PENIEL BAPTIST CHURCH

After preaching in private homes south of Palatka, Samuel T. Stanland and Silas Weeks met with members of the community at Mud Lake to constitute a Baptist church on July 19, 1852. Three days later, Bryant Osteen and Jesse, an enslaved Black man owned by Brother Weeks, were the first congregants to be baptized. Soon after the Civil War, George Weathersbee donated 2 acres of land to build a church on. Construction finished around 1870. In May 1871, the congregation adopted the name “Peniel Baptist Church.” In 1905, congregants with a single mule moved the small church, known as “The Chapel,” to the east side of Peniel Church Road. On January 14, 1939, Reverend Cecil Underwood, ordained Billy Graham into his evangelistic ministry in this church. In his autobiography, Graham described: “The little white frame church, about four windows long, was hot, and I was nervous.” Music evangelist Homer Rodeheaver, who played trombone and preached with Billy Sunday, frequented this church before founding the nearby Rodeheaver Boy’s Ranch in 1950. In 1968, members of the congregation came together to build a new sanctuary on the site of the original church. The old chapel was returned to the west side of Peniel Church Road.