Carswell Grove Baptist Church and Cemetery

Carswell Grove Baptist Church and Cemetery, 1842–1846 Big Buckhead Church Road, near the hamlet of Perkins, Millen, Georgia (Jenkins County, Georgia) is a historic Black church and cemetery which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The church, a replacement for an earlier church burned in 1919, was destroyed by arson in 2014.[2]

Carswell Grove Baptist Church and Cemetery
Cemetery and the site of the original church
LocationBig Buckhead Rd. off US 25/GA 21, near Perkins, Georgia
Coordinates32°54′08″N 82°1′25″W
Area3 acres (1.2 ha)
Builtc.1870 (cemetery); 1919 (church)
Architectural styleLate Gothic Revival
NRHP reference No.95001564[1]
Added to NRHPJanuary 22, 1996

A different historic church, the Big Buckhead Baptist Church, is located a few hundred yards southwest. Prior to the Civil War blacks had worshipped there in segregated pews; after the war whites kicked out the blacks. White judge Porter W. Carswell gave blacks 2 acres (0.81 ha) nearby to build their own church; they named it in his honor.[3]:4

The original church was burned in the Jenkins County, Georgia, riot of 1919. It was replaced in 1919 by a wood-frame clapboarded building with Gothic Revival windows and other details. Its front gable end was flanked by two square towers.[4] Before its destruction in 2014, the building was boarded up and had deteriorated; the congregation meets in a more modest and modern adjacent building.

The cemetery was founded around 1870, when the original church building was built. It is located along the rear and sides of the church, and includes "modest" headstones.[4]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. Stutsman, Doug (November 18, 2014). "Fire to Millen church believed to be arson". The Augusta Chronicle. Retrieved July 25, 2019.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  3. McWhirter, Cameron (2011). Red Summer. The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. Henry Holt. ISBN 9780805089066.
  4. Leslie N. Sharp (September 26, 1995). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Carswell Grove Baptist Church and Cemetery". National Park Service. Retrieved April 21, 2017. With nine photos.

Further reading
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.