South Harwich Methodist Church

The South Harwich Methodist Church, built in 1836, occupies a prominent site at the intersection of Chatham, Deep Hole, and 01d County Roads in the resort and residential community of Harwich on the south side of the Cape Cod peninsula. The church is set back about 100 feet from the road and faces south on a level lot. Fronting the church is a broad lawn, while to the east, west, and north is a graveyard whose first burials predate the church's construction by seven years. A granite-paved walkway leads from a roadside cattle blind of cut stone to the church. Residences (some of them of 19th century construction) and 20th century motels and commercial buildings are located in the church's immediate neighborhood.

The clapboard-sheathed church is a simple, gable-roofed structure, thirty-seven feet wide and forty-five feet long. It is sited with its gable end facing the street. The building rises one story from a brick foundation. There is no tower- The church's exterior displays a mix of Greek Revival and Gothic Revival elements. The broad facade is framed by delicate panelled pilasters, which support the building's entablature and cornice with returns. Vented windows and doors are set within lancet-headed openings. The three-bay main facade features a central window with paired 6/6 sash, flanked by entryways. Two granite steps lead to each entryway. Both the east and west facades each contain three 1ancet-headed window openings containing paired 6/6 sash surmounted by vents.

On the rear, northern facade are located two 6/6 sash windows, also within 1ancet-headed windows. Interior The building's interior is remarkably intact. In plan, it is essentially rectangular, with two vestibules on either side of the central window. The altar is set in front of a small, round-arched bay projecting to the rear of the building.

/Architect Unknown Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The South Harwich Methodist Church, built in 1836, holds historical associations with the growth of Methodism in the central Cape Cod town of Harwich and was in daily use until the mid 20th century. Architecturally, the church is a well-preserved representative of the simply ornamented, rec tangular-pl an churches buildings erected on the Cape during the first half of the 19th century, a period of unprecedented ecclesiastical construction. The church's use of both Greek Revival and Gothic Revival features distinguishes it, as does its particularly intact interior.

Retaining integrity of location, design, setting, materials, feeling, and workmanship, the South Harwich Methodist Church thus fulfils Criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level. While Methodist societies had been formed in America prior to the Revolution, Methodism was not promulgated on the Cape Cod peninsula until ca. 1790, when itinerant minister Jesse Lee, disciple of southern evangelical Devereux Jarratt, visited a number of towns in the region. With the help of other circuit riders, Methodism's spread thereafter was rapid, coupled with the construction of a number of Methodist meetinghouses. In the Harwich area, Methodist converts built a meetinghouse on Queen Anne Road on the Chatham border in East Harwich in 1799.

(This was replaced in 1811 with a structure that was apparently similar to the nominated property, with gable front and framing pilasters; it was substantially altered in 1905.) The nominated property, the town's second Methodist seat of worship, was erected in 1836 on 1and deeded to the church by John Paine Eldredge. The first burials took place prior to the church's construction in 1829. Other societies followed shortly thereafter, in North Harwich in 1842 and near the Chatham line at Bethel in 1853 (neither survive).