Members of the Haile-Chestnut clan collectively owned large tracts of land predominantly in the western half of Alachua County, the Kanapaha area being just one area. South Carolina’s Thomas and Serena Haile moved to Florida in 1854. The Historic Haile Homestead at Kanapaha Plantation The present one-room, wood-frame schoolhouse was built by the Alachua County Board of Public Instruction in 1892. Liberty Hill School (NR), adjacent to the church and cemetery, is one of the oldest educational institutions for black students in the area, listed in Alachua County records as a school in 1869. The present church was built in the 1950s. Duncan is buried in the Liberty Hill Cemetery. When families did not have money for health care and burials, this group pooled funds to establish an active association that today still provides scholarships and financial support during illness and loss of life. It was the home of the Farmer’s Aide Society, a group of pioneer African American farmers including Joe Duncan, Peter Jonas, the Rev. Historic Liberty Hill United Methodist Church has served as the religious home of many area families since the 1850s. Greater Liberty Hill United Methodist Church Organized in 1888, Friendship’s first building was destroyed by fire, and the present Romanesque-Gothic Revival style church, known for its beautiful stained-glass windows, was built of rusticated concrete block in 1911. An exchange of deeds allowed the church to move to its current one-acre location where the present church was completed in 1955. This church was part of a community founded during Reconstruction in Rutledge, an area given to disenfranchised slaves by the Freedman’s Bureau. First Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church The building has been restored at its original site and houses Pleasant Place Facilities for Single Mothers. The Dunbar family welcomed touring musicians, educators, businessmen and their families. This was the only African American hotel in Gainesville in the early 20th century. Chestnut’s grandson and great-grandson continue to run the business today. Hughes and Charles Chestnut, Sr., this funeral home is one of Gainesville’s oldest businesses. Chestnut Funeral HomeĮstablished in 1914 by Matthew E. The historic school building was renovated in the 1990s. Opened in 1925 as Lincoln High School and successor to the Union Academy, this two-story red brick school became one of the first accredited high schools in Florida for African American students. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. Letters between Rawlings and friend Zora Neale Hurston (who stayed as a guest at the Rawlings home) highlight the changing racial relationships in the rural south during Reconstruction, as well as the trailblazing attitudes of the two women. The tenant house was moved to this site in 2000, replacing the original one which had been demolished. The park interprets her literary legacy and the lives of those who were part of her world in Cross Creek. Rawlings, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Yearling, came to Cross Creek in 1928 and wrote with wit and affection of those who helped tend her house, grove and garden while she worked. Many African Americans in rural Florida lived in small tenant houses like the one standing in the orange grove at the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park. CROSS CREEK Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park The old Damascus Church, built in 1900, stood several miles to the northeast on County Road 1491, on a site marked today by a commemorative sign. This cemetery is a landmark in the Bland Community.
ALACHUA COUNTY BLAND COMMUNITY Damascus Cemetery