Major Bibliographical References (Cite the books, articles, and other sources used in preparing this form on one or more continuation sheets.) Previous documentation on file (NPS): Primary location of additional data: - preliminary determination of individual listing (36 - State Historic Preservation Office CFR 67) has been requested - Other State agency - previously listed in the National Register - Federal agency - previously determined eligible by the National - Local government Register - University - designated a National Historic Landmark x Other - recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey Name of repository: # _Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church - recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA Summary The Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, is historically and architecturally significant for its association with the religious and cultural heritage of African Americans in Berkshire County, and as a distinctive example of late-19tcentury vernacular church architecture in the region. The property meets National Register Criteria A and C at a local level of significance. Areas of significance include ethnic history, religion, social history, and architecture. It is also significant for its association with W.E.B. Du Bois. The nationally significant African American civil rights leader was a Great Barrington native and was involved with the church when a young man. Though it was not the first African American church to be built in Berkshire County, the Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church, which opened its doors in Great Barrington in 1886, has been the most enduring of all black churches in this area. Associated with post-Civil War migrants from the South and the large northern-born kin network of which W. E. B. Du Bois was part, Clinton Church managed to sustain itself amid an always small African American population and an active membership that at times was composed of fewer than ten persons. As is true of many African American churches in the North, this church served not only as a religious center but also as a cultural, political, and charitable institution for local African Americans. In those respects, its founding signaled a degree of cohesion within the local African American community even as the demographic profile of that community was changing for the first time since the area's settlement.
African Americans in Great Barrington Church records were not systematically kept before 1936, but it is believed that the first meetings of the group that ultimately created Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church took place in the 1860s. The first documented meeting of that group, called the Great Barrington A.M.E.Zion Society, occurred in 1870. Contrary to the expectation that African Americans would organize a church when their population was relatively robust, this church was formed during a period of marked population decline. By 1870, the year of the first known meeting, the federal census records ninety African Americans in Great Barrington, down from the population's 19* -century zenith of 136 persons in 1855.! By 1870 the African American community in Great Barrington included some few persons born in the South, the beginnings of a shift from its historical origins.
Before the Civil War, all of the African Americans recorded in the town had been born in the North, overwhelmingly in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. Some of this population, including Tom Burghardt, the great-great grandfather of W. E. B. Du Bois, had been brought into the region as enslaved people from such Massachusetts towns as Westfield and Springfield, and from the Hudson Valley of New York, a stronghold of northern slavery; the Dutch who had settled the area were among the largest enslavers of any ethnic group in the colonial North? Tom Burghardt had probably come to Great Barrington before 1750 with Coenrod (or Conrood) Burghardt, who was of Dutch descent and moved there from in Kinderhook, New York. The "black Burghardts," as the family was often called, were thus among the earliest settlers of Great Barrington.
The Dutch Burghardts manumitted Tom after his Revolutionary service, but several generations of his family continued as domestic servants in the former family. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born in Great Barrington on 23 February 1868. His father, Alfred, descended from the Huguenot James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York, possibly a Loyalist whose considerable (continued) ' All census statistics derive from an analysis of federal census schedules. Population statistics show that people of African descent never composed more than 3.6 percent of the total population of Berkshire County, a share it reached in 1850. See David Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage in the Upper Housatonic Valley (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2006), xii-xx. 2 Phyllis F.
Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page2 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA holdings in the Bahamas and Haiti may have been a reward for his allegiance during the Revolution. Alfred was the son of Alexander Du Bois, one of four children James Du Bois had with one of his enslaved Bahamians. He was born in Haiti and came to the United States in the mid-1820s with his parents. According to his son William, Alfred Du Bois "by some queer chance" came to western Massachusetts from eastern New England and married Mary Sylvina Burghardt in Great Barrington in 1867.3 W. E. B.
Du Bois ultimately became the first person of African descent to receive a doctorate from Harvard University, the preeminent African American sociologist of his generation, and among the key founders in 1905 of the Niagara Movement, from which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People emerged in 1909. Du Bois biographer David Levering Lewis called him "the premier architect of the civil rights movement in the United States.*4 Others among the earliest African American settlers of Great Barrington had probably escaped slavery in Connecticut and New York State. Unlike Massachusetts, which had banned slavery by judicial decision in 1783, slavery persisted in the two states nearest Great Barrington.
Both Connecticut and New York passed gradual manumission laws, in 1784 and 1799 respectively, that effectively continued the enslavement of African Americans born before those years and freed those born afterward at maturity, considered either twenty-one or twenty-five years old. Slavery was not wholly abolished in New York State until 1837, and the system survived in Connecticut until 1848. The Connecticut Courant in Hartford published nine advertisements for the retrieval of enslaved people in the northwestern part of the state between 1767 and 1807, while New York enslavers published notices for runaways in New York and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, newspapers.
Two such fugitives who settled in Great Barrington were Pompey Phillips (1785-1880) and his wife Jane Dorr Phillips (1789-1877); the former's obituary stated that they had been born into slavery in New York and "found refuge and friends, here." Pompey Phillips's death record states "born a slave" where parents' names were typically recorded. Jane Phillips was born in Chatham, New York, to Jack and Sarah Van Alstyne, which suggests enslavement by people of Dutch descent.? No doubt some of those who moved to Great Barrington from New York State and Connecticut were free people, especially given the fact that the number of slaves in those states declined rapidly after 1800; less than one hundred people in each were enslaved after 1830.8 (continued) 3 W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1940), reprinted in W. E. B.
Du Bois: Writings (New York: Library of America, 1986), 630-37. * David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993), 4. S Joanne Pope Melish, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and "Race" in New England, 1780-1860 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 68-71, 224-25. 6 One March 1779 notice in the Courant noted of fifteen-year-old Zil, "The last she has been heard of she was going to Lenox," two towns north of Great Barrington. See Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage, 17. On New Yorkers see Glendyne R. Wergland, "Women, Men, Property, and Inheritance: Gendered Testamentary Customs in Western Massachusetts, 1800-1860" (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 2001), cited in Bernard A.
Drew, If They Close the Door on You, Go in the Window: Origins of the African American Community in Sheffield, Great Barrington & Stockbridge (Great Barrington, MA: Attic Revivals Press, 2004), 52. Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage, 189, citing a Berkshire Courier obituary. Pompey Phillips's gravestone states that he was "born a slave." Whether they were ancestors of Clinton A.M.E. member Edward Phillips cannot be established from vital records. See Drew, Origins, 57-58, and Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910, 19 April 1877 and 13 May 1880, on New England Historical Genealogical Web site, http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database. Historical Census Browser, U. of Virginia Library, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/state.php. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev.
10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page3 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA African Americans migrating both within and to New England tended to settle in cities, where the possibility of employment was greatest and preexisting African American populations were largest. And they were most apt to settle in cities along the coast, for the maritime trades of all antebellum industries had historically been most apt to employ people of color. Great Barrington was typical of most inland rural places in New England in the almost complete absence of southern-born people of African descent before the Civil War.
