https://afamwilsonnc.com/2020/04/24/studio-shots-no-149-and-150-rev-nash-horton-and-rev-rufus-a-horton/comment-page-1/
Christian Chapel Church is located on Humie Olive Rd., not far from Evans Rd. This is not the Evans Rd. in Cary, but a different one in Apex. It leads to Apex Friendship Middle School, also on Humie Olive Rd., whose Friendship name has its roots in the Native American members of the Evans family, who are related to the Evans family of Cary.
In 1883, Rev. Joseph Mabry took over as pastor of Christian Chapel Church and under his leadership the congregation began an effort to replace their "small crude frame" building with something more substantial. In 1889, L. A. Ruffin became the pastor. Mention of a new church building does not occur until 1911.
http://greaterchristianchapel.org/about/
Lots of similarities here with Cary First Christian Church's history, including a couple of the same pastors. They must have served multiple churches and made the rounds. Interesting that Rev. Mabry encouraged the construction of a new building. He would have been pastor of Cary Christian Church at the same time. We can imagine him encouraging the Cary church to do the same, either replacing a current “crude” building or constructing a new building where one did not exist.
It's possible this church in Apex had some influence on the African American folks in Cary who a couple of years later began their own Christian church. And since they shared pastors during the first decades of their existence, the two congregations likely influenced each other during those years.
Some thoughts from the blogger: I keep thinking of Ruth Little, founding member of Friends of Oberlin Village, and how interested she was in the fact that the Cary church was a "Christian" church and not AME or AME Zion. I never gave that any thought. Christian seemed so generic to me. I didn't realize it was a label to identify a specific type of Black church. I think I read somewhere (I'm forgetting where I've read things!) that these early Black Christian churches were part of the foundation of the United Church of Christ and that the "United" in the name of that denomination refers to the uniting and merging of Black and white Christian congregations. That makes sense. And it also makes sense that Cary Christian Church was named Cary United Church of Christ at one time, as well as Cary Congregational Christian Church. They're all part of the same movement, so to speak.
Hidden Histories in the United Church of Christ
A brief history of the North Carolina Christian Conference
- Nash Horton was one of the commissioners for a march possibly in the area of Apex to celebrate the “freedom the people that day enjoyed.” African Americans from the Buckhorn and White Oak districts participated (William Evans, whose oak grove the marchers reached after a mile and a half, appears in the 1870 census in New Hope Township, very near Jordan Lake). An article mentions that folks came from as far away as 15 miles to participate in the march. We speculate that some of them were from Cary, including some whose names we would probably recognize if we had a list of the marchers.
Stories passed down tell that five men founded Cary Christian Church on the land where loved ones were being buried off West Cornwall Road. The congregation grew and worshipped in a brush arbor on the site. It appears the congregation still did not own the land at the time of their early services; it still belonged to James E. Allen.
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James E. Allen sold to Mariah L. Seagroves 74+ acres of land. Mariah's first husband, Alfred Seagroves, fought and died in the Civil War in 1864. She married William L. Horton in 1866. It is unclear why she received the land from James Allen in her former married name.
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Shortly after receiving the land from James Allen, Mariah and her husband at the time, William Horton, sold 35+ acres of it to James Joseph (J. J.) Hines of Craven County, North Carolina. J.J. Hines bought the 35+ acres for his daughter, Evilina, who married Hardy H. Perry in 1874. Evilina and Hardy were also from Craven County. J. J. Hines was a white traveling minister who preached in Asbury (close by to the east of Cary) and Apex and we speculate that's how he came to know the area in western Wake County and why he bought land for his daughter here. Evilina died in 1875, just one year after her marriage to Hardy. Neither she nor Hardy ever lived on the land her father had bought for her in Cary.
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Evilina's widowed husband Hardy, still in Craven County, sold a half interest in the land to Henry R. Bryan of Craven County. Hardy conveyed 34.25 acres to George B. Guion, also of Craven County. In the deed is the statement: “being and excepting from the operation of instrument the one acre heretofore sold to a Religious Congregation by J. J. Hines. . . .”
No deed has been found from J. J. Hines conveying land to the church. The deed could possibly not have been registered. But it appears sometime between 1869 and 1877, J. J. Hines sold or conveyed one acre of land to a religious congregation, most likely the early members of Cary First Christian Church.
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African American children began attending public shools. District 1 students attended a school for African Americans near Reedy Creek Road. District 2 students attended a school for African Americans in a log cabin near the intersection of Tanglewood Drive and Walnut Street. The log cabin and the land it was located on were provided by Alfred “Buck” Jones, grandson of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains. The will of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains requested that his enslaved persons be freed, 50 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Buck Jones was a good friend to the African American citizens of Cary. Many of them attended and wept at his funeral when he died tragically in 1893.
Henry Bryan and others (his wife Mary N. Bryan and George Guion), all of Craven County, sold 34+ acres to Tranquilla A. Dowell of Wake County. In the deed is this statement:
“(excepting) nevertheless one acre of said tract at its north west corner on which a church has been built by certain colored (people) containing 34 1/2 acres more or less, after deducting said acre excepted.”
The church to which this deed is referring might have been the brush arbor under which the early members of the Cary Christian Church congregation worshipped. Or it might have been a wooden structure.
Cary Christian Church hosted the North Carolina Colored Christian Conference Convention.
It's not clear that the church building present in 1896 was erected at this time. A newspaper clipping from The News and Observer shows that Richard Jones had a horse stolen from the church in the year 1883, so it appears some sort of structure was in place. But it might have been a crude structure like the structure that housed Christian Chapel Church in Apex at the time.
