Levy County Historical Society President Toni Collins announces the purchase of the former White Foundation building for use as by Historical Society. 

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                A 70-year-old former grocery store in downtown Bronson is about to become the new home of the Levy County Historical Society.

            Toni Collins, president of the historical society said, she purchased the former Henry and Rilla White Foundation property Tuesday and will immediately begin cleaning it up.

            “On Tuesday we closed on the White Foundation building. Nothing makes me happier. I’ve been looking at that building for eight years and it’s ours,” Collins said.

            Collins said the building, constructed in 1950, was probably patronized as a grocery by members of the council old enough to remember the store. Councilman Aaron Edmondson remembered shopping there as did Mayor Beatrice Roberts.

            In 1993 the building was home base for the Henry & Rilla White Foundation. In 2012, Bill Schossler, who operated the foundation, took possession of the building after his sister moved to Tallahassee. The building has been empty since that time, according to Collins.

            The plan for the building is to tear out the interior walls, which aren’t load-bearing, to restore the first floor to the way it looked when the structure was used for a grocery.

            She said the historical society will have to raise money to make the second floor, which consists of two bedrooms, useable space for the historical society. She said they must comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

            Town Clerk Shirley Miller and County Development Department Director Bob Boulette visited with Collins and gave her information on ADA requirements. Collins said Boulette was extremely knowledgeable.

            When people walk into the front door of the historical society building, Collins said they will see the Pioneer Wall. It will consist of the names of pioneer families in Levy County.

            “If you want your family’s name on the Levy County Pioneer Wall it will cost you $10,000,” Collins said. “I only need 15 people to pay off the mortgage.”

            She has also formed a historical society board of directors consisting of Levy County Commissioner Lilly Rooks, County Coordinator Wilbur Dean, Parks and Recreation and Mosquito Control Director Matt Weldon and Scott Osteen.

            Old Bronson Cemetery

            Roberts, a Bronson Post Office employee, saw Collins at the Post Office one day and asked her to research the history of the old cemetery that stands in front of the former Bronson High School, now a county office building.

             Collins said people have contacted her by phone about the old cemetery after seeing it in front of the office building. Many told her they didn’t know it was there.

            Old Levy County families including the Jacksons, Coachmans and Shands are buried in the cemetery along with the longest serving county judge, according to Collins.

            “I would like to suggest, if we were to pursue a historic marker, a Florida historic marker for the cemetery; we recently did one on the Pac Mac locomotive in Gulf Hammock. The procedure is we would do all the grant work. You wouldn’t have to do anything,” Collins said.

            The cost of a historic marker would be $2,000.  The state would hire someone to perpetually maintain the marker. Collins said the historical society would apply for a $1,000 grant. The historical society would pay $500. She would ask the town to pay $500.

            Collins would also like to see a historical marker erected next to the Jackson Building, which currently houses Bronson Town Hall. Collins said she would like to have both markers evaluated at the same time in Tallahassee by a three person statewide historical committee, the members of which are university people.

            “If you do decide to do the historical marker, it should be named the Coulter Cemetery. It was William R. Coulter – he was a Confederate soldier who gave the land for the courthouse and for that cemetery,” Collins said.

            “And for our church,” said Councilman Berlon Weeks, referring the First United Methodist Church next door to the courthouse.

            Collins said the cemetery is the site of the oldest grave in Levy County, the grave of Nathan George. She said his monument reads, “Buried in Allentown, Pennsylvania.” She has asked LeHigh County officials in Pennsylvania to conduct research as to whether George is buried there.

            She said her research indicates George was a union soldier during the Civil War. Collins said there were five Florida counties occupied by Union soldiers. She said she presumes George was living here to slowly restore property back to their rightful owners after the war ended.

            “I have a suspicion Nathan George was here for that and passed,” she said.

            Collins said a woman’s name on the other side of the monument isn’t named George. It’s an entirely different name.

            “The presumption is that was the spouse and she remarried or that’s her maiden name,” Collins said.

            In her research, Collins said the name George began showing up on ancestral records about 1882 in Levy County.

            “We’ll dig into it, but it was the first burial in this county,” she said.

            Collins was asked if some of the graves in the Shiloh Cemetery near Cedar Key could be older, perhaps as old as the 1700’s, but she said she is absolutely certain the grave in the Bronson Cemetery is the oldest in the county. She said quite a few years ago she formed the Levy County Cemetery Association as part of the historical society. She visited every cemetery in the county – 86 in all — except for an African American cemetery near the Ellzey Methodist Church.

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Town of Bronson Regular Meeting January 6, 2020; Posted January 6, 2020