Celebrate Porters Quarters and Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church

Speakers: Pastor Ronald Foxx, Janie Williams, Lynn Rivers and Charles Demps

Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church is a landmark in Porters Quarters, one of Gainesville’s oldest and most historic African-American neighborhoods. Dr. Watson Porter, a Canadian physician, established Porters Addition to Gainesville in 1884 and sold lots exclusively to African Americans, many of whom worked in the nearby railroad yards and industrial sites. The Shady Grove congregation was organized in 1894, under the leadership of the Reverend Mose Edwards and Reverend Cobb. Deacons serving were Brothers Mickins, Sweat, Festen, and Clay. Amelia Carter and Penny Brightman served as the first Deconesses. In 1900 the Deacons of the church, Thomas T. Sweat and Jackson Stanley, purchased the corner lot from Dr. Watson Porter and his wife for $30 as a site for the congregation’s original wood frame church, which was shaded by large oak trees. In the mid-1930s, the wood church was replaced by the present masonry building, constructed of coquina blocks purchased in St. Augustine. During the Civil Rights era, the local NAACP committee met at the Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church to plan for the integration of Gainesville’s public schools. The Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church is a National Register of Historic Places, Shady Grove Primitive Baptist Church and Porter’s Quarters is a Florida Historical Marker.