With the region's economy largely devoted to agriculture, occupations for blacks were limited to farm labor for men and domestic service for women and children. Even as industry was introduced after the Civil War, it presented no new opportunities: northern factories were notoriously resistant to hiring African Americans well into the 20* century. Indeed, the occupational profile of African Americans in Great Barrington remained largely static between 1850 and 1930. In federal censuses collected over that eighty-year period the percentage of employed African Americans working in general or farm labor and in domestic service ranged from 75 to 92 %? In occupational terms, the greatest opportunity for Great Barrington African Americans was in domestic service, and in large measure southern-born people who came to the town after the Civil War settled into service jobs.
African Americans who had been born in Great Barrington held such positions before and after the war: members of the Burghardt family, for example, worked and lived in the homes of white residents since before the American Revolution through at least 1850. Rising prosperity after the Civil War increased domestic service opportunities, as did the growing popularity of Great Barrington and the Berkshires generally as a tourist destination. Domestic service came to occupy an even greater share of the workforce: while 45% of all employed African Americans in Great Barrington were in service jobs in 1865, more than 51% were so employed by 1900. In some undetermined number of cases, affluent southern summer residents brought domestics with them for their season in Great Barrington, and some of those sojourning domestics chose to settle in Great Barrington permanently.
The growth in African American population between 1870 and 1900 appears to be attributable largely to an influx of southerners. As the population of color rose from ninety to 123 persons over those thirty years, the ratio of northern- to southern-born blacks changed dramatically. In 1870 only 4.4 % of the town's African Americans were born in the South; in 1900 fully 24.4 %were. And by 1930, as population declined overall, the proportion of Great Barrington African Americans born in the South grew to 43.8% of all African Americans in the town. Founding the Church Because Clinton A.M.E. Zion church records do not exist for the 19t century it is not possible to determine exactly who formed the congregation and who joined it in its earliest years. In his autobiographical Dusk of Dawn (1940), W. E. B.
Du Bois recalled that by the time he was in high school, in the early 1880s, "the colored population of the town had been increased a little by 'contrabands,' who on the whole were well received by the colored group; although the older group held some of its social distinctions and the newcomers astonished us by forming a little Negro Methodis Zion Church, which we sometimes attended."l (continued) ' Laborers, a category including farm laborers, were from 24 to 49 percent of all employed persons in federal census years between 1850 and 1930, while domestics - including cooks, waiters, porters, coachmen, and laundresses as well as "servants" - were from 33 to 51 percent of the workforce. These figures are based only on reported occupations, which may certainly not embrace the entire local African American workforce. 10 Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, 564. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev.
10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page4 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA As anthropologist David Levinson has pointed out, however, the church was not the creation solely of southerners. If those who witnessed the deed for the church's Elm Court property in 1881 are representative of the whole, the congregation was a combination of "old families" - that is, born in the North and relatively long-term residents of the town - and "new families" who had come from the South since the Civil War and most noticeably after 1880. Of the ten people (five married couples) who witnessed the deed, five were northerners and five southerners.
Jason Cooley, active in the church from its founding until his death in 1911, was born in 1838 in Sheffield, a small town adjacent to Great Barrington that had long had a relatively large population of African Americans. By 1870 he lived and worked as a waiter in Great Barrington in the household of Artemus Bigelow with four other domestic servants including Almira Harris, who was from Hightstown, New Jersey, and was the Bigelows' cook. Cooley and Harris married in 1876 in Great Barrington. Daniel Brown, born about 1840 in New Haven, Connecticut, was in Great Barrington by 1868 when he married Sheffield native Sarah A. Johnson.
Those with southern roots included Egbert and Rebecca Lee, in Great Barrington by 1870, listed themselves in that census as having been born in Tennessee." Manuel and Emily Mason were both born in Virginia but were married in Stockbridge in 1871; by 1880 they and their three young children were living in Great Barrington." Jefferson and Margaret McKinley, the fifth witnessing couple, married in Great Barrington in 1869. Margaret McKinley was born in Livingston, New York, and was the daughter of Harrison Cooley; Jefferson, or Thomas Jefferson, McKinley was born into slavery in North Carolina about 1810-15.
McKinley was later sold to a New Orleans enslaver, and after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863 he attached himself in some way to a south Berkshire regiment of the Massachusetts Forty-Ninth Infantry and returned North with them after the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, that If the initial discussions about forming a church took place in the 1860s, the subject must have been broached by northerners: as late as 1870 only four of the ninety African Americans in Great Barrington had been born in the South. Records have not survived to indicate why they chose to affiliate with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, but the decision may have been triggered in part by missionary work throughout the region.
Methodist clerics Freeborn Garretson, who had earlier held slaves, and the African American "Black Harry" Hosier may have been the first, having toured through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island in the summer of 1790. Among their stops were the northwestern Connecticut towns of Sharon, Cornwall, Litchfield, Canaan, and Salisbury;' Canaan and Salisbury are both less than twenty miles from Great Barrington. According to Levinson, published local histories (continued) 'This Egbert Lee, born about 1845, does not seem to have been the same Egbert Lee identified as an "emancipated man" from Georgia in the 1880 Great Barrington census. Records consistently show the latter to have been born about 1800. He married Jane Winslow of Salisbury, Connecticut, in Great Barrington in 1871 and died ten years later, the year the deed was signed.
The Egbert Lee recorded as grantee was married to Rebecca, whose husband was the younger Egbert Lee. David Levinson, Sewing Circles, Dime Suppers, and W. E. B. Du Bois: A History of the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2007), 26, states that Egbert Lee was a Civil War veteran and worked as a butler for William H. Gibbons of Savannah, Georgia, who owned a summer house at the corner of Silver and Maple Streets in Great Barrington. The younger Lee does not appear in Berkshire County censuses after 1870. Manuel Mason was shown as a laborer living in the household of a white farmer in Lee in 1870. 13 McKinley is not listed among Union Army soldiers in the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System Web site, http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/. On McKinley see Drew, Origins, 60, and Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 90.
1" Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage, xili, 98. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page5 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA and newspapers indicate that both A.M.E. and A.M.E. Zion missionaries were active in Sheffield, Lee, and Great Barrington as early as the mid-1840s.! African Americans in Lee founded an A.M.E. church there in 1844 (it moved into its own sanctuary in 1852) probably as a result of these missionary endeavors, and it seems likely that the building of this church stimulated discussions to form a congregation in Great Barrington.
An African American Methodist clergyman, William Demend, lived in Great Barrington with his family in 1860 and may have played a role in the early discussions about forming a church. Why the congregation affiliated with the A.M.E. Zion Church rather than the A.M.E. Church is not known. Both denominations were founded by African Americans in protest of segregation within Methodist meetinghouses in Philadelphia and New York, respectively. In 1821 one church document simply stated, "We do not desire to unite with the R. Allen party, being dissatisfied with their general manner of procedure," a reference to the Philadelphia AME church Richard Allen had founded earlier. Another early document distinguishes between the forms of government of the two churches: the clergy organized into regular conferences that set policy for the A.M.E. Church, while in the A.M.E.
Zion Church "the government is lodged in the hands of the ministers and laymen."l6 Whether these distinctions were influential in the church's affiliation cannot be determined. The Great Barrington church was named for A.M.E. Zion Bishop Joseph Jackson Clinton (1823-81), who in 1864 was the man responsible for sending missionaries to organize southern African Americans into churches and statewide conferences. His recent death probably motivated the church to honor his name. Before Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church was founded, African Americans in Great Barrington attended local European American churches. W. E. B.
