838 Moravia Street, First Waughtown Baptist Church, organized 1900

Although listed as being “officially” organized in 1900, black Baptist and Methodist congregations began worshiping in the Waughtown area as early as the 1820s. Shortly after the Civil War, newly emancipated John and Mary Linebach Fries settled in Waughtown and began holding Baptist prayer meetings in their one room cabin. This was soon followed by Methodist meetings held by their neighbors, Harris and Pauline Fries. (Both houses were near the current Food Lion at 1000 Waughtown Street.) In the 1870s, the Reverend George W. Holland of Danville, Virginia settled in Waughtown near John and Mary, assuming leadership of the informal Baptist congregation. (Rev. Holland would help found numerous black Baptist churches in Forsyth County, many still active today.)

As attendance outgrew the Fries’ cabin, services were held throughout the Waughtown and Happy Hill neighborhoods, and later in Winston. The black First Baptist Church was organized in 1879, but met three miles from Waughtown (today located at 700 Highland Avenue). As a result, the unorganized Waughtown Baptists began worshiping under a brush arbor in the 1890s on Waughtown Street, this time on Washington Fries’ property. (Back again near 1000 Waughtown Street.) Finally, in 1900, Rev. Holland sent one of his deacons, Shaw University graduate Reverend Pinkney Joyce, to officially organize the Waughtown Baptists into a distinct church. (Rev. Joyce had already helped organize West End Baptist Church on today’s Burke Street, and would also serve at Rising Ebenezer Baptist Church in Happy Hill and Oak Grove Baptist Church in Walkertown.)

Almost immediately, the congregation purchased a lot on Waughtown Street and built a modest wooden church. Wasting no time, Rev. Joyce began a capital fundraising campaign in 1903 for a “bigger and better Waughtown Baptist Church.” A different lot on Waughtown Street was bought in 1907 but by 1912, the congregation had decided to build instead on a parcel of land owned by the Colored Baptist Orphanage Home in the Belview community. The Waughtown Street property was sold in 1913, and the lot purchased from the Colored Orphanage. Local craftsmen erected a finely detailed front-gabled sanctuary that featured a pyramidal-roofed bell tower rising in a side elevation at 828 Moravia Street. Two doors flanked the front central bay and oculus windows. (see map photo) This second building served the congregation fifty years.

In 1960, the then current minister, Reverend Ernest Lee Grant, suggested a new chapel and as a carpenter/contractor himself, helped build it. Once the chapel was completed (1963), the congregation demolished the old church across the street. In 1964, work was begun on the present Modernist style sanctuary which took about twelve years to complete. During that construction period, the State of North Carolina acquired a substantial amount of the church’s property for the construction of Corporation Parkway (today Interstate 40) which runs directly behind the church, effectively splitting what had been one neighborhood into separate areas. In 1970, the building committee decided the church would have an “A-line roof,” while retaining a flat roof over the chapel. It is impressive that Rev. Grant not only oversaw its construction, but physically helped build it along with members of the church and men from the community. In 1976, the congregation celebrated both America’s Bicentennial, and the completion of their sanctuary. Between 1983 and 1989, a number of additional projects were completed, including the installation of stained glass windows in the sanctuary.

Modernism – an early 20th century architectural style that emphasized form rather than function, modern materials and new uses for older materials, structural innovation, little to no ornamentation, asymmetrical forms, low and broad roof overhangs, large windows/ribbon windows, and minimalism. This umbrella term includes a number of individual styles.

Black Educational Institutions in Waughtown/Belview

In 1867 a group of freedmen from Salem and Waughtown met to discuss the organization of a school for black children. Alexander Vogler, Robert Waugh, and Lewis Hege were elected to pursue the matter. This first school was built nearer to the Happy Hill area, and was in use later that same year. In 1896, George D. Reynolds (a major landowner, contractor, builder, brickmaker, banker and member of the Board of Trustees of the Forsyth Savings and Trust Bank) sold land to the Public School Commission for a colored school. It appears the school was initially operated by the Moravians and is referred to as the Moravian Free School. The school eventually became part of the county school system and as early as 1910 was called the Belleview School. (Both the Old Belleview School and first church building were off Waughtown Street near today’s current Food Lion.)

