Joseph Buffington
1890

Jim Stettner on July 3rd, 2022:
This second church was destroyed by the Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901.

---

Database Manager on May 3rd, 2017:
Updated by Stephen Hall, who gave this as the sources of the information: Information on the builder is from the book by Edwin Freedley; information for the church is from office of the St. Augustine Diocese.<br> According to a contemporary source (Edwin Troxell Freedley, <i>Philadelphia and Its Manufactures: A Hand-book of the Great Manufactories and Representative Mercantile Houses of Philadelphia in 1867</i> (Philadelphia, 1867), 549.), Buffington started his business in 1842. If he apprenticed during his teens, he could have been as young as 20 when he began. That would put his age at 78 in 1900, so it is not likely he would have built the organ in the 1900s. This makes a plausible case for pushing the installation date back to the 1890s. The Church of the Immaculate Conception was established in 1845, it was the first parish in Jacksonville. I believe the next oldest is Assumption founded in 1913. That would make Immaculate Conception the only Catholic church in Jacksonville during the period that Buffington was active. The building used in the 1890s was destroyed by the Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901.