James Page
(1808-1883)

Died aged c. 75

James Page was born in 1808 into slavery in Richmond, Virginia. At about the age of 20, he and his wife came to Leon County with their master, Colonel John H. Parkhill, settling on a plantation named Bel Air. Parkhill’s religious devotion influenced Page to take up the ministry. In 1851 at Newport, Florida, a white, Baptist minister ordained James Page as Florida’s first and only African-American minister at that time. In the same year he founded the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church of Bel Air, the first regularly organized black church in Florida. Between 1865 and 1870 Reverend Page organized the Bethel Baptist Church in Tallahassee. Page served as a Leon County delegate to the Republican Convention in 1867, a Leon County commissioner, 1869 to 1870, and legislative chaplain of the Florida Senate, 1868 to 1870. In 1870 he ran unsuccessfully for State Senate, but returned to public office in 1872 when Governor Hart appointed him as Leon County’s Justice of the Peace. Reverend James Page died March 14, 1883.

OpenPlaques

James Page (1808 – March 14, 1883), was an African-American minister and political leader.

DbPedia

Wikidata Wikipedia