Du Bois's grandmother was Episcopalian, while his mother and many of her kin worshiped with white Congregationalists before and after the African American church was created." Though it cannot be documented, it may be that the presence of southern African Americans created added stimulus for creating Clinton Church, as Methodism of all sorts had grown rapidly in the South during the 19" century. Local historian Bernard Drew has suggested that southern-born African Americans "felt less comfortable in the existing churches" of Great Barrington. 1 It is true that African American migrants from the South were far more accustomed to worshiping in African American churches than people born in the North, especially where the local numbers of northerners were so small as to make supporting a church difficult. (continued) 15 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 17.
16 See John Jamison Moore, History of the A.M.E. Zion Church in America. Founded in 1796, in the City of New York (York, PA, 1884), 62-65, 75-76, facsimile edition on University of North Carolina Documenting the American South Web site, http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/moorej/moore.html. Past efforts to join the two churches have consistently failed. See Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1921), 71-88. " Levinson, Clinton A.M.E., 12, cites Althea Burghardt's membership in the South Egremont Congregational Church in 1871; at roughly the same time Great Barrington's Episcopal church included Emma Grace Burget (a variant spelling of Burghardt), Ira Burget, and Othello Burghardt, the last being Du Bois's grandfather. 18 In 1816 nearly a quarter of all American Methodists were of African descent.
When the church split into a northern and southern branch in the 1850s, plantation owners helped finance the missionary efforts of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. By the time of the Civil War AME Zion worked to convert African Americans in the South, and membership rose from five thousand in 1860 to approximately seven hundred thousand by 1916. The AME Church is said to have been stronger in the North. See Joseph "Methodism and the Negro in the United States," Journal of Negro History 8, 3 (July 1923): 301, 303, 307. 19 Drew, Origins, 79. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page _ 6 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA Despite the affiliation of some with European American churches, others of the extensive Burghardt clan were early members of Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church. One was W.E.B. Du Bois's uncle James T. Burghardt, with whom Du Bois and his mother lived in the early 1880s. Grace Freeman, Lucinda Gardner, James Henry Jackson, Frances Newport, William Piper, and Edward C. Wooster had all married into the Burghardt tamily or were the children of Burghardt 20 Wooster, born in Connecticut, was one of five trustees of the church in the early 1880s. Though 19th - century membership figures do not exist to document it, Du Bois himself may have been a member.
In 1883 and 1884, while he was in high school, he attended meetings of the church's Sewing Society (of which he was temporarily secretary in 1883) and Literary Society and attended some church services and meetings."Among early members Levinson has been able to identify from other sources, well more than half were northerners, including William Crosley, John and Sarah Ferris, Grace Jackson, and the siblings Frederick, Harriet, and Jane (Jennie) Sumea. In addition to Mason, McKinley, and Lee, Abram W. Austin and William Chinn were members born in the South. Regardless of regional origin, the occupational profile of most known early members mirrored that of Great Barrington African Americans as a whole: most worked in domestic service or general labor. One scholar has claimed that once Clinton A.M.E. Zion was organized, "black membership in the white churches...
ceased almost entirely." However, such can only have been the case if nearly all nonmembers did not attend church at all. Although it was the town's only African American church, Clinton's membership was stated to be only eleven or twelve persons in 1901, by which time the African American population of Great Barrington had rebounded from its low of ninety in 1870 to 123 persons." According to Drew even the Reverend Byron Scott, who served as the church's pastor from 1916 to 1929, became a member of the local Congregational church. Supporting the Church Even assuming that the congregation was somewhat larger in the 1880s than in 1900 it was small by any standard, which is no doubt accountable for the fact that building its own sanctuary was forestalled for more than fifteen years.
When it was first organized, according to the 24 August 1870 issue of the Berkshire Courier, the congregation anticipated building "a house of their own to worship in within the next year."4 In that decade the women of the church created a sewing society and hosted such events as strawberry festivals and dime suppers to raise funds for construction. By 1881 the congregation had raised $1,000, had purchased a lot on Main Street for the church, and had acquired lumber and stone in preparation for building the following spring. But in October the congregation was "induced," according to one account, to sell its Main Street land to Mary Frances Hopkins, the widow of Pacific Railroad tycoon Mark Hopkins, for $1,000.
With these and other funds the church bought a plot on Elm Court, ther Elm Street Extension, between Main Street and the tracks of the Housatonic Railroad.2 (continued) 2° Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 9-10. His statement is confirmed in census and vital statistic records. 21 Ibid., 42-43. 22 Not only did the population increase, but the percentage of African Americans living and working in white households also rose, from roughly 11 percent in 1870 to nearly 28 percent in 1930. This change no doubt reflects the movement of single people rather than families from the South during these years. 2 Drew, Origins, 60. 24 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 18. 25 Ibid., 26. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page7 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA Mary Hopkins moved to Great Barrington at some point after the death of her husband in 1878. Both had family ties to the town. Mark Hopkins's great-grandfather, Dr. Samuel Hopkins, was a clergyman in Great Barrington, and his grandfather Moses lived in the town until his death in 1748. His father, Mark Hopkins Sr., married his cousin Anastasia Kellogg of Great Barrington, and Mark Jr. also married his cousin, Mary Frances Sherwood. Either herself or as part of her husband's estate, Mary Hopkins inherited a ninety-acre tract abutting Main Street that had been owned by her aunts, Sarah, Mary, and Nancy Kellogg, who ran a private boarding school.
Her husband had been a member of the antislavery Free Soil Party and a "constant friend" to African Americans, according to one of his biographers, ,2 and the Kelloggs in Great Barrington had long employed African Americans. The couple Samuel and Maria Van Ness were in the household by the 1850s (and probably the 1840s, when two people of color of their age group were living at Sarah Kellogg's school) as was Tom Burghardt. W. E. B. Du Bois later wrote of his great uncle. Nearly all his life Tom Burghardt had been a servant in the Kellogg family, only the family usually forgot to pay him; but finally they did give him a handsome burial. Then Mark Hopkins, a son or relative of the great Mark, appeared on the scene and married a daughter of the Kelloggs.
He became one of the Huntington-Stanford-Crocker Pacific Associates who built, manipulated and cornered the Pacific railroads and with the help of the Kellogg nest-egg, Hopkins made nineteen million dollars in the West by methods not to be inquired into. His widow came back to Great Barrington in the eighties and planned a mansion out of the beautiful blue granite which form our hills. A host of workmen, masons, stone-cutters and carpenters were assembled, and in the summer of 1884 I was made time-keeper for the contractors who carried on the job." Mary Hopkins brought an African American steward with her from San Francisco, and in Great Barrington she employed William Crosley. Born in Connecticut, he worked as a "carriageman" for Hopkins, and he and his wife Alice were the first to live in the estate's carriage house. There they held meetings of Clinton AME's Sewing Society?
Why Hopkins bought the church's Main Street lot is unclear, but she may well have been motivated by a wish to help the congregation. Still, the $1,000 she paid for the lot was not enough to purchase the Elm Court tract: the land alone cost $1,500.?9 Five years later, in 1886 - as Levinson points out, fully sixteen years after the congregation's women members had begun to hold events to raise funds for it - work began on the Clinton sanctuary. To raise additional funds the congregation sold off part of its Elm Court property for $600, and it took out a mortgage of $1,000 from Great Barrington Savings Bank. In the end the building cost $2,375, its heating system $150, and its furnishings and other items $250.3° A number of local people bought and donated furnishings to the church. Newspaper editor and published Clark W.
