You can’t help but wonder what Reaves Chapel’s first parishioners would think if they were around to see the little church in Navassa today.
Would they marvel at the fact that the chapel they’d built more than a century ago on the bluffs of the Cape Fear River in Brunswick County will serve as a testament to their existence?
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Could they begin to comprehend the tens of thousands of dollars it cost to painstakingly restore the church to its former glory?
Perhaps they’d share feelings similar to those of the people who’ve devoted years to seeing a project through to preserve one of the oldest African American buildings in southeastern North Carolina.
“Every time we’ve been there this year and walked in with the new floor in and finished, it’s nothing but full body joy,” said Jesica Blake, North Carolina Coastal Land Trust associate director. “Reaves Chapel and other structures in other places that have ties to the history in African American communities are very few and far between. Time and weather and lack of resources have all come in to play in making it so there’s not a lot there and so it’s really important for this original structure that can tell so many layers of history can be protected. Now it will stand for generations to come.”
The chapel in Navassa is set to be dedicated on Friday, marking the end of a long chapter in the building’s storied history, one that enshrines at least some fraction of the lives of those formerly enslaved at Cedar Hill Plantation.
“In terms of history, what really is good about this facility is that it will be a living tribute to exactly what happened and you can tell a story and you will have a visual,” said Henry Robbins, treasurer of the Cedar Hill/West Bank Heritage Foundation.
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It’s a story that one of the church’s former congregants, Al Beatty, spent the better part of the last 15 years of his life fighting to preserve.
Beatty helped form the Cedar Hill/West Bank Foundation in 2011 in an effort to save Reaves Chapel. By that time the church had fallen into dilapidation, its doors long since closed to a congregation that filled its pews donning their Sunday Best.
As Robbins put it, “Al had the idea some years ago of restoring the facility, but he didn’t have the finances to do it.”
So Beatty turned to the Coastal Land Trust in 2015 and, about four years later, the land trust purchased the chapel with money from the Orton Foundation, the North Carolina affiliate of The Moore Charitable Foundation, which supports cultural and historic restoration initiatives in the Cape Fear River Basin.
The project faced what seemed like myriad obstacles that kept both Blake and Beatty on an emotional rollercoaster-like ride with climbs of anxiety and plunges of laughter.
After the Coastal Land Trust purchased the chapel in 2019, the first of two stabilization efforts ensued. Beatty and Blake watched in agony as the chapel, by then in a significant state of disrepair, visibly shook as its steeple was removed.
The following year introduced the COVID-19 pandemic, one that ultimately shut down much of the world. Fundraising was hard to do because potential donors could not be ushered to the church. The building materials needed to restore the chapel significantly rose in both cost and demand during that time.
This all slowed the restoration process, leaving the chapel vulnerable to coastal storms and hurricanes.
“The church was degrading quickly,” Blake said. “It wouldn’t have remained standing if we’d had a big storm. It was holding on.”
All told, the project cost doubled to more than $1 million. That price tag includes the church restoration, landscaping, parking lot and detached restrooms on the property.
Blake and Beatty met at the chapel just a couple of weeks ago, near giddy as they strode into the finished product of their longtime labor of love.
Beatty will be noticeably absent at Friday’s dedication. He died Feb. 21. He was 74.
In a 2022 interview with Coastal Review, Beatty shared childhood memories of attending Reaves Chapel with his family. On Easter Sundays, he and the other children had to recite from the pulpit short speeches intertwined with scripture.
By then, the chapel had been relocated by its congregation, using logs and a team of oxen, inland on land Ed Reaves, a former Cedar Hill Plantation slave, donated to the church in 1911. The church eventually became affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and remained an AME church until its doors closed permanently in the mid-2000s.
Reaves Chapel will not be a regularly functioning church. The heritage foundation and land trust hope the chapel will become a state historic site, one that may be used by the community from time to time.
Beatty was actively planning the upcoming dedication ceremony before his death.
“Really it’s a shame,” Robbins said. “He saw the church come to the conclusion with respect to restoration, but he won’t be able to see the other side of the restoration.”
Blake said she would give anything for Beatty to be there with her Friday.
“But I know he’ll be there anyway,” she said.
The dedication will be part of a series of special events leading up to Leland’s annual North Carolina Rice Festival set for Saturday. For more information visit www.northcarolinaricefestival.org
The Reaves Chapel dedication is invitation-only. Those who would like to reserve a spot at Friday’s ceremony may email Blake at jesica@coastallandtrust.org.
Invitations will be made available on a first-come, first-served basis as limited space is available.
