Destin's first churches continue to thrive today

In its early days, Destin was isolated, with water on three sides and only two back roads leading east toward Panama City.

The first bridge to Fort Walton Beach was not completed until around 1933, and in 1934 Highway 98 was completed. Soon people from outside would trickle into Destin.

The people who lived here were a hardy lot; most of them made their living from the sea.

Their faith and need to worship led to the founding of two churches that survive to this day: St. Andrew’s By-the-Sea and First Presbyterian Church.
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In the 1920s Episcopal services were held in private homes, businesses and public buildings when clergymen from Panama City would come to celebrate communion.

But it was a retired English lay missionary named Clement Taylor who faithfully taught the Bible and the Anglican tradition to the people of Destin.

This scholarly and godly man laid a foundation of spirituality based on the Scriptures that is very much a part of St. Andrew’s today.

For more than 60 years, Taylor, born in 1866 in Middlesex County, England, served as a missionary proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to men of varying stations of life and localities. First a missionary to the Indians in Manitoba Province, Canada, Taylor moved in the early 1900s to this area.

According to an obituary for Taylor by James G. Stahlman, publisher of the Nashville Banner, on Jan. 11, 1954,

“He ministered to the spiritual and physical needs of the fisherfolk and the timber cutters. As a lay reader his work grew into the founding of the parish St. Andrews By-the-Sea in Destin.

In other villages, now towns along the coast, his services and devotion may be seen in missions and churches.

“Few who visited the Choctawhatchee Bay country in recent years will not remember the little old man with a British accent, who still walked the roads in his long white linen coat, still held church services, continued to teach Sunday School, was never without a Bible story or a kind and gentle word for those he met along the way.”

Taylor was father to the congregation to be called St. Andrew’s By-the-Sea.

As a layreader, vestryman, teacher and inspiring leader, he served in a devoted and consecrated manner and was largely responsible for the church being brought and continued in this area of the Gulf coast between Pensacola and Panama City.
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A mission of St. Simon’s Church in Fort Walton Beach, of which the Rev. Johnson H. Pace Jr. was vicar, St. Andrew’s had its start in 1926 when the Rt. Rev. Frank A. Juhan, then newly consecrated, made his first Episcopal visit to the area over a wagon road through sparsely settled pine woods for services in the Destin schoolhouse.

When the schoolhouse burned down, services were moved to the house of a Greek shipbuilder named John G. Maltezo, who, in time, donated the land upon which St. Andrew’s By-the-Sea was built.

The Rev. Randolf F. Blackford was the first Episcopal clergyman to regularly minister to the people of Destin in 1927.
In 1928 a mission board was formed and in due time a modest chapel seating about 50 people was approved by the bishop of Florida. This first small wooden church was completed in 1937 and was used for services until the new concrete block building was completed in 1953.
Many of the furnishings for that first church were brought to Destin from Pensacola where they had been used in the former St. Catherine

Mission Church. This was to be the first church in Destin.
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From 1950-53 the congregation was led by the Rev. Tony Diffenbaugh. It was during this time that the 26-year-old congregation built its new church to replace the smaller wooden building as the First Episcopal Church of Destin. The old church was to be used as a parish home.

The new concrete block church, only partially completed by the first service in March 1953, had an estimated value of $30,000. The proudest parishioners were Isabelle Maltezo and Taylor.

The church, which seated 250, was designed by Robert Frazier of Destin and Theodore Smith of Fort Walton Beach. Senior warden at the new church was Ben F. Marler Sr. and junior warden was Garfield Taylor, son of Clement Taylor. Members of the vestry included Mrs. Leonard E. Destin, Robert T. Frazier, Mrs. Isabelle Maltezo, Mrs. Ben Marler, David H. Marler, Clement Taylor, Pete L. Vasso, Edgar O. Waltars, Cecil L. Woodward and Herbert Woodward.

The Rev. Henry Belle Hodgkins, rector of Christ Church in Pensacola, delivered the first sermon in the new church. He prefaced his sermon by telling the largely fisherman congregation that he was bringing “coals to Newcastle” in preaching on fish.
Dr. Hodgkins used as illustration the salmon fish of the Northwest and their struggle for survival and continuation of the species.

