Jamestown took its name from Benjamin and Esther James, who homesteaded about 1900 on 160 acres in an area called The Woods on the northern edge of Gabriella. Ben James built a home and farm there, and after the 1926 hurricane in the Miami area, where four hundred people died, he sold acre lots to new settlers moving into the area. Because The Woods had no real name, residents began calling it Jamestown after Ben James. The first lots were sold to Bob and Flossie Wells, George and Nettie Davis, and Morris J. and Margaret Williams, and other early settlers included the Nails, Olivers, Perrys, Bryants, Evans, Brannons, Walkers, and Ryans. Rock Hill Missionary Baptist Church was the first church built in Jamestown and was shared by Baptist and Methodist members who alternated Sundays for services, while during the week it served as a school for children. Ethel Burney was the principal and teacher in 1930. Ben James built St. James A.M.E. Methodist Church in 1938, naming it for himself and his family, and the school then moved there. Louise Williams taught until 1951-52, when the school was consolidated with Jackson Heights School in Oviedo. The Jamestown community holds that it was blessed with ancestors who instilled in them the Golden Rule.