Second Baptist Church (Mechanicsburg, Ohio) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Second Baptist Church
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Front and southwestern side
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 Location in Ohio
Location in the United States
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| Location | E. Sandusky St., Mechanicsburg, Ohio |
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| Area | Less than 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | 1858 |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival |
| MPS | Mechanicsburg MRA |
| NRHP reference No. | 85001891 |
| Added to NRHP | August 29, 1985 |
The Second Baptist Church is an old church building in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, United States. It was built in the mid-1800s. This makes it the oldest church still standing in the village. It is also recognized as a special historic place.
Contents
A Look at the Church's History
Mechanicsburg started as a town in 1814. The town quickly grew bigger and richer. By 1840, the value of land and buildings in the village was over ten thousand dollars. By 1880, it was more than a third of a million dollars.
The number of people living in Mechanicsburg also grew a lot. In 1830, there were only 99 people. By 1880, there were 1,522 residents. From its early days, Mechanicsburg was a town with people of different backgrounds. In 1830, one Black resident lived there. By 1880, the Black population grew to 209 people.
How the Church Started
By the 1880s, there were enough Black residents in Mechanicsburg to have two churches. One was a Baptist church, and the other was an African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Baptist church started in November 1872 with eight members. It is the only one of these two churches that is still active today.
This church is called "Second Baptist Church" because a white Baptist church had already started in 1840. In 1917, the Second Baptist Church had seventy members. Its Sunday school had fifty students. In its first 45 years, fourteen different pastors led the church.
One of these pastors was Elmer Curry. He started a school called the Curry Normal and Industrial Institute at the church. This school was like the famous Tuskegee Institute. After running in Mechanicsburg for a while, the school moved to Urbana.
The Church Building Itself
The first church group in Goshen Township was started by Methodist missionaries. The Mechanicsburg Methodist Episcopal Church grew very fast. This was thanks to many special meetings called revival meetings. During these meetings, many people became Christians.
Between 1814 and 1839, the Methodists used three small church buildings in Mechanicsburg. Because their group kept growing, they built a larger brick church in 1858. They chose a spot that used to be the village's first cemetery. The bodies from that cemetery had been moved to a new one.
Changes Over Time
By the late 1870s, the church had almost four hundred members. So, they did a big renovation project to improve the building. But the church kept growing. In 1904, they built an even bigger church a few blocks away.
The Methodist church then sold their old brick building to the Second Baptist Church for $2,850. The Second Baptist Church continued to make the building better. In 1917, a local writer said the inside was "nicely decorated" and had "electric lights."
The church used to have a tall, pointed belfry above its entrance. But in 1936, a fire happened next door at the Culbertson Buggy Works. The fire was so bad that it damaged the church's tower. The church's original bell was taken out and put in the village school. In return, the church received the school's smaller bell.
Unique Design
This two-story building is made of brick with some stone parts. It is the oldest church building still standing in Mechanicsburg. Its design is very different from the other old churches in the village. Most other churches in town are Gothic Revival style and were built around 1890.
However, the Second Baptist Church is a Greek Revival building. It was already thirty years old when the other churches were built. Most historic buildings in Mechanicsburg are Gothic Revival, Italianate, or Queen Anne styles from the late 1800s. The Second Baptist Church is one of the few examples of the pure Greek Revival style left in the village.
Protecting a Historic Place
The Second Baptist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. This list includes important historic places across the country. The church was part of a group of about twenty buildings in Mechanicsburg that were added to the Register. These buildings were spread out, so they couldn't be part of one big historic district.
Many of these twenty buildings were houses. But four were other historic churches in the village. These included the Mechanicsburg Baptist Church, St. Michael's Catholic Church, the Church of Our Saviour, and the Methodist church built in 1904.
Like these other churches, the Second Baptist Church was added to the Register because of its important architecture. It was also seen as important because of its role in Ohio's history. In 2005, its historic status was recognized even more. The Ohio Historical Society placed a historical marker for the church along Main Street. In the early 2000s, the Champaign County Preservation Alliance, which owned the building, also did restoration work on it.