“Destin is largely a fishing village and the people of St. Andrews have a custom of placing the 10th fish in a separate bucket as ‘their tithe to the Lord.’ It is to the congregation’s tithing that the growth of the church is attributed,” Hodgkins said.

The first confirmation class in the new church had eight candidates presented: Capt. Jimmy Trammel, Mr. and Mrs. Pete Vasso, Misses Imogene Kelly, Dawn Maltezo, Jewelene Melvin, Jeanne Vasso and Mr. Royal Melvin.
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The first resident priest, Father Bill Erwin, came to St. Andrew’s in 1957.

“After being ordained deacon at St. John’s, Jacksonville, in 1957, I became the Vicar of St. Andrews.

There were a number of firsts for all of us. That was my first church after ordination,” said the Rev. William P. Erwin.

“We were the first clergy family to be fully and permanently resident in Destin.

“Mine was the first ordination to be held in St. Andrews and we held the first Blessing of the Boats on Ascension Day, May 15, 1958.”

Erwin was followed by Father Matthews Weller in 1965. The Rev. Forrest Mobley, called to serve in 1969, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit shortly after he arrived and led the congregation into renewal and lay ministry as the parish experienced a period of phenomenal growth.

In 1974, the Rev. Sandy Greene came to St. Andrews as assistant priest and then served as chief pastor from 1976-91 when the Rev. Mike Hesse, now at Immanuel Anglican Church, arrived.

In the April 13, 1974, a watercolor drawing of St. Andrews By-the-Sea by artist Eunice Utterback, a winter visitor from Maine, was published on the front page of The Log.

She had visited the church after learning from her son on Long Island about the great Episcopal church in Destin.

“When I got here, I found a wonderful spirit. In New England, Christianity has become so intellectual — there’s no sense that Jesus died to save us. They just say he was a good man and set a good example,” Utterback said.

“The people of St. Andrew’s know he died for them, and there’s a feeling of joy and fellowship that shows in their participation in the life of the church, in the services and in the heavenly music.”
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In 2001, a major change took place at St. Andrews By-the-Sea when a group of more than 600 parishioners left after considering the deteriorating situation of the Episcopal Church in America.

They formed Immanuel Anglican Church under the Anglican Mission in America, chartered through the Anglican Diocese of Rwanda.
In spite of that controversy and then the tragic death of Father Don Cramer in 2003, new ministries at St. Andrews flourished within the church and community.

Interim Rector Father Bob Graves of Pensacola has served since that time, and after many months of searching, a new priest has been chosen. Father David B. Powell, currently living in New York City, will hold his first Sunday service on July 4.

St. Andrews By-the-Sea was reborn with a dozen faithful followers and has continued to grow, once more, into the vibrant, alive church envisioned by those early fishing families and parishioners such as Clement Taylor and Isabelle Maltezo.
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First Presbyterian Church in Destin had its beginning in 1928 in the living room of William and Camilla Marler.

William, also known as “Uncle Billy,” was a civic leader, respected fisherman and boat builder in Destin who felt the need to gather family and others of the community on Sundays for worship.

Guest ministers came by boat from Pensacola and stayed in the Marler home. Camilla provided the music as well as the Sunday meal following the worship service.

As the numbers increased, the services were moved to the Community Center–Schoolhouse on Calhoun Avenue; a fire eventually destroyed the building and the Marlers once again opened their home.

A board appointed to organize a church in Destin met on March 10, 1939, and the original group of worshippers became part of the Presbyterian Church U.S., which is now known at the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The Rev. B.H. Wiggins, the first minister who served until 1942, presided and led the devotional services.

The charter members were William Marler, Neil Anderson, W.E. Marler, Charles Marler, Richard Marler, Mrs. J. Brunson, Johnnie Mae Milligan, Evelyn Melvin, Sue Marler, James Marler, Carmella Marler, Ernestine Marler, L.D. Brunson, Mrs. Bertha Marler, Tom Marler, Alice Sikes, Mrs. G. Destin, Edwin Marler, Mrs. J. Melvin, W. Brown, Alice Destin, G. Destin, Mrs. W. Brown and Mrs. C. Marler.

In the church sanctuary today, the rose window above the choir loft is a memorial to William Marler, the founder of the church.
Information for this article was contributed by St. Andrew’s By-The-Sea Episcopal Church and First Presbyterian Church in Destin.