Bevis Family

       

Charles Franklin Bevis in front of his home with his children, Irma, Dora, and Ray - about 1920 in the community of Mt. Pleasant, Gadsden County, Florida.  The house was built sometime between 1886 and 1898 by Samuel A. Denzel and/or his son James A. Denzel who built several other houses in Gadsden County.  The home is still in use as a private residence.

Dora Creswell Bevis was born this day in 1896

Dora Creswell Bevis (January 23, 1896 - May 6, 1987)

Her parents were Charles Franklin Bevis and Frances Creswell Bevis.  She grew up in Mt. Pleasant, Florida.  

She married James Thomas (Jim) Evans on February 15, 1920.

Jim Evans served in France during World War I.

Dora and Jim had two children, both of whom died tragically young.  Their first child, a daughter, Frances was only six years old when she died of a sudden illness.  Their remaining child, a son, Jack, died at age 19, shot down over Yugoslavia during World War II.  They owned and operated Evans Department Store in Bonifay, Florida for 30 years.

              

Railroad Depot at Mt. Pleasant

Railroad Depot at Mt. Pleasant in Gadsden County, Florida

Mt. Pleasant first became a rail stop in 1872 when the Jacksonville- Pensacola & Mobile Railroad extended their rail line from Quincy to Chattahoochee.  A train schedule published in 1881 lists arrival and departure times for Mt. Pleasant every day except Sunday. 

Painting by John Raymond Bevis about 1916.  Ray Bevis was born in Mt. Pleasant in 1899, youngest child of Charles Franklin Bevis and Frances (Creswell) Bevis.  The home he grew up in was just down the lane from the Seaboard Railroad Depot.  Ray’s father, Charlie Bevis, owned a general store and watch repair shop just a few hundred yards from the depot.  The post office was across the street from the depot, inside another general store owned by Daniel Grubb.  From young adulthood Ray painted,  primarily local scenes in watercolor and oil.  He married Nina India Thomas in 1919.  Ray was employed by the Quincy State Bank as a young man and later worked as a merchant in Quincy.  Painting remained a hobby he enjoyed throughout his life.  He died in 1953.

 

 

Mt. Pleasant was a small but thriving rural community at the turn of the 20^th century. The train brought the mail twice a day, and provided shipping service for produce and other items to and from the two general stores.   This photograph is believed to have been taken in 1915. 

 

This photograph came from Kathleen Jones Stewart, and on the back is written June 6, 1906.  I believe the photo was not taken on that date for two reasons.  Family stories have held that this photo was taken on the wedding day of Rosa Beggs and Arch Hubbard.  However, according to a book written by their daughter, Rachel Hubbard Scott, the couple arrived in Mt. Pleasant on Monday, December 27, 1909, which is the day they were married in Madison County, Florida.  Two, the people in the photo appear to be wearing coats and scarves and dressed much too warmly for June.  In my opinion, it is likely the photo was taken on their wedding day in December.  Remembering that day, Miss Rosa said she assumed a large crowd of people always met the train at the Mt. Pleasant depot.  It was only later that she learned they had all turned out to get a look at Arch Hubbard's new bride!

Unitarian Church in Mt. Pleasant, Florida - dedicated in 1915

Dedication of the Mt. Pleasant church building on April 25, 1915. Photograph above obtained from the Harvard Theology Library. The photograph below is from the family papers of my grandmother, Irma Eugenia (Bevis) Jones, who was born in Mt. Pleasant in 1898.  

Irma's sister, Dora Bevis, also mentions the church in letters she wrote to her future husbnd, Jim Evans.  Jim’s parents, J.T. and Marzee Evans, were active in the Unitarian church and Dora mentions attending with them in 1917.  Also, when Jim was in the Army preparing to join the War effort in France, Dora wrote about the Unitarian minister having dinner with them in February of 1918, “We have company tonight, the Rev. Zastrow, he is certainly pro-German.  If he were to talk to outsiders like he does here to us I believe he might get his light put out.”  The church appears to have become inactive a few years later.

 

Unitarian Ministers of the Florida Circuit

 

Rev. Jonathan Christopher Gibson – He was born in Alabama in 1843 and served in the Confederate Army.  After the war, he went to Florida and became a teacher and a Baptist circuit preacher.  Around 1887, he met the Southern Secretary of the American Unitarian Association,Rev. George L. Chaney, who influenced him to become a Unitarian.  He then began evangelizing for the Unitarian faith in the same communities where he had formerly preached the Baptist Gospel, in the region extending from Apalachicola to Quincy.  He depended upon the support given to him by voluntary offerings from local alliances in the South and from the more established Unitarian churches in the North.  Rev. Gibson established the first Unitarian church in the state of Florida, in Bristol (Liberty County) in 1902.  Poor health caused him to retire from the ministry in 1910 and he died in 1913.

 

Rev. Francis M. McHale – He was born in Ontario, Canada in 1858 and spent his early years in New York and Michigan.  He attended Northwestern University and was admitted to the bar in Illinois.  After practicing law in Colorado and Kansas, he became a Unitarian minister around 1898.  In 1910, he succeeded Rev. J.C. Gibson as circuit preacher in Florida, making his home in Greensboro and later Marianna.  Rev. McHale organized and built the church in Mt. Pleasant, which was dedicated on April 25, 1915.  He died September 4, 1916.  

 

Rev. Gustave H. Zastrow – He was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1876 and grew up in Wisconsin.  He served in the Spanish American War.  He was admitted to the clergy in 1910 and served in various places in the U.S., including Florida, where he was secretary-treasurer of the Southern Unitarian Conference.  He took over the Florida circuit after Rev. McHale’s death in 1916.  Census records show Rev. Zastrow resided in Tallahassee as late as 1920.  He died in 1925.