Franklintown Methodist Church - American Beach, FL
N 30° 34.404 W 081° 27.173
17R E 456573 N 3382412
The old Franklintown Methodist Church, also known as the Franklintown Chapel, was built in 1949 and was relocated from the former Franklintown Community (now Amelia Island Plantation) to American Beach, Florida, in 1972.
Waymark Code: WMQCDC
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 02/04/2016
Views: 1
The old Franklintown Chapel is now located behind the new Franklintown United Methodist Church building in American Beach. A historical marker in front of the new Franklintown United Methodist Church building provides the following information about Franklintown Chapel:
"The Franklintown community was a first populated by ex-slaves from the Samuel Harrison plantation. Franklintown Chapel’s congregation was organized in 1880 by Trinity M.E. Church, located in the City of Fernandina at the north end of Amelia Island. The Reverend J.G. Howard served as the chapel’s first pastor from 1880-1885. As the congregation grew, in 1888 ex-slave and Union soldier Gabriel Means and his wife, Edith Drummond Means, donated land for a building. In 1892, Means built the first Franklin Chapel, a one-room unpainted fame structure. In 1949, that building was demolished to make way for the construction of State Road AIA, and a new building was constructed. In 1972, following the purchase of the entire Franklintown tract by the Amelia Island company, the 1949 building along with the original bell from the 1892 chapel was moved the American Beach community. American Beach had been established as an African American ocean playground in 1935 by the Afro-American Life Insurance Company’s pension Bureau under its president Abraham Lincoln Lewis. Today, Franklintown chapel serves as the Gabriel Means Fellowship hall adjacent to the Franklintown United Methodist Church."
The following additional information is from the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places' registration form for the American Beach Historic District (
visit link) :
"Franklintown
The south end of Amelia Island has been home to an African American community since 1862 when the Union forces occupied Amelia Island and freed slaves from adjacent plantations. With the end of the war, the Union Occupation forces issued special orders to set aside land for freedmen, particularly along the barrier islands south of Charleston, South Carolina. This small African American community in south Amelia Island, populated mostly by ex-slaves from the Samuel Harrison plantation, became known as Franklintown. The name originated from an ex-slave, Franklin E. Town, who attempted in 1872 to purchase property along the Belle River in Nassau County. Town's relationship to the community is unclear. One of the early settlers in Franklintown was Gabriel Means, an ex-slave from the Harrison Plantation who enlisted in the U.S. Colored Infantry. During Reconstruction, Means paid $340 for forty acres in Franklintown, where he constructed a two story house and established a farm. Gabriel Means later donated property in 1888 for the establishment of a church and school. According to oral tradition, members of the Harrison family donated two acres of land, which may have been the site of a slave cemetery, for use as burial grounds by members of the Franklintown community. Located on the west side of State Road AIA just south of American Beach, this small cemetery, which is surrounded by a modern subdivision, has been reduced to one half acre with approximately fifty-two graves marked. In addition to Gabriel Means, other early property owners of Franklintown included Stephen Drummond, Gilbert Hopkins and Robert Stewart, whose families over the years were involved in farming, fishing, and the raising of livestock.
The decline of Franklintown began in 1949, when the State of Florida built State Road AIA through the community, connecting Amelia Island with Duval County. The new highway forced the relocation of the Means house further to the north and the construction of a New Franklintown United Methodist Church. In the 1960's, most of the property owners sold their parcels to Union Carbide who intended to mine ilmenite, the raw material for titanium. The company moved the houses one half mile north to form a semi-circle around Hippler Road. It was called New Franklintown. When the Union Carbide Company failed to obtain the necessary permits for mining, it sold the property to the Amelia Island Company in 1972. In that same year, the Amelia Island Company, which developed the Amelia Island Plantation, purchased the New Franklintown properties, and relocated the 1949 church and one residence to Lewis Street in American Beach. After constructing a new concrete block church, the old wooden sanctuary served as a fellowship hall. Except for a name on maps, the existence of Franklintown today is reflected only in the cemetery, the church, and one residence that was moved to Lewis Street."