Category Archives: Tarboro GA

Clinch Chapel United Methodist Church, Tarboro

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African-Americans have been well-established in the Tarboro community since the days of slavery, and in subsequent years owned land and farms throughout the area. Clinch Chapel traces its origins to an informal congregation organized by Brother Zachery Butler to serve the spiritual needs of enslaved people from the nearby Owens, King, and Clinch plantations. After years of meeting in a brush arbor, the congregation erected a wood frame church in 1896, using trees milled at Ceylon plantation and floated on the Satilla to Owens Ferry, from where they were hauled on oxcarts to this site. The first trustees of the congregation were Josh Washington, Rinea Washington, Henry Robinson, Hanna Robinson, Isaac Johnson, Lucy Nicklow, Pompey Gordon, and Lizzie Gordon.

The new church was destroyed by a storm and reorganized in 1897, and again in 1901, at which time a new structure was constructed. Reverend A. B. Fish was pastor at the time.

During the pastorate of Reverend C. O. Gordon, the church was again reorganized in 1953 and the foundation of the present chapel was laid in 1963. Association with the United Methodist Church began in 1968. According to the cornerstone, the present structure was completed circa 1992. Sarah Small, Jack Small, William D. Small, Sr., Henry Butler, Sr., Calvin Small, Sr., and Joseph Hamilton, Sr., were on the Building Committee.

Clinch Chapel Cemetery

The cemetery at Clinch Chapel contains more than a dozen vernacular memorials, including one of the Madonna monuments detailed here. The following photographs appear in no particular order but serve as examples of the variety of work present. As is the case with all such markers, environmental factors and the passage of time pose the greatest threat to their long-term survival. This is my main reason for documenting them, but I also find them beautiful and moving works of art and have the utmost respect for the love and devotion they represent.

Reverend John Mungin (Birth and death dates unknown)

Reverend Mungin’s headstone features three crosses and is wedge-shaped.

Luevenia Randolph (29 November 1886-1 May 1944). Ms. Randolph’s headstone is of a type found in numerous African-American and white cemeteries, especially rural locations, which simply use a stencil on a poured slab to identify the decedent. Not quite as common, though, are the applied symbols, including shaking hands, hands pointing to Heaven, bibles, and winged heads (cherubim).

Peter Jackson (1888?-29 July 1938)
Addie Mitchell (17 August 1905-6 June 1942)
Unknown. The symbols have obviously been reapplied on this headstone, which is unfortunately unreadable.
Unknown
Solina Glassco (7 November 1874-5 November 1926). This is obviously a commercially produced monument, and a very nice one at that, but I have included it here because it documents an association with a Mosaic Templars lodge. In African-American communities of the time, these lodges often provided low cost burial insurance and in some cases the placement of a headstone. This one indicates that Glassco was a member of the Carrie Bell Chamber 2855, Mosaic Templars of America, which was located at nearby White Oak.

African-American Madonna Monuments of Camden County

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Detail of Green Monument, Clinch Chapel Cemetery

I recently documented an eclectic collection of Black cemetery monuments at three locations in Camden County with Cynthia Jennings. Remarkable testaments to African-American ingenuity, they date from the 1920s to the 1940s and are all in the form of a European version of the Madonna (Mary). [I have identified them as “African-American” because of their appropriation by these historic communities].

They appear to have been made using a cast, though all have slight variations. Whether made by a local funeral home or an individual, the monuments have at least one vernacular element: the handwritten identifications of the decedents. While some appear to be distinct, it’s more likely the effect of nearly a century of exposure to the elements.

A review of active black funeral homes in Camden County in the 1930s might be a clue as to their history. Chrissy Chapman has documented these amazing memorials, as well, and has located at least one more, in a plantation cemetery, which we hope to explore in the future. Chrissy’s photographs, made a few years ago, reveal a possible maker’s name, which I hope to share later.

It is my hope that by preserving these places photographically, they will be of some use to historians and genealogists in the future. It seems certain that they will all be unreadable within the next decade or so but they should be added to the growing list of important African-American vernacular landmarks in Georgia and celebrated as such.

The Monuments

Grace Scarlett/Scarlott (1855-17 December 1936), Rising Daughter Missionary Baptist Church, Spring Bluff. Like the next monument pictured, this one is paired with a secondary marker, perhaps indicating that Grace Scarlott died in childbirth and the secondary marker represents her lost child. It is believed that the two visible “bumps” atop Grace’s monument are evidence that the figure was once topped with a crown, as is typical in depictions of Mary.
Flossie/Flossy Scott Fisher (1899-7 November 1939), Rising Daughter Missionary Baptist Church, Spring Bluff. Cynthia Jennings discovered that Mrs. Fisher died in childbirth and puports that the second stone memorializes her infant, also lost at birth.
Maggie Green (Birth and death dates unknown), Clinch Chapel Cemetery, Tarboro.
Sina Green (Birth and death dates unknown), Oak Hill Cemetery, Camden County. Cynthia Jennings has discovered that Mrs. Green’s husband, Anthony Green, served in the United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War and received a pension. The churchyard is located near the Rains Landing Community.
Detail of Green Monument, Oak Hill Cemetery

Pyramidal Roof House, Tarboro

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Gable Front House, Tarboro

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In the historically African-American communities that dominate the coastal region, utilitarian vernacular forms, such as this gable front example, are the rule.

Brown’s Chapel A. M. E. Church, Tarboro

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Like the other Tarboro churches, this one has a White Oak address due to the post office location. This congregation was established on 7 July 1900 by Reverend T. N. M. Smith, Reverend S. W. Wood, and L. Fatio; the present structure was dedicated in 1979 and has been remodeled since.

Church for Sale, Tarboro

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Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Tarboro

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From dates on the cornerstones, I understand that this congregation was originally organized as the First Baptist Church in 1899, with Reverend J. Delk serving as first pastor. Dates also indicate that the congregation changed its name to Oak Grove Missionary Baptist around 1947. The present remodel likely dates to 1991, when a new cornerstone was placed. (Though the church has a White Oak address, it’s located in Tarboro. There’s no post office in Tarboro).

Tarboro Mercantile

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Tarboro is an isolated community in Camden County’s interior, near White Oak.

Providence Methodist Church, 1856, Tarboro

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Wes Cox, who’s now an industrial designer in Brooklyn, related a bit of the history of this church to me some time ago: ...The original Providence Church congregation met in a church on Old Post Road, several miles to the west. In 1856 the congregation moved to this new structure, which was damaged in a hurricane in 1922 I believe. The whole structure leans slightly to the right ever since the hurricane. The original church structure on Old Post Road was much older, and was used by other Methodist congregations until it burned, either in the 1920s or 1930s.

Wes’s grandmother was the church organist here for many years.