William Williams

NPS/Photo

One of the first African American resident's of Oak Hill was William Williams in the late 1800’s. He assumed the same name as Mr. William (Bill) Williams who was a slave owner. Mr. Williams “Bill” was a freed slave who moved to Florida with his former owner.

He lived in New Smyrna Beach, and married Flora, who was working as a maid in the Bouchell family home. According to the 1880 census they had nine children. Bill was born around 1835, worked as a farmer and Flora was a house keeper.

Bill came to work in Oak Hill and homesteaded several hundred acres of land all the way to Cypress swamp or Turnbull Hammock. After working and improving his parcels of land for about 4 years, Mr. Williams brought his wife and family to Oak Hill property. When Flora arrived with her children and luggage, she began to survey this new home and said, “My Lord! Mr. Williams has bought nothing but a lot of woods!”

There was one small school in Oak Hill which served everyone; the African American children had a few hours very irregularly and could not be taught at the same time as the white children. A room for school purposes was added to the Williams home in 1901. "The lumber was snaked out of the river as the offering from any disaster or ill-fated cargo of lumber being shipped."

Students first attended school in the Williams parlor. Soon this room served a dual purpose; a school room and a church, as the town population began to increase. Some of the family's names were the Gordons, Jones, Taylors, and Robinsons. The school was then housed in various churches, furnished by teachers from the county. The time came for the need of a building to properly house schoolchildren and school belongings. The first one-room county building was built in 1927, and Mrs. Nancy V. Cummings was the first teacher to instruct in this new county-financed building with around sixty children as students.

One outstanding contribution among the many Mr. William (Bill) Williams gave to Oak Hill was the “right-of-way” for the Florida East Coast Railroad to a Mr. Flagler, free, without any strings tied to the gift, because he was elated to have that type of transportation passing through Oak Hill. While constructing a building, Bill Williams was struck on the head and killed by a falling timber.


Resources:

"History and Memories of Oak Hill Florida" p.48, by Mary Dewees. 1984.

Year: 1880; Census Place: Oak Hill, Volusia, Florida; Roll: 132; Page: 402C; Enumeration District: 152