History

The organizers of St. Mark’s in 1853 were legacy leaders in Florida and several of those St. Mark’s Parish organizers met in St. Augustine as the original members of the Florida Historical Society:

• Gov. William D. Moseley, first elected governor of the state and Elizabeth Moseley Haughton, daughter of Governor Moseley, who proposed the organizing of an Episcopal church in Palatka.
• Her husband, Judge T.S. Haughton, was a direct descendant of two Florida pioneers: Francis Philip Fatio, one of only two land grant holders in continued residence in North Florida with a 10,000-acre land grant from the British occupation, the Second Spanish Period, and the Florida territorial transition; and Fatio’s grandson, Francis P. Fleming, who served as governor of Florida from 1889-1893.
• Judge Isaac Bronson, at attorney in Watertown, NY, was appointed to the U.S. Congress in 1837 and introduced the act by which Florida became a state in 1845. President James K. Polk appointed Bronson to the Southern District superior federal court and Bronson made his headquarters in St. Augustine. In 1854, Bronson built his palatial home in Palatka, Sunny Point, now known as the Bronson-Mulholland House.
• Judge Bronson and Bishop Benjamin Whipple were instrumental in persuading New York architect Richard Upjohn to design St. Mark’s for a fee within the building committee’s budget.
• Benjamin Putnam for whom Putnam County was named. Putnam was speaker of the state House of Representatives, major in the Seminole War, surveyor general of Florida, and circuit judge in Palatka. His only child Kate was the daughter-in-law of U.S. Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun. His widow, Helen Kirby Putnam, donated the land on which the St. Mark’s rectory is located.
• James Burt was the driving force in the development of Palatka and the construction of the Upjohn-designed church and rectory at St. Mark’s. He was a banker, successful mercantile businessman with his brother George Burt in St. Augustine, Palatka Tract trustee and for 40 years he served St. Mark’s as its treasurer, vestryman and junior warden.
• George R. Fairbanks moved as a law clerk with Judge Bronson from Watertown, NY. In 1855, Fairbanks delivered the application of St. Mark’s to the Diocese Convention in Tallahassee, which was unanimously approved. He became the Clerk of the Circuit Court, Florida State Senator, president of Florida Fruit Growers Association, the author of books on Florida history; and was a founder of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.
• Robert Boyd, one of the first settlers in Palatka, built a house that was one of the first three in town with glass windows. He served as sheriff, tax assessor, and tax collector of Putnam County, all at one time.
• Dr. George Hawes opened his medical practice in Palatka in 1852, served in the Florida Senate from 1848-1861 and served St. Mark’s as Senior Warden for 42 years.
• Hubbard Hart, was an entrepreneur and owner of the Hart Line steamboat empire and hotel venue which became the catalyst for Florida’s nascent tourist industry on the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers.
• Marcellus A. Williams was one of the most important U.S. Government surveyors in Florida history. He studied surveying with George Washington’s nephew Lawrence Washington. In 1870, Williams surveyed all of the real property at the southern tip of the state between the Everglades and the Atlantic Ocean, the Intracoastal Waterway between Lake Worth to Fort Myers, and from Amelia Island to Cedar Key.
• Judge Isaac Bronson and his wife, Sophronia, donated the land upon which the St. Mark’s sanctuary was constructed in 1855 under the supervision of church secretary, James Burt. Bronson as a U.S. congressman sponsored the bill that included Florida as a state and Palatka as an incorporated city.