Yeoman Farmers
Pisgah metal archway sign leading into church cemetery, 2023
Courtesy of Michelle Hearn
Although the planter class dominated the courts, banks, and politics in the early years of the territory, most of the free settlers who migrated to Florida were small-scale farmers — the yeoman class. Scholars define yeoman farmers as enslaving less than 10 people, whom they typically labored alongside in the fields. Yeoman farmers slowly built communities and networks around churches, such as Pisgah United Methodist Church in Centerville, near Tallahassee. They joined the Democratic Party and opposed the Union Bank as an institution for a privileged few. The rival Whig Party was composed almost entirely of the planter class. Yeoman organizing efforts paid off in 1839, when the anti-bank Democrats won most of the territorial political offices.
Pisgah United Methodist Church was founded in Centerville, Leon County in 1830. The current structure dates to 1859.
Image, 2023. Courtesy of Michelle Hearn
The financial Panic of 1837 produced a national seven-year depression that reached Florida in the early 1840s. From 1837 to 1842, the Second Seminole War also slowed settler immigration into the territory. A few years of bad cotton crops, along with unsound lending practices, damaged the financial health and reputation of the Union Bank.
Due to wild real estate speculation, Florida’s Legislative Council investigated territorial banks in 1840 and issued a particularly scathing report on the Union Bank. As tensions increased, violence broke out. Pro-bank men threatened to burn down an adversarial newspaper building. Governor Robert R. Reid, an anti-bank man, called out the local militia to protect his home and quell the violence. In 1842, the Territorial Council repudiated the bonds, refusing to back them with public credit, and in 1843, the Union Bank closed.
United Methodist Historic Site No. 302 marker by Pisgah Church front doors. Pisgah United Methodist Church
was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 3, 1974.
Image, 2023. Courtesy of Russell Brasel
