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Creation Date

4-29-2018

Description

The marker reads: "VILLAGE OF PROVIDENCE (UNINCORPORATED) UNION COUNTY (Continued from other side) Providence--Ft. Call on Santa Fe River. Ft. Ward on Olustee Creek, and Ft.No.15-East Florida on Swift Creek. Eleven known Indian War veterans and forty-six Civil War veterans are buried in area cemeteries. Providence was a prosperous, thriving community pre and post Civil War. It was the first county seat of all land now comprising Columbia, Bradford and Union counties. A post office opened in 1854 and operated intermittently until 1906 with James L. Turner as postmaster and John D. Harden and Willie Thomas as mail carriers. Physicians practicing here were: Doctors Coon, Davis, Lamb, Maines, Newsom, Powell, Tison, Wachope, and Witt. There were two drugstores owned by Dr. Newsom and Dr. Powell. L. G. Ware was a druggist. William W. Willis was a lawyer and judge. Providence had a bank, photographer-Jeremiah Mobley, butcher-R.D. Kierce, barber-Draiton Witt, blacksmiths-Raymond Roberts, C.F. Fralick, and V.J. Valentine, Odom cotton gin and Shelley & Ware sawmill. John Fralick operated a grist mill. J.H. Walters had a private school. General mercantile stores were owned by S.D. Hodges, James L. Turner, Odom & Weeks, and Lonnie Driggers. Gen. Charles P. Summerall, an early resident, assumed command of the U.S. Army as Chief of Staff when Gen. John J. Pershing retired in 1924. Summerall later became President of The Citadel. Old Providence Baptist Church, two miles northwest of Providence, was founded in 1833 making it the oldest Baptist church in Union County and one of the oldest Baptist churches in Florida. FUNDED BY PROVIDENCE PIONEER DESCENDANTS AND FRIENDS IN COOPERATION WITH THE UNION COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC."

Latitude, Longitude

30 deg 0' 13.89", 82 deg 32' 49.79"

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