|South Carolina Department of Archives and History|
|National Register Properties in South Carolina
Mulberry Chapel Methodist Church, Cherokee County (582 Asbury Rd., Pacolet vicinity)
|Facade||Left Elevation|| Left Rear
|Rear Elevation||Chancel Detail||Belfry Detail|
|Window Detail|| Interior
and Chancel Bay
Mulberry Chapel Methodist Church, built circa 1880, is significant for its association with African American heritage in the South Carolina upcountry during Reconstruction and for its architectural significance as an intact example of a vernacular form of Gothic Revival ecclesiastical architecture. Mulberry Chapel Methodist Church is a local example of one of the most significant social changes precipitated by black freedom - the establishment of independent black churches and denominations. It was part of a large social pattern, which resulted from two pressures: blacks’ desire to exercise their hard-won freedom from slavery and to avoid white antagonism. Before the Civil War, black slaves in the surrounding area attended the Asbury Methodist Church less than a mile away. By 1870, most blacks and whites worshiped in separate churches. Mulberry Chapel Methodist Church is one of only a few extant African-American churches in South Carolina dating from the first twenty-five years after the Civil War and is a rare example in the South Carolina upcountry. The northern half of the property contains a historic cemetery with approximately twenty marked graves and an additional twenty or more unmarked ones. Headstones date from 1888 to the 1960s. It is organized by family plot. Many of the people interred in the cemetery may have been former slaves, as indicated by the birth years. The most prominent figure associated with the cemetery is Samuel Nuckles, a former slave who served in the 1868 Constitutional Convention and represented Union County in the South Carolina House of Representatives during Reconstruction, between 1868 and 1872. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places June 27, 2012.
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