most violent places for African Americans in the whole United States. Alachua County had 44 known lynchings between 1867 and 1950. This was more than any other county and state in the United States. [1]
Lynching victims in Alachua County were Cooley Johnson, Harry Simonton, George Bibbon, Jacob Lee (1867); Moses Smith, Mr. Stephens, Willey Bradley, Cesar (Caesar) Sullivan, Harry Franklin, Henry (Harry) Hurl, Joseph Hurl, Son of Harry Harold (1869); Unknown, Jim Jenkins, Christopher Cummings (1870); Alexander Morris (Janurary 14, 1871); Sandy Hacock (September 14, 1871); Henry Washington (October 7, 1871); Tom Williams of Archer, FL (October 8, 1871); Eli (May 1874); Unknown (1889); Tony Champion (February 17, 1891); Andrew Ford (August 24, 1891); Henry Hinson (January 12, 1892); Unnamed Negro Boy (September 6, 1892); Charles Willis (January 12, 1894); William Rawls (April 2, 1895); Alfred Daniels (November 26, 1896); Manny Price and Robert "Bob" Scruggs (September 1, 1902); Jumbo Clark (January 14, 1901); John Haskins, Jim Dennis, Stella Young, Mary Dennis, Bert Dennis, Andrew McHenry, Dick Johnson, Rev. Josh J. Baskins, and two unknowns (August 19, 1916); Abraham Wilson (January 17, 1923); George Buddington (December 27, 1926); Lester Watts (March 21, 1942). [2]
[1] Newton, The Invisible Empire : The Ku Klux Klan in Florida.
[2] Kirkman, Reported Lynchings in Alachua County.
“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Spanish philosopher George Santayana.