Bryan supplied an organ while his mother-in-law donated a "desk covering." Both the (continued) 26 See B. B. Redding. A Sketch of the Life of Mark Hopkins (SF: A. L. Bancroft & Co, 1881); on the family see Timothy Hopkins, The Kelloggs in the Old World and the New (San Francisco: Survey Press and Photo Engraving, 1903), 1:376-78. 27 Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, 568-69. There are a number of Burghardt men named Tom, including W.E.B Du Bois's great-great grandfather, the patriarch of the family, and his great uncle mentioned here. Drew, Origins, 70. 29 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E Zion Church, 36. 30 Ibid., 31, 36. The cornerstone of the building bears the inscription "AME Zion 1886." NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 8 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA Congregational Society and the druggist Fred T. Whitingfor whom the formerly enslaved William Lafayette Chinn worked as a porter - gave bibles, and Whiting's daughter Mary gave a bookmark. Edmund B. Culver, a local undertaker, donated a music stool. The only African American among these benefactors appears to have been Manuel Mason, who gave book racks to the new church. The women continued to sponsor fund-raising events to support the church's maintenance, its pastor's salary, and its debt. The Holiness Movement also stimulated church income. Begun after the Civil War by Methodists, the movement effectively endorsed an unfettered expression of emotion as a sign of sanctification.
A revival in Great Barrington in the fall of 1886 generated another $175 in support for the church.34 But as church membership dwindled, the church's precarious financial situation worsened. Lucinda M. Wooster, wife of former trustee Edward C. Wooster, stated in a Berkshire Courier newspaper article in 1900 that Clinton A.M.E. Zion had only seven members, all of them women (a statement that, as Levinson states, failed to take into account male trustees). "Some are situated so they can not work much in the church," Wooster wrote, "and three of the seven are widows, all but one or two aged and invalids; three have small children to look after." The church could offer no parsonage, and pastors of necessity took other work to sustain themselves and their families: Byron Scott, for example, mowed lawns and worked as a handyman on small jobs throughout the town.
Financial difficulty probably accounts in large part for the rapid turnover in the ministry. Between 1870 and 1900 sixteen pastors served the congregation, and not until Scott assumed Clinton's pastorate in 1916 did any serve more than three years3 In 1900 the congregation sold another part of its Elm Court property to generate income. Financial distress may have motivated at least in part the affiliation of Clinton AME Zion Church with Congregationalism in 1913. The move was initiated by then-pastor 1912 John E. Hill and contested by some Zion members, who charged that Hill wanted only to have a parsonage. Those of the twenty-eight members at the time who wished to remain A.M.E. Zion Methodists were expelled and removed the organ from the church.
The affiliation was short-lived: Clinton became the Second Congregational Society of Great Barrington in June 1913 but resumed its Methodist affiliation the following February. In that month a court ruled in favor of the Zion faithful, who had filed a lawsuit when African American lumber dealer Warren H. Davis, who had acquired the church property, proposed to sell it to a third party. The court ordered that the property be sold to the national A.M.E. Lion Church, which transferred it back to the local congregation in 1945. Four of the seven defendants Levinson identified - Davis, John E.
Hill, Helen Anderson, and Della Wright - appear to have been relatively new to Great Barrington, and either one (continued) 31 Drew, Origins, 61, states that Wm Lafayette Chinn escaped slavery on the Cheyne plantation in Virginia in 1864, when he was eleven years old, and came to Great Barrington with his wife, of African and Indian descent. He worked first as a waiter in a Great Barrington hotel and then for Whiting. His daughter May Edward Chinn is said to have been one of the first African American female physicians in the country. See also Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 90. 32 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 36. Mrs. Charles Benton and E. R. Lorraine also donated items, but neither can be ositively identified from census records 3 "The Holiness Movement." Unity Publishing Web site http://www.unitypublishing.com/NewReligiousMovements/NewBrianCharismatics.html.
34 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 61-62. 35 Ibid., 64. 3° Ibid., 185. 37 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 78-86. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 9 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA or both parents of all four were born in slave states. Eight of thirteen plaintiffs were members of so-called "old" families and were born in the North.3 As at the time of its founding, its government combined longtime and new residents. The officers and trustees of the reorganized church were members of one old family, the Woosters, and several people apparently recently arrived in the town - George and Helen Hyatt, Jennie Moore, and Joseph Jaynes. By 1907-8, membership in Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church increased to about twenty, but it appears to have declined after 1914: in winters during the 1930s a reported eight to sixteen people attended Sunday services, while in summer from twelve to thirty attended, which probably reflects in large part the presence of seasonal domestic help. To what degree summer residents joined the church or contributed to its support is unknown. Membership must have begun to rise in the late 1930s, for by 1939 the church was able to build a parsonage as a rear ell to the church, and in the 1940s the congregation painted the sanctuary, fixed its roof, installed carpet, and began to convert the dirt-floor basement into a meeting place and kitchen. By 1945 the church reported eighty-two members and roughly that number in 1952; those years were the height of church membership.
It then rose and fell unevenly through about 1967, when it again began to fall steadily."' The completion of the parsonage, which lessened the necessity for ministers to take other part-time work, seems to have had an immediate effect on the longevity of pastorates on the whole: from that point tenures of four years were not uncommon, and some - in particular William E. Durante, John Cooper, John R. Parron, and Esther Dozier - remained in the Clinton ministry from six to eleven years. Rev. Esther Dozier, the first female pastor of the church, was active in preserving the legacy of W.E.B. DuBois and African American heritage in the Town of Great Barrington, and she initiated the effort to obtain a National Register nomination for the church. The Church as a Focal Point Even in its years of leanest membership, Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church was a centerpiece for the African American community of Great Barrington, not only for worship but for philanthropy, culture, and the discussion of political issues. During the dispiriting decades after the Civil War, when Jim Crow legislation institutionalized segregation and violence against African Americans increased in the South, the church played host to an A.M.E. Zion annual Sunday School convention in 1895 at which a report "on civil rights and lynching" was read. It decried "the deplorable spirit of lawlessness" that lynching represented and the fact that this spirit was then "spreading itself over the land." "God's blessing cannot long continue," the report stated, "with a nation whose people are indifferent to, or careless of the claims of justice to each and all of its citizens." After the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v.
Ferguson, which deemed "separate but equal" facilities for European and African Americans constitutional, the issue (continued) 38 Only two of the seven defendants - Davis and the white realtor George L. Taylor - were in the 1910 census; five of the seven are listed in the 1920 census. Plaintiffs included members of the Sumea, Wooster, Ferris, Van Buren, and Jackson families, all older families. 39 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 85. In Great Barrington George and Helen Hyatt worked at a private school as a chauffeur and waitress, respectively, and moved to Boston by 1920. Jennie Moore, born in New York, was a widow living with the widow Sarah Ferris. Nothing is known of Jaynes. 40 Ibid., 105; membership figures are reported throughout. 4' Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 96.
