Dr. William H. Stringfellow

Dr. Stringfellow was among the founding congregation members, Thomas and Edward Haile, Thomas Chesnut, John Young, Dr. Robert Stuart and Ely Ramsey, who chartered the Kanapaha Presbyterian Church. Dr. William Hall Stringfellow was born in Chester, South Carolina on July 31, 1818, the son of William and Patience Buford Stringfellow. He married first Julia Eliza Rainey and they had two children, William Jr. and Eliza. Julia Rainey died, and about a year later William Hall remarried a widow, Sarah Dogan Wright, who had two children by her first husband, Richard Simpson Wright. William Hall Stringfellow brought his family to Alachua County in the mid 1850's where he purchased a tract of land at Fort Clarke and developed the Stringfellow Plantation. He is said to be responsible for bringing the Reverend W. J. McCormick from South Carolina to Alachua County where he established the Kanapaha Presbyterian Church. In 1869 he visited South Carolina where he became ill and died in Aiken, SC and was buried in Union, SC. He was survived by his wife and five of the six children who had been born to the couple: The surviving children were Joseph Dogan, Thornton Buford, Robert Lee, Clarence, and Sallie Rice. A son, James Lawrence, had died earlier. - Photo courtesy of Barbara Stringfellow