From 1565, when the Spanish founded St. Augustine, until 1821, when the United States took
possession of Florida, the state was closed to the work of the Protestant Church, except during the years of
English control, 1763 to 1783.
Florida was purchased from Spain in 1819, but it was not until July 1821 that it was transferred
into the hands of the United States. It is likely that circuit riders from Georgia crossed over into Florida during
that interim to preach to Methodist families; indeed, some Georgia appointments may well have extended
into Florida territory.
The first appointment specifically to an area within the bounds of the present Florida
Conference, however, was that of Elijah Sinclair in February 1822. The South Carolina Conference officially
added Florida work to that of the preacher at St. Marys, Georgia, by changing the appointment to St. Marys
and Amelia Island. In December 1821 the Mississippi Conference had assigned Alexander Talley to Pensacola,
Mobile, Blakley, and the adjoining country. The Panhandle, however, eventually came under the jurisdiction of
the Alabama Conference and later the Alabama-West Florida Conference.
The Florida work continued under the South Carolina Conference; it was so successful that a
district in Florida, the Tallahassee, was created in 1825. In 1831 the South Carolina Conference was divided,
and the Florida work became part of the newly formed Georgia Conference.
Created by the General Conference of 1844, the Florida Conference was organized by Bishop
Joshua Soule on February 6, 1845, in Tallahassee, as part of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was the only
session to meet as part of that denomination. Thirty-two preachers were sent out to the thirty-six stations and
circuits between Albany, Georgia, and Key West and from the Apalachicola River to Brunswick and St. Marys,
Georgia. Statehood for Florida came a month later.
Since 1845 the work in Florida has been carried out in a number of conferences.
The Florida Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, succeeded the original Florida
Conference when the southern conferences broke from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845 and formed
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Work in South Georgia was included until 1866, when the present
boundaries of the Florida Conference were fixed. Three hundred ninety-five churches had been established by
1939.
The Methodist Episcopal Church started a Florida Conference, serving both black and white
constituencies, in 1873.
In 1885 white members of that conference formed a new conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the
St. Johns River Conference. By 1939 it had sixty-eight churches.
The Methodist Protestant Church organized a Florida Mission Conference in 1889, but not more
than a dozen churches were organized. An earlier conference of that denomination had been in existence
from 1847 to 1867.
In 1939 the Florida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the St. Johns River Conference, and
the Florida Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church united to form the Florida Conference,
Southeastern Jurisdiction, The Methodist Church.
The work of the Florida Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church, the black conference, had been
divided in 1905, when the South Florida Mission was established, necessitated by the long distances required
for travel to meetings. It became a mission conference in 1921 and a full conference in 1925.
In 1939 the Florida Conference and the South Florida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church became part of the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction of The Methodist Church. The two
conferences, with a combined total of about one hundred sixty-five churches, united in 1952 as the Florida
Conference, Central Jurisdiction. In 1968 this conference became the Florida Conference, Central Jurisdiction,
of The United Methodist Church.
The first United Brethren church in Florida was established in 1895. The Florida work was under
the jurisdiction of several conferences until 1901, when the Georgia Conference of the Church of the United
Brethren in Christ was organized. It became the Georgia-Florida Conference in 1913 and the Florida
Conference in 1917. With the uniting of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Association in 1946,
it became the Florida Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren. In 1968 thirteen congregations were part
of that conference.
The Florida Conference, Southeastern Jurisdiction, of The United Methodist Church was created
in 1968 with the union of the Florida Conference, Southeastern Jurisdiction, of The Methodist Church and the
Florida Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church.
In 1969 the Florida Conference, Central Jurisdiction, became part of the Florida Conference,
Southeastern Jurisdiction, of The United Methodist Church.
The current numbering system for conference sessions dates to the earliest session of a
conference in Florida, the 1845 session of the Florida Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church.