Around 1917, the old Belleview School closed and a new school was built in Belview on Moravia Street. It contained four classrooms and was funded both by the Rosenwald Fund and by members of the community. The school closed just a few years later, its attendance greatly impacted by the closure of the nearby Colored Orphanage. During the 1930s, the structure was used as a detention center for boys, then as a home. There was an effort to reopen the school in the 1940s by the Belview Civic League, an effort that failed when it was determined there were not enough children in the area to support a school. During the 1950s, the Civic League was successful in opening a recreation center in the old school building. Unfortunately, this significant historic structure was eventually demolished.

Colored Baptist Orphanage, demolished

In the late 1800s, the Rev. Joshua Perry realized there was a need for an orphanage for black children. With the help of the black First Baptist Church; Addie C. Morris; Rev. George W. Holland; Rev. Pickney Joyce; Rev. James Timlie; and Eliza Yokeley, the Colored (Baptist) Orphanage Society was organized in 1903. The society purchased fourteen acres of land in Bellview from Colonel and Mrs. Clement Manley, and soon thereafter bought the adjacent seventeen acre farm from Alfred Sides. The Sides farm included a six room house, which served as the first building of the orphanage when it opened in 1905. Rev. Perry and his wife, Martha were the superintendents of what was the only African American orphanage in North Carolina.

Eventually, additional buildings were constructed with the boy’s dormitory located on the corner of Burgandy and Moravia Streets and other main buildings along Clemmonsville Road. The orphanage had its own farm and band, which traveled to raise funds. The orphans attended both Bellview School and First Waughtown Baptist Church. The orphanage eventually became the Memorial Industrial Institute (1923) and moved to northern Forsyth County (1929). (https://www.cityofws.org/DocumentCenter/View/4037/10---Colored-Baptist-Orphanage-Home-PDF and https://www.cityofws.org/DocumentCenter/View/4059/32---Memorial-Industrial-School-PDF

Addie C. Morris (1855-1907)

Addie C. Morris’ short memoir is one of the earliest autobiographical non-Moravian accounts of African American life near Waughtown. She was born a slave on a Forsyth County farm about ten miles from Salem in 1855 to Charles and Jane Morris. Following emancipation, her father agreed to remain on the farm as a sharecropper with the family living in a log cabin with no floor. Barely surviving that first year, they moved into Waughtown near John and Mary Fries (who would help organize Baptist meetings in their home). Addie worked odd jobs till eighteen when a northern woman, who had been educating Salem’s African American residents, offered her a job as her cook in Philadelphia. Having lost her mother and six siblings, Addie then raised her three remaining sisters and brother in Philadelphia.

Morris returned to North Carolina in 1886, enrolling in Shaw University’s Missionary Department. She completed two terms, but was forced to leave due to illness although she still eventually served as a missionary in Africa. Hoping to establish a mission school in Winston, she managed to raise almost $1300 from Philadelphia and Winston donors. (For context, The George E. Nissen Wagon Works in Waughtown had an annual income of $1300 in 1876.) The school was built with permission of First Baptist Church (under Rev. George W. Holland) in 1891 on the church’s lot on Sixth Street. Morris herself “drew the plan and superintended the work of the building”, a 50-by-32-foot structure.

Addie was also instrumental in the founding of the Colored Baptist Orphanage. As a trustee, she helped initiate the purchase of the Manley acreage and the Sides’ farm. (Incidentally, both property owners were white. Belview has historically been a mixed race neighborhood.) The black First Baptist Church provided support, including materials salvaged from the demolished Sixth Street missionary school building that were recycled as an addition to the orphanage. Addie died in 1907 and was buried in the Belview Cemetery - which was unearthed and moved during the construction of Interstate 40 behind Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church in Walkertown, NC.

Bellevue Cemetery, demolished during construction of Corporation Parkway

The Bellevue Cemetery was located off Old Lexington Road near 2995 Starlight Drive, in the vicinity of the present day railroad tracks. During construction of Corporation Parkway, today’s Interstate 40, hundreds of graves were disinterred and moved to either the Evergreen Cemetery or the Nat Watkins Cemetery behind Oak Grove Baptist Church in Walkertown.