Godwin History


Mary Reid Godwin, arrived in the Florida territory in 1826. Her husband, William Solomon Godwin, Sr. and three of their children lay buried in Georgia.  She and her four surviving children: Robert Jacob, Richard Jefferson, William Solomon, Jr., and Susannah Zilla; left Georgia with many neighbors to establish homestead in the Wild Territory of Florida.  The Godwins first settled in the Duval County area for a few years, a common stopping place for many of the settlers coming into Florida from Georgia.  There Susannah married William Bevin and passed away soon after.

The boys established neighboring homesteads near the junction of New River and the Santa Fe River now in the Bradford County.  Jacob lived out his life on the New River.  His one child with Elizabeth Sparkman, was James who married Elizabeth Knight and they had one son, Jacob.  James died in 1862 a casualty of the Civil War.

Jacob attended Teacher's Normal and school teaching became his principle vocation.  He established Godwin Seminary, in Rex, Florida near Hawthorne, where students graduated ready to test for a teaching certificate.  He was highly esteemed among the educators of the area and when the public school opened in Hawthorne, in 1891, Professor Godwin gave the keynote speech.

William Solomon, Jr. married Mariah Tyner in the New River community and their daughter, Selidia, Lydia, Ann Godwin was born in 1852.  Soon after, William Solomon sold his property and moved to the Kissimmee River Valley near Ft. Meade.  There the union of Godwin and Collins occurred when Lydia married Perry, October 1869.  Leon Collins was born of this union in 1876, his son Lawrence Harris Collins was born in 1924. The above history was unknown when in 1973, Lawrence's daughter purchased the Godwin Seminary House.



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