In The Story of the Methodists in the Port of Beaufort, Amy Muse wrote, "On the lot between the burial ground and the colored church stood 'the house appointed for a Court House.' It had been deeded to the Wardens of the Parish of St. Johns by Richard Rustell in 1724. In it during the middle years of the seventeen hundreds, the service of the Anglican Church was read.
A church building was erected on the same lot some time after 1774 so was practically new when the Methodists began using it. L.A. Potter, born in 1844, remembered the old church which, he said, stood until a short time before the Civil War. Robah F. Bumpas said this building was purchased by John White who moved it to the lot on which his residence stood on Water Street, now Front, and used it as a storehouse and shop. It was blown down by the storm of 1879 when the Atlantic Hotel went to pieces.
Purvis Chapel circa 1900 and 1999
Mamré Marsh Wilson, Diane Hardy and Marilyn Collins
According to the 1820 deed registered in the Court House one half acre, lot 101, corner of Craven and Broad Streets, was purchased from the town 'to be erected and built thereon a house of worship for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America.' The trustees to whom it was deeded were: James Chadwick, Samuel Chadwick, Elijah Canaday, Culpepper Pigott, Freeman Ellis, Peter Noe, Dillins Ellis, Jechonia Pigott and Anson Chadwick. Those who filed into the new church on Sundays were the Bells, Forlaws, Reads, Arendells, Halls, Lovetts, Rumleys, Murrays, Whitehursts, Barnes, Manneys, Perrys, Mansons, Leecrafts, Dills, Merrits, Fullers, Davises, Pivers, Thomases, Canadays, Langdons, Fulfords, Buckmans, Gabriels and many whose names are lost to us.
In 1821 when Robert Wilkinson was here the church was dedicated by Lewis Skidmore who was one of the leading ministers of the Conference. Even then it was neither completed nor paid for. Still incomplete, January 2, 1830, 'It has never been plastered consequently is decaying fast.' It was repaired in 1836, not out of debt until 1840!
When the white Methodists built a new church in 1854, Black Methodists were deeded the old Methodist church building, known as Purvis Chapel, in which to worship independently. (According to Mamre Wilson, the old church was named after a poplular revivialist minister, Reverend James Purvis, who visited in 1834.)
In 1863, A.M.E. Zion missionary James Walker Hood established the first permanent A.M.E. Zion congregation in the South in
The two-story, gable-front building is five bays wide and was originally four bays deep, with two additional bays added. The chapel has a three-stage corner tower and a front pediment supported by two tapering Doric posts. Three entrances are recessed beneath the pediment. At the south front corner wall, surfaces project out to enclose an interior stair to the balcony. The tower also contains a balcony stair. The church has Gothic stained glass windows and some rectangular windows with Queen Anne colored glass lights.
The original 1820s church was apparently enlarged about 1900 with front additions to create the present appearance. The patterned shingles in the pediment and upper stage of the tower, as well as sawnwork kingpost ornament in the gables, relate the church stylistically to the Queen Anne/Gothic Revival style of the nearby
Purvis Chapel's bell was cast in
The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1998 the Purvis Chapel was recognized with a second Kathryn Cloud Historical Preservation Award.
This post was compiled from various sources, including Ruth Little’s 1997 Beaufort National Register Historic District Survey, Amy Muse's The Story of the Methodist in the Port of Beaufort and Mamré Wilson's Story of North Carolina's Historic Beaufort.
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