KANAPAHA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

In 1857, a group of Sea Island cotton planters from South Carolina who steeled near here called an organizational meeting to establish Kanapaha Presbyterian Church. The Reverend William J. McCormick (1821-1883) was recruited from South Carolina to be its first pastor. The first sanctuary was erected in 1859 on land donated by Moses Ramsey on the old military road now known as S.W. 63rd Boulevard. In April 1859, McCormick conducted the first servives and the church was formally organized. During the Civil War, Kanapaha Church fell into disrepair. A new sanctuary designed in the Gothic Revival Style was built in 1886 near the train depot in South Arrendondo, later called Kanapaha. Beginning in 1961, services were held in a building closer to Gainesville but the congregation returned to the church here in 1970, after restoration was completed. Kanapaha Presbyterian Church is one of the oldest churches in Alachua County, and still retains the original pews, kerosene chandelier, stained glass windows, and bell. The churches original Steeple, badly damaged by hurricanes in the 1940s, was restored in 2001.