Submitted by Descendant: John Albert BURNETT
William Kell Prevatt was born on the 23rd of October 1856 in Columbia County, Florida. He was the son of James and Sarah (Williams) Prevatt. In 1860 he and his parents were enumerated in the census of New River County, Florida, the Prevatt homestead having been in the boundaries of the newly created county. In 1861 Baker County, Florida was created from the area of New River County and William Kell Prevatt’s family and parents found themselves in a new county.
William’s father, James Prevatt (listed as James W. Prevatt) enlisted in the Confederate Army on the 1st of May, 1862 at Sanderson, Baker County, Florida. James was captured at the Battle of Gettysburg and sent to Ft. Delaware as a prisoner of war. He died at Ft. Delaware in 1863. By 1870, William’s mother Sarah Williams Prevatt remarried to John Crews.
William Kell Prevatt married first to Wealthy Ann Register on 21 October 1883 in Columbia County, Florida. She died in childbirth circa 1885 attempting to give birth to twin boys who also died. He married second Mary Lougenia Combs on 1 January 1886 in Baker County, Florida. Mary Lougenia was the daughter of James and Martha C. (Harvey) Combs.
William Kell and Mary Lougenia (Combs) Prevatt had the following children:
1) Lola (1887-1920) married Colonel Johns
2) James Paul (1888-1955) married Lovie Starling
3) Willie Morgan (1891-1967) married Amanda Dugger
4) Elsie (1892-1965) married 1st Ernest Rhoden, 2nd Frank Combs
5) Jessie (1894-1975) married Ernest Johns
6) Ruth (1897-1983) married Ivy Combs
7) Ann (1898-1994) married Raiford Harris
8) Lillian Mae (1900-1993) married Claude Scoles
9) Charles (1902-1988) married 1st Katie Williams, 2nd Leila Beatrice Harvey
10) Maggie(1905-1996) married Orie Harvey
11) Eva (1908-1984) married Butler Coleman
12) John (1910-1984) married Mazie Elizabeth Harvey
13) Lessie (1912-1917) never married
14) Cleo (1917-1992) married Reid Stafford
William Kell Prevatt was a farmer by occupation and owned a farm at Taylor, Baker County, Florida. Cotton was the main crop of the farm according to William’s daughter, Lillian Mae (Prevatt) Scoles, in an interview she gave prior to her death in 1993. She also stated the farm had several hundred cows and hogs. According to Ms. Prevatt-Scoles, all the children picked cotton, milked cows and fed the chickens and hogs. The farm provided all their needs and they were able to make brown sugar, rice, cheese and butter. The family home had three bedrooms, so the children slept two to three to a bed. Lillian also stated that her parents were strict Primitive Baptist and that her father was a deacon of Sweat Church which they attended (now known as Oak Grove Primitive Baptist church located in Baker County, Florida).
Late in life, William Kell and his wife Mary Lougenia (referred to as Lou) sold their farm and moved to Glen St. Mary, Baker County, Florida. Mary Lougenia Prevatt died on 1 April 1933 in Glen St. Mary, Florida. William Kell Prevatt died on 16 May 1939 at Sanderson, Florida. They are buried at Taylor Cemetery, Taylor, Baker County, Florida and have numerous descendants in Baker County and the State of Florida.
William Kell Prevatt was first established as a Florida Pioneer in 2009