The assertion that lynching was moving beyond the South referred specifically to the fact that it was "entering even that splendid commonwealth, which gave to our nation the immortal president, Abraham Lincoln." Between 1891 and 1914 more than twenty lynchings took place in Illinois. See Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, "A Warlike Demonstration": Legalism, Armed Resistance, and Black Political Mobilization in Decatur, Illinois, 1894-1898," Journal of Negro History 83, 1 (1998): 53. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page _ 10 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA reached into neighboring Sheffield.
In 1903 that town's school committee voted to maintain racially segregated schools over the objection of local African Americans, who boycotted the school and sued the town. During the controversy the building designated for African American students burned down.*2 It was at this time that W. E. B. Du Bois emerged as the chief critic of Booker T. Washington, who advocated the view that African Americans needed to make themselves indispensable to the American economy before pursuing any effort to achieve racial equality.
While Washington's platform had won wide support among prominent Americans of European descent, Du Bois asserted that African Americans formed Washington's "strongest and most lasting opposition." In his 1903 The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois claimed that Washington's "programme of industrial education, conciliation of the South, and submission and silence as to civil and political rights... practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races," condoned efforts to circumscribe their rights, and caused "the steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro" in favor of institutions based on the model Washington had created, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama.
"Is it possible, and probable," he asked, "that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men?" Soon after publishing The Souls of Black Folk Du Bois founded the Niagara Institute and then the NAACP, but ultimately he rejected the notion that such integrated groups could achieve racial justice. By the 1920s Du Bois became a leading and persistent voice for "Pan Africanism," the movement to secure equal rights for people of African descent around the world. By an odd coincidence he died 27 August 1963, the night before the renowned March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
There Roy Wilkins, then executive secretary of the NAACP, stated of Du Bois, "It is incontrovertible that at the dawn of the twentieth century his was the voice calling you to gather here today in this cause. Du Bois's views do not appear to have had a notable effect on the political involvement of Clinton A.M.E. Zion in these years. Political engagement seems to have emerged in more sustained fashion during the Second World War. In February 1943 the Reverend Henry Morrison registered a complaint with town selectmen over housing conditions: Mr. Morrison told the board that when the present war is over, America faces a new problem, which is involved with the general improvement in the national attitude towards people of different races and creeds.
He lauded the board for its past attitude of justice towards all and the townspeople of Great Barrington in general, but brought out that many of the "shacks" in which colored families are forced to live are breeding places of crime and disease. The immediate cause for his appearance, he said, is the fact that a local cleaning and pressing establishment has an exhaust that sends constant noise and cleaning fluid odors into the adjacent home of an elderly colored woman. He asked that the condition be remedied, and while (continued) 42 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 87; Drew, Origins, 54-57. 43 W. E. B. Du Bois, "Of Booker T. Washington and Others," The Souls of Black Folk, in W. E. B. Du Bois: Writings, 392, 394, 398-99; Wilkins quoted in Lewis, Du Bois, 2. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev.
10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 11 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA on the subject, asked that the board investigate the conditions under which several other colored families are forced to live. He described two localities in town, the house of which are poorly equipped, some having constantly wet walls, while others lack the facilities for decent, ordinary existence. The board discussed Mr. Morrison's request, and decided that either the board of health or the building inspector should be notified of the conditions he reported.4 Also during the war Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church hosted meetings dealing with "how the white people feel towards the colored people as a whole." And in the 1950s the Massachusetts Council of Churches appointed the church's minister at the time, David Woodson, to a ministry for migrant workers in the northern part of the county. Beginning in the same decade Clinton members, in particular Elaine Gunn and Ruth D. Jones, the daughter of former pastor Byron Jones, became active in the civil rights movement and in garnering support for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), whose local chapter sometimes met at the church during the 1960s.
In the latter part of that decade, when police had begun to "harass" African American youth in Great Barrington, the town appointed Clinton minister William Durante to lead a committee on police relations, while Clinton trustee Wray Gunn was named chair of a southern Berkshire County human relations committee. The church also worked to enrich the education of African American parishioners. Before the sanctuary was built, Margaret McKinley created the Children's Mite Society, which presented literary and musical programs in town; the congregation also formed a literary association and a lyceum, the latter probably sponsoring lectures - including one in 1894 in which Du Bois spoke about Europe.* It also performed charitable functions for its community, among them a concert at Great Barrington's town hall to support the boarding school education of Julia M.
Newport, who was blind.*7 In addition, by about 1930 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church became a literal center for an African American neighborhood that had coalesced around it, including Warren H. Davis and the families of Nelson Piper, Clinton pastor E. H. Raynor, Charles Anderson, Alan Brooks, Edgar Willoughby, Clarence Gunn, James Wright, Edward Watkins, and John Freeman. Members of all of these families, with the possible exception of Anderson's, were Clinton parishioners. Within this neighborhood were the town's major facilities for boarding and visiting African Americans as well. Willoughby ran the Sunset Inn, a lodging house and a major site of church fund-raisers; Du Bois stayed at this inn on a visit to town in 1928.
Alabama native Martha Crawford, who came to Great Barrington with her husband Isaac in 1942, ran Crawford's Inn and a tea room in the same building, across from the church. At Crawford's Tea Room after the war Clarence Gunn, just returned from his military service, met his future wife Elaine, who had come to Great Barrington with an Anglo American family during the war to escape Maryland's (continued) 44 Berkshire Courier, 15 February 1943, cited in Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 94-95. The selectmen allowed that either the local board of health or building inspector should be notified of the conditions Morrison described, but Levinson has noted that no action appears to have been taken on the issue. 45 Ibid., xv-xvi, 95, 122, 137, 152.
46 Ibid., 46, 50-51, and Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage, 67, which notes that Du Bois described one 1884 "literary and musical evening program" of the Children's Mite Society in an issue of the New York Globe. 47 Drew, Origins, 79. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 12 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA segregated schools. Isaac Crawford Jr.
noted that the inn "was predominantly for Blacks" and that his mother "enclosed a porch and made an office for an employment agency, mainly for teachers and students in the summer." Elaine Gunn recalled that Martha Crawford "brought a number of people from the South, students in college and teachers, to work in the hotels and private homes.*48 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church was also the "mother church" for Great Barrington's second African American church, Macedonia Baptist on nearby Rosseter Street. Martha Crawford was among its organizers, putting on a fried chicken dinner to raise funds and holding the church's first services in her home. By 1957 Macedonia Baptist had purchased its own building. Price Memorial AME Zion Church in Pittsfield, founded in 1958, also grew out of Clinton. At that time about fifty people were members of the Clinton congregation. Today Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church is one of five African American churches in Berkshire County, and its membership is in one of its low cycles. According to Wray Gunn, membership rolls include twenty-five people, twelve of whom are active in the church. Few (including his family, which descends from famed Stockbridge African American Revolutionary War soldier Agrippa Hull) are descendants of the old families who played a major role in Clinton's founding.4 Construction History After more than a decade of planning and fund-raising, the Great Barrington Zion Society began preparing to build its first church in 1881 on a building lot they had acquired on Main Street in 1871. On 24 August 1881, the Berkshire Courier reported on their progress.
