Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
The old Thomas Chapel Community Church has been sitting dormant and decaying for years, much to residents’ dismay – as some of them even used to go there when it was a functioning church. Operating since 1961, it was a fixture in the community for decades, but hasn’t operated as a church for years now.
Last week, construction workers hired by the nearby Hemlock Inn were at the church cutting wood and doing repairs.
According to Andrew White, whose family owns the Inn and who is supervising the project with Hemlock Retreat, the nonprofit run by the Hemlock Inn, they wanted to get it fixed up and turned back into a community space for events as well as religious services.
The idea has been popular already with residents of nearby houses surrounding Deep Creek.
“It’s really encouraging to see the support from the community,” he said. “We’ve had dozens of people ask for this, people with family members back [buried in the cemetery].”
The project began last summer when the owners of the inn approached Galbraith Creek Missionary Baptist Church, which held the deed at the time. White said his family told the other church that they’d like to “take it off their hands” and restore it. The other church agreed, and so Hemlock Retreat began to raise money both from community members and historic preservation grants.
White said they have raised $15,000 so far. The total restoration will probably take around $40,000 to $60,000. He said there had been multiple enthusiastic donations and the Hemlock Inn is also soliciting more grant money, which White said he was confident they’d get.
The church has fallen into disrepair over the years. White said it had “been a while” since any kinds of events had taken place there. He pointed to spots that were rotting away or which had foundation issues and said that was part of the scope of the repair.
“It’s not an active church,” he said. “It’s fallen into disrepair. A lot of it is rotting – a tree fell and disconnected the power. There’s rot, there’s foundation issues… we rang the bell this morning and the rope snapped on the second ring. I guess we’ll need some new rope.”
Outside the church on a breezy Monday afternoon, March 25, workers were putting together new wall sidings to replace one entire side of the exterior wall.
Inside, the church was still full of bright wooden pews and there was some religious art still hanging on the walls behind the stand. Pointing to the ceiling, he said you could see the original white wooden ceiling, as someone put a modern panel style ceiling over it “sometime in the ‘80s or ‘90s.” But White said they were working on getting rid of the panels and restoring the original ceiling.
They also plan to re-install electricity so they can get proper climate control and stop further rotting of the building foundations.
Harrison Dejarnett, an innkeeper at the Hemlock, was on site Monday as well and echoed White’s comments about the renovations being a good thing overall for the community around Galbraith Creek Road.
“We posted on the Chamber of Commerce’s Facebook page, so people knew what was going on, and we have 120 people liking and commenting, so excited,” he said. “Some people were saying ‘that’s where my grandfather was buried.’ It’s clear how excited everyone is.”
As if proving their point, two residents, Charles and Jo Cline, drove up right then in a truck from further on down the road closer to Deep Creek.
“I think it’s great, what they’re doing,” Charles said. “Let me count it back… my great grandpa helped build this church. When I was a kid, we went to church here a bit, my family did. It would be nice to get it back like it used to be originally.”
Jo agreed, recalling a story Charles had told her. “This is where [Charles] was left on the steps,” she said. “After a service, they all went home – but this little boy had wandered. They came back and found him on the steps.”
But Jo she was glad to see the work done.
“I wanted to have my ashes interned here,” she said. “But then the church had kind of fallen away, and I said ‘gee, I don’t know if I want that – even though I’ll be dead.’”
But she said it would be an “improvement for the whole neighborhood” to have the church back in working order.