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Hughes A.M.E. Chapel
Inventory No.:
D-282
Other Name(s):
Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church; Nause-Waiwash Longhouse
Date Listed:
6/29/2018
Location:
4201 Maple Dam Road, Cambridge, Dorchester County
Category:
Building
Period/Date of Construction:
1894-1968
Architect/Builder:
unknown
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Description:
The Hughes AME Chapel (a.k.a. Nause-Waiwash Longhouse) is located at the corner of Greenbrier and Maple Dam Roads in the center of the Bucktown Election District, about ten miles south of Cambridge in Dorchester County, Maryland. Built ca. 1894, it is a simple rectangular one-story gable-front meetinghouse of frame construction, supported on a brick pier foundation. The building is sheathed in plain weatherboard siding and the medium-pitched roof is covered with wood shingles. The building is one bay wide by three bays deep. Its southwest façade is defined by a double-door entrance, reached by a shallow stoop of brick and concrete and topped by a three-light transom. The southeast and northwest side elevations are three bays across, with 2/2 sash windows covered with batten shutters. The header of each window opening is decorated with a small crown molding. The outer corners of the building are trimmed with beaded corner boards. The extended eaves of the gable roof have open soffits with exposed rafter ends. The northeast (rear) elevation has a shed-roofed apse with 2/2 windows on the sides. The interior is a single space, with a raised chancel marked by a simple rail, and an additional step elevating the altar area. The interior has been altered with a dropped ceiling and plywood paneling applied over the original plaster finish, but is currently undergoing restoration. The building retains a high degree of integrity. It retains all of its original form, massing, and exterior features; on the interior the original plan remains unchanged, and features such as flooring, chancel rail, and window trim are intact. Original finishes remain in place behind later wall and ceiling materials. In its form, plan, and construction, the building is typical of meetinghouses built throughout Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the 19th and early 20th century.
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Significance:
The Hughes AME Chapel is architecturally significant as a representative example of a type of religious structure that characterized rural communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its rectangular, gable-roof form, wood frame construction, and plan with an open seating area and raised chancel are typical of such rural churches, as are its materials (wood weatherboard siding, 2/2 sash windows, wood shingle roof with exposed rafter ends). It retains a high degree of integrity. The building derives additional historical significance for its association with the history of the Bucktown area, where bi- and tri-racial people, descendants of Native, African, and European Americans, survived and persisted as distinct yet interrelated communities into the 21st century. Throughout the history of the building, it was used and occupied by persons who identify with these groups. Furthermore, it represents the social evolution of Eastern Shore Indians who would change their identity to one that the white majority would find more controllable, rather than migrate north to live with other tribes. Finally, the building is uniquely suited to facilitate the re-uniting and re-discovery of native people whose forced racial identities as black and white resulted in their cultural separation over the last 200 years. The period of significance, ca. 1894-1968, begins with the original construction of the building and ends at an arbitrary date fifty years in the past. The building has been continuously occupied and used by members of the local community throughout its existence; included among them are ancestors of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians, who assumed ownership of the building in 1998.
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