We can imagine from the excerpt below from A History of Black Congregational Churches of the South that Cary Christian Church might indeed have built some sort of "shabby" structure in 1883 and then erected a "building of better quality" in 1896.
- If Cary Christian Church hosted the N. C. Colored Conference Convention in 1880 though, where would they have held the people? It almost seems like there would have been some sort of structure at that time, unless they held the Convention under the brush arbor.
- Also in the 1895 Proceedings, the Statistical Table on page 33 shows that the value of the Cary Christian Church property was $100, $600 less than a year later when it was valued at $700. This could be because by 1896 they owned the land, sold to them by Frank Page. It could also be because they had built a substantial church building on the land. The Cary Christian Church membership went up by 66 between 1895 and 1896, whereas it went up by only 9 between 1894 and 1895, also possibly indicating that a new structure had been built, which might have attracted (and held) more people. But it could also have had something to do with the “disaffection” noted in the Proceedings.
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Frank Page sold 1 acre of land to the church for $1. This is the land upon which the church building stood, next to the District 2 public school that had been for white children, but now became the Cary Colored School after the white children were moved to the main Cary Academy building. Buck Jones died in 1893 and it appears the African American children lost the use of his land and log cabin for their school after his death.
It's not clear what these deeds are, but this passage in
Could it be that the Conference held the deeds of churches for safekeeping? One would think they would be registered. Since this reference is 1896, that would allow for the 1895 Frank Page deed to be registered AND the original handed to the conference for safekeeping.
Cary Christian Church
1896
Was this cornerstone placed in the foundation of the church on Holleman Street/Cemetery Road? Why the 1896 date? Church history passed down highlights 1883 as a date the church might possibly have been built.
Some thoughts from the blogger: It's possible that the cornerstone was crafted sometime after 1896, which could explain why it was fancier than the old wooden church building itself. The church might have had more money later to create the fancier cornerstone. And maybe it wasn't a cornerstone at all, but a sort of monumental or dedication stone commemorating a significant event in the church's history. Perhaps the church felt that when they came to own the property, that's when they became officially established, though you would think they would have used the 1895 property deed date instead. Or perhaps they did in fact complete their church structure in 1896. The stone might never have been placed within the foundation of the old building (it might have sat in a garden or some other prominent place). It was, however, placed in the new building beneath the 1967 cornerstone to show the church's history (even though we don't understand what the 1896 date means!). If one were to look at that stone though, placed in the wall of the new church beneath the current cornerstone, they would be likely to think that's when the original church was built. I am now leaning toward believing that the congregation built some sort of structure in 1883 -- perhaps even the beginnings of the final structure -- but felt that their final structure, along with ownership of the land, was complete in 1896. And that's why that stone -- which I tend to agree might have been crafted sometime well after 1896 -- bears the date 1896. That makes the most sense to me.
Tranquilla and her husband George J. Dowell conveyed a piece of land to Trustees for Colored Cary Christian Church: John Beckwith, Handy Jones, and Dennis Jones. In the deed are these statements: “This deed is intended only to convey the land lying between T. A. Dowell's line adjoining the Grave Yard on the east, Eli Yates line on the west, for the purpose of increasing the size of the grave yard, belonging to certain colored people and to establish the location of such grave Yard it [the grave yard] having been laid off by the parties concerned some time during the summer of 1908. It is not intended to give any title to the grave yard, now owned by the colored people, but to quit any claim to said Grave Yard and to consent to the parties within named as Trustees having all the land covered by mentioning the within described land having and holding to them forever, the [grave] yard so far as our interest lies 285 feet long and 210 feet wide in the corner of the land of T. A. Dowell, now known as the south west corner of the land she purchased of R. H. Battle Commissioner of Bryan and Guion . . . .” This deed appears to have resulted in another third of an acre or so added to the acre the church already had.
The Cary Colored School was expanded to two rooms. The African American students from the District 1 Evans Grove school near Reedy Creek Rd. were transferred to Cary Colored School and the Evans Grove School was closed. Cary Colored School became a wooden, 2-room school with outside privies, and a wood-burning stove for heat. Annie Mitchell Meadows taught grades 1-4 in one room and Rev. J.W. Meadows taught grades 5-7 in the other room.
The Cary Colored School burned down. Arson is suspected, but never proven. White citizens did not want to pay for a new black school and argued there was no land for one, so they proposed busing the African American students to an elementary school in Method. However, Cary’s African American parents banded together, boycotted the busing plan and demanded a replacement school be built in Cary. Sallie Jones’ uncle Goelet Arrington and aunt Emily Arrington Jones sold to the Wake County School System land that they owned just north of Chapel Hill Road, and the African American community raised money for the new school. Thus, a 5-room wooden building was built.
The new school opened. To fill the new school, students from the Shiloh, Rhamkatte, Asbury and Method elementary schools were consolidated into the new Cary Elementary School (for colored children).
The original 1937 wooden building was replaced with a brick building to add needed space.
The school was expanded again on land donated by Ernest B. Ferrell and his wife Lovie to include a gymtorium, additional classrooms and a cafeteria. This school is currently known as Kingswood Elementary School.
Cary First Christian Church moved to a new building on Evans Rd. The old wooden church was torn down or burned down shortly afterward, though an exact date is not known. Remnants of the foundation of the old church can still be found in the woods along the path that once was known as Holleman Street and Cemetery Road, now the Higgins Greenway.