This society has for several years been preparing for the erection of a church edifice in this village, and a site has been purchased and timber and underpinning stone procured, and already on the lot. Last week a committee was appointed to confer with a committee selected from other churches consisting of Rev. D.G. Anderson, Rev. E. Scudder, Rev. C.C. Painter and H.T. Robbins, upon the advisability of erecting a building this season, but it was recommended in view of all the circumstances, to postpone the work. The recommendation of the committee has been adopted by the society, and they have decided to wait until next spring, and in the meantime to further complete their preparations. The society is now quite united in their feelings, and have confidence in their ability to carry out their work, provided they have the assistance from our citizens which should certainly be given.
Already they have raised $1,000, and considerable amounts are promised provided the project is carried forward to completion.S® Further work was stalled because of an evidently unanticipated change in location. On 18 October 1881, the Zion Society sold the Main Street lot to one of their white benefactors, Mary Kellogg Hopkins, and it purchased another plot of land behind Main Street from Mark and Phoebe Humphrey for $1,500 about a month later. It is on this latter location on an extension of Elm Street, now known as Elm Court, that the existing building is sited. It also appears (continued) 48 Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage, xvii, 121; Drew, Origins, 85-86. 49 Levinson et al., eds., African American Heritage, 94-95; Wray Gunn, interview with author, Great Barrington, MA, 18 October 2007. 50 As quoted in Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 26. NPS Form10-900 (Rev.
10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page - 13 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA that organizationally the Society was unable to accomplish the undertaking, and it took a reorganization and formal incorporation in 1884 for them to take up the challenge once more. In the meantime, church women had continued to raise funds through a variety of activities, sales and suppers. Ground was broken for the new church in August 1886, and on 6 October the cornerstone was laid in the stone basement wall. Later that week, the local paper provided the following account. The corner stone of the A.M.E.
Zion church, now in the process of erection, on Elm street extension, was laid Tuesday morning, quite a number of members and friends of the Society being present... The corner stone, bearing the inscription A.M.E. Zion 1886 was then laid in the north east corner of the building. Within it were placed a copy of the church discipline, minutes of the last annual conference of the New England district, Record of the Society, a copy of the Altar of Zion, a connectional organ of the Society, published at Salisbury, N.C., and a copy of the Berkshire Courier"51 A building committee composed of Rev. Joseph G. Smith, church trustee Jason Cooley, and Henry Dresser and J.F. Whiting supervised the project. Whiting, who served as treasurer, and Dresser were both prominent members of the white community.
They no doubt were recruited to provide the congregation with financial endorsements and help them navigate the construction process. This relationship probably was a factor in the end result. Although modest and economical, the church was more stylish and well-built than it otherwise might have been, leading the Berkshire Courier to editorialize that "the society is to be congratulated that its earnest efforts, in procuring a permanent home in which to hold its services, has been successful." Dresser and Whiting likely helped select and negotiate costs of the contractor, E.R. Lorraine of Canaan, Connecticut, and carpenter John Mambert of Hudson, New York. The church was designed in a restrained expression of the Shingle Style, which was at the height of popularity in the Berkshires, particularly among those swelling the ranks of the region's summer colony.
Grand "cottages" built or granite stones and wood shingles rivaled those appearing all along the New England coastline. Resort architecture in Great Barrington, Lenox, Stockbridge, and other Western Massachusetts towns was as distinctive as that found in Newport, Rhode Island, or the Massachusetts North Shore and shared the same wealthy New York clientele. Many of the Clinton church's parishioners worked in domestic service in these lavish summer hotels and homes, and the building's design link to this taste reflects this association, if not the direct influence of its white benefactors. The scale and proportions of the church are more domestic than ecclesiastical showing the more relaxed and informal characteristics of the Shingle Style. Its front façade is wide enough to reject the historical Gothic references of small church design.
Windows are also domestic in scale and design, and only the colored glass in the small-pane upper sashes and half-round attic light suggest a religious function. The wood clapboard walls and varied shingle finish in the attic story further dispel local church design traditions. However, the exterior siding and woodwork has always been painted white, which diverges from the organic color tones of the Shingle Style and provides a more church-like (continued) 51 Ibid., 31. 52 Ibid., 32. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 14 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA appearance.
Likewise, the bell tower engaged to the northeast corner of the building and containing the entrance belies a domestic use, although the building could have served as a schoolhouse or library as well as a church. The interior sanctuary is more of a room than an auditorium. Its square proportions, walls plastered above a wood wainscot, and vaulted ceiling exposing three wood trusses create an informal and intimate space. (The natural finishes of the wood work has been painted over diminishing the original effect.) A low dais at the south end of the room elevated the preacher and the choir but slightly above the assembled congregation. The atmosphere of the room was created by the modern design taste, rather than having been dictated by denominational policy or traditional architectural practice.
Of course, African Americans were neither committed nor bound to European American church design history or its symbolism, perhaps making this congregation more open to modern ideas than those associated with established churches and Christian sects. The progressive design of the church and its evident craftsmanship surely increased the esteem of the little A.M.E. Zion Society in Great Barrington and its members in the eyes of the greater community and challenged their outsider status. The new church was dedicated on 6 February 1887. Later in the week, the Berkshire Courier reported, "The cosy [sic] little church was filled to overflowing by a congregation of the members and their friends of other religious denominations of the vicinity.
Many were unable to obtain seats even after a double line of chairs had been placed in the aisles."3 Church records provide the following break-down of expenses. Land Foundation Building Heating 150 Carpets, Furniture & Lighting Incidentals TOTAL COST $4,27554 $1,500 275 2,100 175 75 Five years later, there was still $1,000 remaining on their debt. (Just prior to construction, the society sold a portion of their lot to defray expenses.) On 13 October 1892 Rev. S.W. Hutchings announced a subscription campaign to pay off the mortgage in the Berkshire Courier, which reduced the debt to $498 by the end of the year. Over the ensuing years the church grappled with what appears to have been a constant debt. No sooner was one paid off, when another was needed for building maintenance and improvements.
In 1905 they initiated another fund-raising effort to cover the costs of connecting the church to the city sewer line. The mortgage on the building was not burned until 1921.55 The small congregation remained energetic and steadfast in their diners, sales and entertainments. In 1913 there was still a $500 debt, and a campaign to raise $4,000 was launched by the church, with the surplus going to the (continued) 53 9 February 1887; quoted from Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 33. S4 Levinson, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 36. s5 Ibid.,88. NPS Form10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 15 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA construction of a parsonage.
Pastors seldom stayed in the job for more than a year or two due to low pay and to the added expense of housing. Many ministers were forced to work at other jobs to support themselves and their families. A parsonage would remove a major impediment to establishing a long-term relationship with a minister. To this end the society organized a troupe of jubilee singers to perform throughout the region. The paper announced, "The entertainments are of good class and most entertaining. They comprise jubilee and plantation songs, sung with the pecullar fitness characteristic of the Negro race, and they hope to aid materially the finances of the church."s6 However, it would be another 26 years before the parsonage was actually built. The parsonage project was initiated in 1938 when the church was painted inside and out and the roof repaired. A new carpet was also installed in the sanctuary.
Construction began the following year on an addition to the rear of the church that contained a two-story dwelling. The total cost was $2,756.41. All but $200 was collected from member contributions and fund-raising in the town (including, an anonymous gift of $1,847.85; the remainder was covered by loan from Edward Watkins, one of the workmen. The parsonage was a successful investment as church records clearly indicate that ministers served longer terms after the addition compared to those before. Planning for the next major undertaking began in 1947 when it was announced that church members wanted to finish the low, dirt-floored cellar of the church so it could be used for suppers and other social gatherings.
