Up until the mid 1940’s the only formalized church in Deerfield was the First Baptist Church. Founded in 1910, the small congregation started meeting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, whose home stood at where the Midas Muffler shop is today on the south side of Hillsboro Avenue, just east of Dixie Highway. Mrs. Robinson was actually a Methodist, but was very active with her Baptist husband in the Baptist church, but never actually joined it. This is probably because in order to join she would have had to have gotten re-baptized by immersion, as opposed to sprinkling, which is the method of the Methodists.

By 1912 the congregation had grown to 12 adult members, officially joined the Southern Baptist Convention of churches, and called the Rev. Samuel S. Gibson to be its first pastor. By 1914 the church had grown to an average attendance of 33 and had built its first sanctuary adjacent to the present site of Kraeer Funeral Home. The church was doing well until blown down by the huge “killer” hurricane of 1928. However, by 1932, a second church capable of seating 75 was constructed in the 700 block of S.E. 2nd Street across the street from Deerfield Elementary School. My parents, Marlin and Lorena Eller, joined the church in 1934, when both were 18 years of age. They were baptized in the nearby Hillsboro River, which was the custom then because the small church building did not yet have a baptismal pool.

On New Year’s Day, January 1, 1941, prisoners from the local jail were being used to clean the city cemetery behind the church. It must have been cold because they made a fire from the palm fronds they had gathered to keep warm. A sudden wind came up and blew fire debris onto the dry wooden shingle roof of the church, causing it to catch on fire. With their church badly damaged, the congregation decided to build a new, larger church to seat 200 people next door, and repair the old church and use it as a parsonage. This worked until 1960, when the congregation had outgrown that church and built the present church to seat 500, plus a large gym and Christian Life Center.

Meanwhile, Presbyterians and other faiths were coming to Deerfield. David H. Cosby, Sr. from New Jersey arrived in the mid 1930’s with his wife from Ocala, Florida. They had both worked for AT & T and apparently knew how property could be obtained for rights of way and other purposes. The effect of the 1928 hurricane and the depression that followed here meant that many people owning property locally could not pay their ad valorem (property) taxes. When ad valorem taxes are not paid on a piece of property, the county government allows others to pay the taxes with an interest charge added, and get a tax lien on the property. If the taxes and interest are not paid within about three years, the government allows the owner of the tax lien to go through a legal process, which allows them to ultimately get clear ownership of the property. David Cosby, an expert at this, was very interested in Deerfield’s beach area, and essentially arranged to buy most of it through the tax lien process within a few years. He developed the shopping Center in the “S” curve on A1A, but sold most of the rest of the beach to others for millions in profits over the ensuing years.

A devout Presbyterian, he donated the land in 1944 for the Presbyterian Church to be built on the beach, and became one of the first elders. The first church building was completed in 1948 and is now named Briggs Hall, after the Rev. Arland Briggs and his wife, Margaret, who served there from 1952-1981.

In 1974, Dr. Briggs gave recognition to four charter members after 30 years of church membership. Three of them: Susanne Glattli Anderson, Bertha Glattli Cosby, and Barbara Glattli Morrison, are related to our family, the Eller family, through the marriage of my son, Dana to their grandniece: Heather Glattli Eller.

David Eller, Publisher

9-13-07