K. Carmichael

Category: churches

  • Ebenezer Christian Church

    Ebenezer Christian Church

    Surrounded by cornfields, this simple country church seems lovely and peaceful. According to Find a Grave, the cemetery associated with this church has 572 memorials. The earliest seem to date from the mid-19th century (the Kerns family). Other early burials in the cemetery include Fletcher, Whitacre, Oates, and Mauzy family members.

    Whitacre Marker, Ebenezer Church Cemetery

    According to Carr and Carr (1988),1Carr, Clay B., & Carr, Mildred I. (1988). Historical Sketches of Places of Worship—Winchester and Frederick County Virginia. Winchester Printers, Inc. the church (as a worship body) was organized with the help of noted itinerant evangelist Lorenzo Dow “before the 1840s” (as Dow died in 1834, presumably before then). The Frederick County 250th Anniversary Commission has its founding date as 1832. Lorenzo Dow was an eccentric preacher who traveled and proselytized in England, Ireland, Canada, and the United States (particularly in the South). Dow was an opponent of slavery, going against many major denominations of the time such as the Methodist Episcopal Church.2Brawley, B. G. (1916). Lorenzo Dow. Journal of Negro History, 1(3), 265–275. As Dow wrote in 1840:3Dow, L. (1812). A Journey from Babylon to Jerusalem: Or The Road to Peace and True Happiness: Prefaced with An Essay on the Rights of Man. Haas & Lamb. p.71

    As all men are created equal and independant by the God of Nature; slavery must have Moral Evil for its foundation, seeing it violates the Law of Nature, as established by its Author.

    Unfortunately, probably few of the original (and later) church members shared Dow’s abolitionist feelings, although more research may turn up new information. Lorenzo Dow and Elder Christy Sine (1789 – 1858) organized the church body that would become Ebenezer Church, and the first building was “brought over the frozen drifts 10 feet deep during the severe winter of 1840 by a team of eight horses several miles from the farm of Ezra Miller.” 4Carr and Carr, 1988, p. 16 The Reverend Sine was also an unconventional religious man; before marriage, he was an itinerant preacher like Dow, and after settling down, fathered 17 children with three wives.5The Rev. Christy Sine. (1996). Hampshire County Historical Society, Fourth Quarter, 1–2.

    Ebenezer Church Cemetery

    Land for Ebenezer Church was donated by George Whitacre and his son donated land for the current building, which dates to 1876. The Whitacre and Anderson families donated additional land for the church and cemetery over the years.6Carr & Carr, 1988

    An 1890 photograph in the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at the Handley Library shows about 40 parishioners (men, women, and a lot of children) outside of the church. Little of the church is visible in this photo, aside from wood siding and shuttered windows.7https://handley.pastperfectonline.com/photo/53A1EB5D-F63D-466A-AF7B-108099092384 The church and cemetery received a “generous endowment” from Charles Ray Oates’s estate in 1965, and the current facade and steeple of the church date to a 1969 renovation. 8Carr & Carr, 1988 The church belongs to the Disciples of Christ denomination.

  • Bristow Bethel Baptist Church

    Clarke County, Virginia (gone)

    Abandoned, July 2006

    I photographed this church in 2006. At the time, I had no idea what kind of church it had been, or how long it had been vacant.

    My photos, taken with my first digital SLR, weren’t the best. I had plans to someday go back and take better photos. Unfortunately, I never got the chance.

    According to a February 14, 2017 article in The Winchester Star, the area where the church stood was home to an African American community that was started in 1869 with the purchase of land by a black man, Brister Holmes. The community was known by variations of his name: Brister, Bristoe, and Bristow Station. A school was built in 1883 (which is gone), and this particular church was built in vernacular Gothic Revival style in the 1920s (NRHP). The Bristow Community is part of the Long Marsh Run Historic District, recognized in 1996, which includes several hundred historic structures and three other African American communities.

    Bethel Baptist Church

    In 2016, according to the Star, the developer who owned the property offered to give it to anyone who was interested and could move it. No one took him up on the offer, and the church was torn down in January of 2017. A 2018 article in the Star reported that the windows and other pieces of the church were salvaged by a local shop, and one of the windows was purchased by a couple who bought one of the subdivided lots on the land where the church once stood. They planned to install the window in their new home, and lead an effort to get a historical marker installed to commemorate the church and community.

    Bethel Baptist Church

    People who lived in Bristow survived the horror of slavery, went on to own property, built schools and churches, and against all the huge challenges they faced in post-slavery rural Virginia, created a community.

    I drove by where the church was today. There is no marker. There is only a swath of green lawn (and a modern house up the hill), with nothing whatsoever to mark where a community that was once an important part of Clarke County history stood.

    AWESOME update! September 2020

    The historical marker for Bristow has been approved, according to the Winchester Star! After efforts by the new landowners and the local architectural historian, about half the money for the marker has been raised as of August 31.

    AWESOME update 2!

    Enough donations were made to cover the cost of the marker and the non-profit that accepted donations actually had to return some because the cost was already covered! The marker will be installed sometime in 2021.