LaVilla Landowners - Joseph Stevens Baker

Topic: Origins - Early Versions
James McDonald’s contract with the Georgia Baptist Association in 1832 required him to keep a daily journal and report quarterly. [1]  He often sent reports to The Christian Index, [2] which was published by the association.  By the time McDonald was in Jacksonville, the editor was Joseph Stevens Baker. [3]

Baker’s family had moved to Dorchester, South Carolina, from Massachusetts in 1695. [4]  The Congregational church removed to Liberty County, Georgia, in 1752. [5]  His grandfather was the first deacon. [6]  After the American Revolution, it affiliated with the Presbyterians. [7]

Joseph was raised to be a Presbyterian minster like his four step-brothers.  For that purpose he was sent to Hampden-Sidney College. [8]  While the school supported religious freedom, [9] it also housed the Presbyterian’s Union Theological Seminary. [10]

When he returned to Liberty County, the local church asked him to prepare an answer to the question: was John’s baptism a Christian baptism?  Two years later, Baker sold his property in Georgia and entered Columbian College to study medicine. [11]  It had been founded in 1821 by Baptists. [12]

Baker practiced medicine for a few years, then became a Baptist missionary.  It was after he moved to Georgia around 1840 that he took over the editorship of The Christian Index.  It suffered the same financial problems that McDonald did when the Southern Baptist Convention replaced the Northern Baptist sponsors. [13]  He resigned in 1848, and moved to Jacksonville, Florida. [14]

By then, Baker was fifty years old.  His son, McRobert Baker, was a lawyer who also moved to Jacksonville.  In 1850, he was the town’s mayor. [15]  Joseph must have acted as a preacher at McDonald’s church when the evangelist was out proselytizing. [16]  In 1851, McDonald sold his land to the Bakers [17] and moved to Atlanta.  McRobert turned part of the acreage into a plantation, which he called LaVilla. [18]

The same year, 1850, McDonald’s deacon, Elias Jaudon bought a 550 acre plantation on the Saint John’s River.  The previous owner, William McKay, had used 50 slaves to grow sea island cotton.  By 1855, Jaudon had expanded Magnolia Plantation to 1,000 acres and added livestock and over crops. [19]

In 1853, McRobert Baker was a circuit court judge for Sumter County in the central part of the state, but still lived in Jacksonville. [20]  The next year, Joseph returned to Georgia. [21]  McRobert’s interests in central Florida increased, and, in 1856, he sold LaVilla to Francis L’Engle. [22]

Jaudon remained the deacon for Bethel Baptist church, and supported the minister who arrived in 1859, E. M. Dennison. [23]  The church had grown to 290 members, of whom 250 were Black. [24]  By 1861, Jaudon provided land for a new building closer to town. [25]  The cemetery remained where it was.

In the meantime, in 1860, Jaudon, McRobert, and others incorporated La Villa Institute as a school to train teachers. [26]

During the Civil War, the new church building was used as a hospital for Union troops. [27]  After the war, the white and Black members fought over its ownership.  In 1868, a court gave whites the property, and ordered them to pay compensation to the newly freed Blacks.  They used the funds to erect a wooden building at a new location, which they called Bethel Baptist.  In response, the whites changed their name to Tabernacle Baptist. [28]

Jaudon’s role in this fight is unknown.  By 1868, he was 62 years old. [29]  His oldest son had died in Richmond in 1862, [30] and he apparently had left the area during the war. [31]  Jaudon returned a less wealthy man; he had lost capital when slaves were emancipated.  His land had not been tended during the war and probably had been used by Union troops in 1865.

During Reconstruction, Jacksonville attracted northerners, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, [32] who came for the winters or to make investments. [33]  Capital moved more freely after Federal troops were withdraw in April of 1869. [34]  In 1869, Jaudon sold 100 acres to Elwell Jamison, who in turn sold 35 acres to William James.  They hoped to build a residential suburb. [35]

Jaudon died in 1872. [36].  McRobert had died in Richmond in 1864. [37]  His father, Joseph, moved to Quitman, Georgia, after the war where he died in 1877. [38]

End Notes
1.  James C. Bryant.  “James McDonald: Missionary to East Florida.”  Florida Baptist Historical Society meeting, Deland, Florida, 5 May 1984.  Republished on the society’s website.  17, footnote 27.  James McDonald is introduced in the post for 5 March 2023.

2.  Bryant.  3.
3.  “The Christian Index.”  Georgia Historic Newspapers website.

4.  Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society.  History of the Town of Dorchester, Massachusetts.  Boston, Massachusetts: Ebenezer Clapp, Jr., 1859.  261-262.

