Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church
1. A Landmark Disappears
Mount Dora’s most memorable landmark from any approach may not survive the present tide of our time.
For ten years Mount Zion Primitive Baptist —a church dating back to the nineteenth century which has blessed the intersection of Old and New 441 for more than fifty years — has sat unused, paint peeling, weeds growing taller, rust deepening on its metal roof. Like a headstone in an abandoned cemetery slowly disappearing under the accumulating forest floor, its welcome to all is almost lost, along with its history and hope.
Marking for all the turn from US-441 onto its older trunk leading into the city, the little church at the crossroads may not survive its own. It was sealed last November by the Orange County sheriff’s department, hoping to prevent further intrusion by the curious and vagrant, but the padlock was hacked off. A “No Trespassing” sign still hangs on doors that are rotting away.
Rocks are piled on the front steps, apparently placed there one day by a woman who had shown up saying God had told her the church was hers.
On the east side of the church, there is damage along the lower side of the east wall where thieves tore away boards to get at the a/c system’s copper tubing. Two windows were broken; they were boarded, but then someone had put a chair under one, pried off the board and has been getting into the church, apparently to sleep (there aren’t any signs of vandalism).
Some of the lawn around the church has been mowed, but a large section is knee-high with weeds and overgrown saw palmettos and vines grow around the church. A sign once used to post announcements had collapsed. The parking area in front is a sort of pond now.
Inside the sanctuary is a mess. There are animal nests in the pews and acorn shells are gathered on top of the piano keys. The pews are infested with drywood termites and the building is being eaten by subterranean termites.
There were signs of human intrusion, too — a package of trail mix on a pew next to a tube of Crest.
About the sanctuary, the celebration of faith sat in stillness — the gold sash of a preacher draped on a rough wood altar near a white Bible, an old iron stove which used to heat the congregation stuffed with recent paper, a tambourine up on the podium, set there after the last rousing song. Summer heat droned in the open window and wasps tapped on the ceiling, winding their way around lamps hanging down from the ceiling.
It’s been more than ten years since the last service in this little church, a wake for its second to last parishioner. He’s buried now in one of four cemeteries which served Mount Dora’s black community over its 150-year history in the area. Those resting places range now from wholly lost to abandoned, restored but unvisited to the still faithfully but faintly attended to.
There is just one remaining parishioner of Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church, an old and sick woman whose only remaining hope is that someone will show up to assume care of the church. And while she pines to hear faith and celebration in its walls, it is enough that perhaps it will at least be loved.
But for now, there was only silence of an empty church, the faint buzzing of old native Florida rising up toward the broken window — and, further beyond, sounds of traffic on Old and New 441 mixing with the distant whir of development accelerating in from the region’s rim.
How a lost church may be found again is the question which guides this story.
How the community answers it will say a lot about what may or may not be special about Mount Dora, back then or any more.
—David Cohea (djcohea@gmail.com)
Up next: The story of the little church on the hill.
In this series about Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church:
I. A Landmark Disappears
2. The Little Church On The Hill
3. Saving The Music: Preservation Ideas
4. Preserving The History Means More Than A Fresh Coat of White Paint
