Thomas' Methodist Episcopal Chapel

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

“Thomas' Methodist Episcopal Chapel, also known as Thomas Chapel, is a historic Methodist chapel and cemetery located near Chapeltown in Kent County, Delaware. The site was the location of the freedman Harry Hosier's 1784 sermon, the first to be delivered by an African American man directly to a white congregation.”
Wikipedia article Thomas' Methodist Episcopal Chapel, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 136 National Register listings published here for Kent County · listed in 1994 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 buildingss, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. Rt. 206 W of Chapeltown, West Dover Hundred, Chapeltown, 19964
When was it listed? January 1994
Category. building
National Register reference number. 93001516 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

22 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 22 fires within 5 miles of Thomas' Methodist Episcopal Chapel between 2005 and 2018, burning about 25 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Equipment and vehicle use	8
Debris and open burning	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Natural	2
Arson/incendiarism	1
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
23 September 2005	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
23 September 2005	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
19 September 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	4.7 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
19 September 2005	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
12 July 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
10 July 2007	Natural	4.0 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named
10 July 2007	Natural	1.1 acres	Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service	not named

Every fire recorded in Kent County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Thomas' Methodist Episcopal Chapel: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Clough and Caulk Pit and Mill	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
	L.D. Caulk Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Kent County

Storms near this property

2 since 2020

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Chapeltown, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 2020 and 2021: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2021	Flash Flood	Chapeltown	-	Mud Mill Road and Still Road were impassable near Mahan Corner Road to the north of Sandtown.
April 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Chapeltown	-	A utility pole was damaged from strong winds. Time estimated from radar.

Every storm recorded in Kent County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Cow Marsh Old School Baptist Church	3.9 miles	1976
Lewis Family Tenant Agricultural Complex	5.2 miles	1986
White-Warren Tenant House	6.0 miles	2001
Woodside Methodist Episcopal Church	7.6 miles	1996
Cheyney Clow's Rebellion, Scene of	7.6 miles	1974
Wyoming Railroad Station	7.9 miles	1980

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 93001516 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Kent County	All 136 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.