Mount Moriah Baptist Church and Cemetery

Mount Moriah Baptist Church and Cemetery is a historic African-American Baptist church and cemetery located at Roanoke, Virginia. It was built about 1908, and is a small, one-story, rectangular frame church sheathed in weatherboard. It consists of a main sanctuary, a front vestibule, and a rear chancel bay. The frame building sits on a raised foundation of uncoursed fieldstones. The associated burial ground contains over 100 interments from the 1870s through the present.[3]

Mount Moriah Baptist Church and Cemetery
Location3521 E. Orange Ave., Roanoke, Virginia
Coordinates37°18′15″N 79°53′28″W
Area1 acre (0.40 ha)
Builtc. 1870 (1870), c. 1908
NRHP reference No.94001092[1]
VLR No.128-0234
Significant dates
Added to NRHPSeptember 8, 1994
Designated VLRJune 15, 1994[2]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.[1]

Outside the entrance to the church is an historical marker that reads: "Mount Moriah Baptist Church. K-99. The members of Mount Moriah Baptist Church belong to one of the region's earliest African American congregations, originating in a Sunday school for slaves established in the mid-1800s by Dr. Charles L. Cocke, founder of Hollins College. The group gained permission in 1858 to build its first church. The present church, the congregation's third, was built about 1908. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register in 1994. The nearby cemetery was expanded from a former slave burial ground."[4]

"There are many unmarked graves at this location. The listing of names is complete as of 19 June 2007."[5]

Recent upgrades in the church property included a new paved driveway from the City of Roanoke, and new kitchen and bathroom facilities, donated by local churches, individuals and organizations.[6]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
  3. Leslie A. Giles and Julie Aldrich (April 1994). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Mount Moriah Baptist Church and Cemetery" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying photo
  4. Calder Loth, ed., The Virginia Landmarks Register, 4th ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 457; Mount Moriah Baptist Church, National Register of Historic Places Nomination File (128-234), DHR
  5. Find A Grave.
  6. From Whence Cometh My Help: The African American Community at Hollins College. Ethel Morgan Smith. University of Missouri Press, 2000. page 100.


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