5.  James Stacy.  History of the Midway Congregational Church, Liberty County, Georgia.  Newman, Georgia: S. W. Murray, 1899.  16-18.

6.  Stacy.  33.
7.  Stacy. 12.

8.  William Cathcart.  Baptist Encyclopedia.  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Louis H. Everts, 1881.  Biography of Joseph S. Baker reprinted by Greg Willis.  “Joseph S. Baker, Queries Considered
Church Discipline, 1847.”  247-249 in Polity, edited by Mark Dever.  Center for Church Reform, 2001.  248.

9.  “Hampden–Sydney College.”  Wikipedia website, accessed 4 March 2023.
10.  “Union Presbyterian Seminary.”  Wikipedia website, accessed 4 March 2023.
11.  Cathcart.  248.
12.  “Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.”  Wikipedia website, accessed 4 March 2023.

13.  The post for 5 March 2023 discusses the impact of the division of the Baptist church over slavery on the income of McDonald.

14.  Cathcart.  248.

15.  Richard Lee Cronin.  “Cowboys & Lawyers: Part 2 - Joseph McRobert Baker.”  Citrus Land Fl website, 9 January 2020.

16.  Thomas Frederick Davis.  History of Early Jacksonville.  Jacksonville, Florida: The H. and W. B. Drew Company, 1911.  88.

17.  T. Frederick Davis.  History of Jacksonville, Florida and Vicinity, 1513 to 1924.  Saint Augustine, Florida: The Record Company for The Florida Historical Society, 1925.  43-44.

18.  Davis, 1925.  44.

19.  Wayne W. Wood.  The Living Heritage of Riverside & Avondale.  Jacksonville, Florida: Riverside Avondale Preservation, Inc., 1994.  9.

20.  Cronin.
21.  Davis, 1911.  88.

22.  Patricia Drozd Kenney.  “LaVilla, Florida, 1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams and the Formation of a Black Community.”  Masters thesis.  The University of Florida, 1990.  13.

23.  Item on E. M. Dennison in “Biographies D.”  Florida Baptist Historical Society website, 23 November 2020.

24.  Davis, 1911.  88.
25.  Davis, 1911.  87.

26.  Chapter 1,166—[No. 73].  An act to incorporate La Villa Institute, near Jacksonville, Florida, 1860.  157-1958 in The Acts and Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly of Florida at Its Tenth Session.  Tallahassee, Florida: Dyke and Carlisle for Office of the Floridian and Journal, 1861.

27.  Davis, 1911.  87.
28.  “Our History.”  The Bethel Experience website.
29.  “Elias Gabriel Jaudon, Jr.”  Geni website, last updated 8 February 2023.

30.  Isaiah W.  “Elias Gabriel Jaudon III (1836 - 1862).”  Wiki Tree website, 10 November 2013; last updated 20 April 2018.

31.  Steve W. has been researching the history of the 169th Civil War regiment from Troy, New York.  The men were camped north of Jaudon’s plantation in 1865.  On 9 February 2014, he reprinted reports by men in the regiment on the Metro Jacksonville website who described vacant houses in the area.  In another post on 9 February 2014, Steve concluded: “I think a possible reason why the mansion, plantation, and nearby village were not identified by the men is because the place was deserted, per orders of the Confederate authorities.  Nobody was left behind to say who owned the property.” [39]

32.  Stowe paid her first visit to Jacksonville in 1867.  For the next 17 years she and her husband spent their winters on 90 acres of land they purchased.  She became a bit of a tourist attraction herself when steamboats went buy their property. [40]  Her observations on a ring shout are quoted in the post for September 2018.

33.  Davis, 1925.  149, 152.
34.  Davis, 1911.  197.
35.  Wood.  10.
36.  “Elias Gabriel Jaudon, Jr.”
37.  Cronin.

38.  Stacy.  138.  Quitman is located near the Florida boundary; the rivers flow into the Suwannee in central Florida.  The surrounding Brooks County was a center of vigilante activity during reconstruction. [41]

39.  Steve W.  “Topic: Jacksonville Plantation Mystery (Civil War) -- SOLVED.”  Metro Jacksonville website, 9 February 2014.

40.  Jeff Klinkenberg.  “Mrs. Stowe’s Florida.”  Tampa Bay website, 19 November 2006; last updated 20 November 2006.

41.  “Brooks County, Georgia.”  Wikipedia website, accessed 8 March 2023.