It was estimated that they would need to raise $4,000 to lower the floor level to provide adequate headroom, pour a concrete floor, insert steel posts to support the floor above, finish walls and ceilings, install a kitchen and bathroom, and furnish the space with tables and chairs. After a year of fund-raising, the church applied for a mortgage so that a local contractor could begin working on the project. When they were turned down for the loan, members decided to do the work themselves. As a result, work dragged on over the next three years. When the Clinton church was scheduled to host the A.M.E. Zion district conference in 1951, a final push was made to complete the work and assemble the necessary furnishings, kitchen appliances and tableware. In 1966 the kitchen was renovated and new furniture was purchased for the dining room.
This time the church obtained a $672 loan from the First Agricultural Bank of Great Barrington. Three years later the same bank provided a loan for $1,300 for a new roof.S The church's historian states, "Although the church could now hold events in the building, the basement never proved entirely satisfactory, since the floor got wet when it rained, the ceiling was low, and the staircase was difficult for elderly members. Suggestions that the church acquire an adjacent building or add to the existing building never came to fruition."59 A scheme to construct an addition to the front of the church containing a more accessible and functional community room was formulated in 1969. The existing church would be insulated and re-sided in the process, with the cost for the whole project estimated at $10,000.
The building fund grew slowly over the next few years and never reached its desired goal. In 1975 the plan was tabled and the $5,723.31 that had accumulated in the building fund were spent to make repairs and improvements to the existing building. New doors and windows were (continued) 56 Ibid., 82 Ibid., 102-104. 58 Ibid., 110, 128, 131. 59 Ibid., 131. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 16 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA installed and a covered porch constructed over the front entrance. On the interior, sheet paneling was applied to walls. Integrity In spite the recent renovations that replaced the entrance doors and windows, the Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church is essentially intact to its date of construction and the period in which the parsonage was added to the rear of the building. Its original exterior wood materials have been preserved and retain the white painted finish it has always had. Replacement sash do not have the small colored panes that distinguished the originals (one set of these sashes has been preserved in a window on the north side of the building), but the window openings and their trim have not been altered. Other than these additions, the interior also remains superficially unchanged, including the attached parsonage and the added rooms in the basement. Thus, the building level of integrity is high and more than suffficient to represent its historical and architectural significance.
Archaeological Significance Since patterns of ancient Native American settlement in Great Barrington are poorly understood, any surviving sites could be significant. Ancient sites in this area may contribute information related to Native American subsistence and settlement patterns in the uplands of western Massachusetts. Ancient sites in this area may improve our knowledge of Native people along the Housatonic River drainage and their relationships with other Native socio/political groups to the south in the Connecticut area, to the west towards the Hudson River drainage in New York or eastward to the Connecticut River locale.
Ancient sites in this area may also contribute important information related to the study of Native American exchange systems and the role they played in the spread of technologies, ideas and material goods between the areas noted above as well as eastern and southern coastal locales. Historic archaeological resources described above have the potential to document the early history and architectural evolution of the church structure and the social, cultural, and economic characteristics of the church's congregation and Great Barrington's African American community from the late 19t* through 20#* centuries. Additional documentary research combined with archaeological survey and testing may help locate all structures and archaeological features originally located on the nominated property, their sequence of construction and associations.
Mapping and detailed analysis of the contents and associations of these structures and features may help identify architectural features of the church and its facilities, their date or sequence of construction, and the activities that occurred around the church and parsonage. Detailed analysis of the contents of occupational related features may contribute important information relating to late 19"h and 20" century life in Great Barrington's African American Community. Any information related to the African American community would be very important by contributing information relating to the role that the AME Church played in the history of the African American and larger community in Great Barrington.
Since the Clinton AME Zion Church served not only as a religious center but as a cultural, political, and charitable institution for the Great Barrington African American community, detailed analysis of the contents of occupational related features may contribute important information related to many aspects of African American life in Great Barrington. The importance of information derived from archaeological resources is compounded by the fact that church records were not systematically kept before 1936. Archaeological resources may contribute the only detailed information related to (continued) 60 Ibid. 132. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 17 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA construction and renovation of the church structure and the lives and activities of the church parishioners for the 1886 to 1936 period. Archaeological resources may also contribute important information related to the acculturation of African Americans from the American South with New England and Massachusetts African Americans in the post Civil War period. (end) NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 9 Page1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA Bibliography Digital Sanborn Maps for Massachusetts. http://www.pittsfieldlibrary.org/Online%20Databases.html. Drew, Bernard A.
If They Close the Door on You, Go in the Window: Origins of the African American Community in Sheffield, Great Barrington & Stockbridge. Great Barrington, MA: Attic Revivals Press, 2004. DuBois, W. E. B. Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (1940); reprinted in W. E. B. DuBois: Writings. New York: Library of America, 1986, 630-37. Field, Phyllis F. The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Hartzell,Joseph C. "Methodism and the Negro in the United States," Journal of Negro History 8, 3 (July 1923): 301-307. Levinson, David, et al., eds. African American Heritage in the Upper Housatonic Valley. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2006. Levinson, David. Sewing Circles, Dime Suppers, and W. E. B. Du Bois: A History of the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church.
Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2007. Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993), 4. Melish, Joanne Pope. Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and "Race" in New England, 1780-1860. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. Moore, John Jamison. History of the A.M.E. Zion Church in America. Founded in 1796, in the City of New York. York PA: 1884. Facsimile on University of North Carolina Documenting the American South Web site, http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/moorej/moore.html. U.S. Census Population Schedules, 1790-1930. Digital facsimiles from Ancestry.com. Woodson, Carter G. The History of the Negro Church. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1921. (end) ClintonA.M.E.ZionChurch Name of Property Berkshire, MA County, State 10.
Geographical Data Acreage of Property ess than once acre UTM References See continuation sheet. (Place additional UTM references on a continuation sheet) 1. 18 Zone 635140 Easting 4672660 Northing 3. Zone Easting 2. Zone Easting Northing 4. Zone Easting - See continuation sheet Verbal Boundary Description (Describe the boundaries of the property on a continuation sheet.) Boundary Justification (Explain why the boundaries were selected on a continuation sheet.) 11.
Form Prepared By name/titleNeil Larson & Kathryn Grover, consultants, with Betsy Friedberg, NR Director, MHC organization Massachusetts Historical Commission _ dateApril 2008 street & number220 Morrissey Boulevard _ telephone 617-727-8470 city or town Boston stateMA zip code 02125 Additional Documentation Submit the following items with the completed form: Continuation Sheets Maps A USGS map (7.5 or 15 minute series) indicating the property's location. A sketch map for historic districts and properties having large acreage or numerous resources. Photographs Representative black and white photographs of the property. Additional items (Check with the SHPO or FPO for any additional items) Property Owner (Complete this item at the request of the SHPO or FPO.) name Clinton A.M.E.
Zion Church street & number_ 9 Elm Court telephone city or town Great Barrington Northing Northing state MA _ zip code 01230 Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate properties for listing or determine eligibility for listing, to list properties, and to amend existing listings. Response to this request is required to obtain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.). Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 18.1 hours per response including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form.
Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Chief, Administrative Services Division, NationalPark Service, P.0. Box 37127, Washington, DC 20013-7127; and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reductions Project (1024-0018), Washington, DC 20503. NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 10 Page 1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington(Berkshire), MA Verbal Boundary Description See attached Town of Great Barrington Assessor's Map where the nominated property is identified as parcel number 14- Boundary Justification The parcel represents the original and official boundaries of the church. (end) NPS Form 10-900 (Rev.
10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section numberphotos Page 1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Clinton A.M. E. Zion Church Great Barrington(Berkshire), MA PHOTOGRAPHS Photographer: Neil Larson 3 5 6.
View of exterior from SE View of exterior from NW View of exterior from SW Interior, sanctuary from E Interior, sanctuary, detail of S side Interior, sanctuary, detail of historic window sash on N wall Interior, basement from E UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET REQUESTED ACTION: NOMINATION PROPERTY Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church NAME: MULTIPLE NAME : STATE & COUNTY: MASSACHUSETTS, Berkshire DATE RECEIVED: DATE OF 16TH DAY: DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: 4/16/08 5/20/08 DATE OF PENDING LIST: 5/05/08 DATE OF 45TH DAY: 5/30/08 REFERENCE NUMBER: 08000464 REASONS FOR REVIEW: APPEAL: N DATA PROBLEM: N LANDSCAPE: N LESS THAN 50 YEARS: OTHER : N PDIL: N PERIOD: N PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: REQUEST: N SAMPLE: N SLR DRAFT: N NATIONAL: COMMENT WAIVER: N ACCEPT RETURN REJECT 5.29-08 DATE ABSTRACT/SUMMARY COMMENTS : N N N PRRPARAOR AHTMRRP.
Entered in A -The National Register of Historic Places RECOM./CRITERIA COMMENT- WAIVERN REVIEWER DISCIPLINE TELEPHONE DATE DOCUMENTATION see attached comments Y/N see attached SLR Y/N If a nomination is returned to the nominating authority, the nomination is no longer under consideration by the NPS. MA-Great BarringtonBerkshireCounty) _ Clinton AMEZ. tif Clanton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barringter, Berkshine Co, MA IMAGE 2: View of extario fram northwest ANE MA_GreatBarrington (BerkshircCounty)_Clinton AME1.tif Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barrington, Berkshire Co. MA Imagel: Vici of exterio from sontheast Ma_Great Barringten(Berkshire County) - Clintou MME 3.tif Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barringtan MA (Borkshine Co.) IMAGE 3: view of extarir from southwest | II) MA_Great Barrington(Berlshire Couuty) - Clinton AME5.Hf Clenten A. M.E.
Zion Church Great Barrington, Berksluve Co., MA IMAGE 5: Viewo) sauctuary, detail of south side MA-Great Barrington (Berkshire County) - Clinton AME 4. tif Clantan A. M.E. Zion Church Greut Barringten, Borkshire Co. MA IMAGE 4: View of sauctuarg from east Ma-| Grat Barringtou (Berkshine Couuty) - Clintou AME6. tif Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Great Barringtun, Borkslive Co., MA IMAGE 6: Vraw o7 sauctuarg, detail o histaic window sash on north wall MA_Great Barrington (Berkshins County) - Clinton AME7. tif Clinten A.M.E. Zión Church Great Barringten, Berkshire Co., MA IMAGE 7: Vicio of basement fom east 13 I0 NY, NH a H 19 15 1738 173C PL CLINTON A.M.E.
ZION CHURCH 9 Elm Court, Great Barrington, Berkshire Co., MA BOUNDARY MAP Nominated property represented by Parcel #14-205 as contained within circle SOURCE: Town of Great Barrington Assessor's Map 14 20 GREAT BARRINGTON -NOTE Thoe use la Camveye ictagded BF RECEIVED UPPER HOUSATONIC VALLEY AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE TRAIL MAR 10 2008 MASS.HIST. COMM A project of the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area www.AfricanAmericanTrail.org February 11, 2008 William Francis Galvin Secretary of the Commonwealth Massachusetts Historical Commission 220 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA 02025 Dear Secretary Galvin: On behalf of the Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail, I am writing to support the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church's inclusion for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
This small Black rural church was the first Black institution established in Great Barrington and is now the oldest building in the county in continual use by an African American organization. Incorporated in 1884, Clinton A.M.E. Zion quickly became the center of community life for Black people in southern Berkshire, helping to shape the early years of W. E. B. Du Bois, who wrote articles about the church for the New York Globe andFreeman and who at age 15 was elected temporary secretary of its Sewing Society. Today, the church is at the center of a movement to illuminate the region's African American heritage and the great legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois. Annual W. E. B. Du Bois Birthday and Church Anniversary Celebrations have been held since 2001.
The Church is an important destination on the African American Heritage Trail and the meeting place for lectures and other occasions to mark this remarkable heritage. The African American Heritage Trail would like to formally dedicate the church as a significant site on the trail, following Jacob's Pillow Dance last year and the Col. Ashley House at the trail's inauguration in 2006. It would be a great honor if our dedication ceremony could highlight the church's listing in the National Register. Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church continues to maintain its identity as a traditional church that also serves its community. Its listing in the Nationai Register wili strengihen its ability to make our region's African American history alive in our time.
Sincerely, acea Rachel Fletcher Co-Director, Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail Partners - Arrowhead/Berkshire Historical Society - Berkshire Athenaeum - Berkshire Community College Berkshire Publishing Group - Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church - The Du Bois Center of American History & Culture Friends of the Du Bois Homesite - Great Barrington Historical Society - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts National Evaluation Systems - Pittsfield Historical Commission - Pittsfield Office of Cultural Development - Pittsfield Second Congregational Church - Samuel Harrison Society - Sheffield Historical Society - Simon's Rock College Stockbridge Library Association Historical Collection - The Trustees of Reservations - University of Massachusetts at Amherst - W. E. B.
Du Bois Foundation, Inc.- Williams College PO Box 472 - GREAT BARRINGTON, MA 01230 - 413-528-3391 - info@AfricanAmericanTrail.org RLACDAHE JEVE UBENAN The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Massachusetts Historical Commission RECEIVED 2280 APR 16 2008 NAT. REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES NATIONAL PARK SERVICE April 4, 2008 Mr. J. Paul Loether National Register of Historic Places Department of the Interior National Park Service 1201 Eye Street, NW, 8" floor Washington, DC 20005 Dear Mr. Loether: Enclosed please find the following nomination form: Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church, 9 Elm Court, Great Barrington (Berkshire), MA The nomination has been voted eligible by the State Review Board and has been signed by the State Historic Preservation Officer.
The owners of the property were notified of pending State Review Board consideration 30 to 45 days before the meeting and were afforded the opportunity to comment. One letter of support has been received. Sincerely, Betay Fredleig Betsy Friedberg National Register Director Massachusetts Historical Commission enclosure CC: Neil Larson/Kathryn Grover, consultants James Parrish, Great Barrington Historical Commission Wray Gunn, Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church Anthony Blair, Great Barrington Board of Selectmen Rachel Fletcher, Upper Housatonic Valley African American Heritage Trail Donald Goranson, Planning Board Chair 220 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125 (617) 727-8470 - Fax: (617) 727-5128 www.state.ma.us/sec/mhc
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