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7 <br /> Harvey's Chapel AME Church (OR0867) and Historic Church/Cemetery Site <br /> Landmark Designation Report <br /> Prepared by Rachel Cotterman; edited by Peter Sandbeck <br /> February 26, 2019; edited Dec. 2022 <br /> 2507 Dimmock's Mill Rd. <br /> Hillsborough,NC 27278 <br /> Cheeks Township, Efland vicinity <br /> STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: <br /> A small "family church" established by a group of African-American families who <br /> gathered as a brush arbor worship community after the Civil War, the c. 1940s Harvey's <br /> Chapel AME Church is significant for the history of its congregation as well as for its <br /> importance as the most intact surviving example of a small frame carpenter-Gothic-style <br /> Black church in Orange County. In addition to the extant 1940s church and its small <br /> cemetery,the nearby original 1890s site of the first Harvey's Chapel and its associated <br /> cemetery have been preserved. This older site possesses considerable significance as an <br /> undisturbed archaeological site that exemplifies the burial practices and cultural <br /> landscape traditions of sites of sacred importance to African Americans in Orange <br /> County during the post-Civil-War era. The congregation was compelled to abandon the <br /> original site after the only road leading there fell into a state of disrepair in the late 1920s <br /> due to a lack of county maintenance. The story of Harvey's Chapel illustrates the <br /> negative impact of discriminatory road maintenance policies on rural African-American <br /> communities during the Jim Crow era, as well as the resilience and adaptation of these <br /> communities. This landmark designation includes the current 1940s church and cemetery <br /> (OR0867), visible from a public road, as well as the original site of the church and <br /> cemetery, acquired in 1892 and located in what is now a heavily wooded setting adjacent <br /> to a county-owned nature preserve. While the original c.1901 frame church was <br /> dismantled in the l 940s, its exact location and size are still clearly marked at its original <br /> site by the remarkable survival of its fieldstone foundation piers and white rock path <br /> markers. <br /> ARCHITECHTURAUSITE DESCRIPTION: <br /> Note: This landmark designation report includes both the current Harvey's Chapel AME <br /> Church building and cemetery (OR0867) on SRI 134 (2507 Dimmock's Mill Road) and <br /> the historic site of the original church and cemetery, located approximately .4 miles <br /> 1 <br />