Middleburg Homesoming Picnic
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The sheep bluffs afforded ample wharfage for the numerous
steamboats which came up the St, Johns to Middleburg and took on great loads
of lumber and cotton* Ox-carts brought in quantities of cotton from planta-
tations as far away as Tallahassee and Lake City.
The first ohuroh, a Catholio mission, established for the
Spanish among the early settlers, disappeared many years ago, but the
Methodist church, built in I8I4.7 on land donated by Ozias Budington, saiil
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sea-faring man from Connecticut, who owned a line of sailing vessels,
still1 stands. He also started the Sunday-school for the children of the
settlement and was its first superintendent.
In those early days, Indians still roamed that section, and
when these early settlers attended church, they stacked their shotguns
outside the door.
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./ There was no regular preacher, but circuit riders held in¬
frequent services on their rounds, at which time there was much enthusiasm,
and sometimes revlmls, resulting in the addition of new ¡embers.
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jj In slavery days, the Negroes accompanied the white folks,
Cutting on the benches in the back of the room which ware reserved for
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them. While the old Negro mammy enjoyed the services and humad the hjWs*
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she', kept a watchful eye on her little white charges playing in the church¬
yard beyond the door*