East Florida Seminary

Marion County offered $1,600, land worth $5,000, and the existing buildings of the East Florida Independent Institute, a private school founded in 1852.

The school admitted male and female students, and the curriculum included "all routine subjects", as well as art, Greek and Latin.

While most members of the Board of Trustees were Methodist clergy, there is no evidence that the conference ever assumed control of or provided any funding for the school.

The Seminary was primarily a local public school for the next twenty years, with students mainly from Gainesville, ranging in age from four to twenty-four.

[1] The wooden building used by the East Florida Seminary, described as "badly designed and poorly constructed", burned in 1883.

[8][9] The East Florida Seminary began awarding diplomas for completion of the English, commercial, classical and scientific courses in 1882.

[1] Football squads from the East Florida Seminary played a limited slate of games starting in 1902 until 1904.

The first season consisted of a two-game series with Stetson College, which had fielded one of the first intercollegiate football teams in Florida the previous year.

The teams split the games, but the East Florida Seminary claimed a state championship because they scored more points in the series.