Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church
3. Saving the Music: Preservation Ideas
It is abundantly clear that something next needs to happen with Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church. If action isn’t taken soon, the building may decay out of functional use and care for it head into limbo.
What isn’t clear is which possible remedy is the one that will be the best the church, for its last parishioner, for the neighborhood which it once served and for the wider community which still loves it. It’s a complicated issue for which there may be no single answer.
Is Mount Zion salvageable or is the structure too deteriorated? Can it be restored and remain as the enduring, central landmark at that gateway into the city, despite the severe space limitations? And for what use? Or can it be put to more productive and beneficial use somewhere inside the city? Who will pay for the work, and when should it begin?
These questions all need to be addressed, and only the most immediate one indicates a sure direction.
1. Fix it
The overwhelming need of the moment is to secure the church and prevent further deterioration. Mount Zion is wide-open to the elements now, which includes weather, insects, animals and vagrants. Two- and four-legged squatters need to be evicted, broken windows need to be boarded back up, a good lock is needed again on the front door and the building. A contractor deeds to get in and determine how much damage has been done. The building needs tenting for termites and subterranean termite damage has to be addressed. Exposed wood needs repairing.
Mount Dora Community Trust could help pay for this work through what they call a sub-fund. Taking the initial step of addressing these concerns could keep the church safe until more significant decisions are made.
2. Transfer ownership
As the church’s remaining parishioner, Beulah Babbs is responsible for deciding what happens next to the church. It’s not something she came to readily; her father Bennie was church’s sole deacon for many years, her mother Maude was the church secretary until her death in 2000. The responsibility came late to Beulah, but she’s determined to to do the right thing. At 80, she walks with a cane and has kidney problems; she knows that her time is limited.
According to the church’s by-laws (Babbs had a copy), there’s an article addressing dissolution which empowers her as the last parishioner of the church to give it and all other assets after debts have been paid to a non-profit foundation exclusively for religious or charitable purposes.
But give the church to who? The city of Mount Dora? Because the church lies outside its city limits, Mount Dora government can do very little in any official capacity. But Babbs could deed the church and its property to the city, and that would enable it to tend to the church, whether it remains in its present location or moves into the city.
Any such action would require approval of council, and according to interim planning manager Vince Sandersfeld, the city’s budget is tight and not likely to entertain such a project like this.
The alternate is a non-profit organization — another church perhaps, though this might limit preservation grant opportunities. Mount Dora’s Historical Society might be limited for the same reason the city is — the church isn’t inside the city proper. There’s the Tangerine Improvement Society and the Apopka Historical Society, but both are far enough away to be low on their radar.
Perhaps a non-profit group could be formed with the express purpose of historical preservation projects which cross the various municipal and county borders, working together to add an important local story to African American history in Florida.
Or the church could simply be sold, torn down for the property as commercial development crawls off 441 or used as real estate office or restraint (but hopefully not as a beer-hall).
3. Option 1: Keep the church where it is
No doubt Mount Zion is most remembered and admired as the principal landmark entering the city on old US-441. How can the church be kept there for that purpose?
It isn’t likely that a black denomination would take it over to hold services there, given the slow emptying of the community from the area. Mount Carmel in Tangerine still has weekly services — Beulah attends there — but congregation there too is greatly diminished. That question however should be asked.
The property could be deeded to the city, and even though it would be outside the city limits, Mount Dora could still maintain and operate the property. The problem is that it’s on such a small lot.
Perhaps there is adjacent property which could be purchased to allow for a fuller setting for the church. There is a vacant lot behind it which could be used for parking. Just a block or so to the east there looks to be undeveloped property; if its big enough and available, it might be purchased in order to provide a full-sized lot for the church with proper access. The church would have to be scooted east — again — but that’s almost becoming a tradition.
In that location, the church could serve as a Mount Dora visitor’s center there, offering maps to downtown parking, eating and shopping, and t-shirts and bumper stickers proclaiming I Climbed Mount Dora. That makes more sense than to try to use it for an events center so far from the city’s hub of activity.
A few years ago, the Mount Dora Chamber of Commerce looked into use of the church perhaps a eastern annex, but at the time the church was active and not interested in discussing other use.
However, with the US441-SR46 interchange project soon underway, traffic on old 441 into the city may increase significantly. That may spur further retail development, which may make Mount Zion’s present location even less quaint. The landmark may disappear into a land of gas stations and fast-food joints.
Who knows what Orange County is planning for the area. Mount Dora and Orange County have worked out an inter-local agreement to allow for all the work going on out toward the planned Innovation District, where the Wekiva Parkway will exit on to SR-46 near Round Lake. It may be that in increased level of participation between the parties might make negotiations about the land around the church more fluid.
4. Option 2: Move it
What about moving Mount Zion to another location inside the city? Moving it would allow it to be placed in a much more accessible place and could be used for a wide variety of functions — weddings, recitals, funerals, even regular worship services.
Several other communities have relocated historic churches and rent them out for functions. Here are two:
Altamonte Chapel, Altamonte Springs
The building now known as the Altamonte Chapel began as the Lake Brantley Union Chapel, began construction in 1882 and completed in 1885. After the freezes of 1894 and 1895, the area along Lake Brantley was abandoned and a family deeded the property to Rollins College in exchange for tuition for their two daughters. In 1905, hunters Arthur Fuller and Maxwell McIntyre found the abandoned church in the woods in good condition and proposed to move it into town. Rollins College, having done nothing with it to that point, sold it to them for $600. The church was disassembled and moved piece by piece to its present location in downtown Altamonte Springs. Now affiliated with the United Church of Christ with a full roster of services, the Altamonte Chapel is a popular wedding rental. Website: http://www.altamontechapel.com
The Wedding Chapel at Estate on the Halifax
Built originally in 1897 as the first town hall of Port Orange. In 1913, the building was moved and served as the Parish Hall for Grace Episcopal Church. When the church expanded in 1997, the Chapel was deemed too expensive to renovate, and the church tried to get the City of Port Orange to move it and take care of it as one of its original historic buildings. The city passed on the idea and a private citizen paid to have it moved to his Estate on the Halifax property, a commercial events complex. It was extensively renovated, restoring the heart of pine walls, adding a barrel ceiling over the pulpit and built a bell tower which holds an 1893- vintage bronze bell. Website: http://estateonthehalifax.com/wedding-chapel/
A restored Mount Zion could also become one of the city’s park spaces — imagine in Elizabeth Evans Park next to Lake Dora (which will border the developed Pineapple Point property as it transforms into a hotel/restaraunt/events complex).
Or does Mount Zion belong in the Northeast Community, perhaps for use as a church? Or could it become an integral part of the Grandview Business District revitalization, providing an events venue which could help draw more of the greater Mount Dora community?
5. Preserve it
Regardless of where Mount Zion ends up, as a structure with a long history it should be not only be restored but preserved. It’s an underserved part of our local story and deserves the recognition — protected against further decay and encroaching development.
The church is outside the city’s limits, but its even farther away from the city’s historic preservation district. (Disclaimer: the author sits on the historic preservation board.) The district, whose boundaries were approved by voters in 1997, included addition of a historic preservation chapter in the Land Development Regulation and creation of the citizen board. (See Saving Our Yesterdays: Historic Preservation in Mount Dora.) Historic preservation is regulated in that district, which is bounded by Tenth to First Avenues north to south and Clayton to Alexander east to west.
A number of important historical structures, especially in East Town, lie outside that district, and there’s discussion now on the board about whether the district’s boundaries should be enlarged or specific structures addressed.
Moving the church to within the historic preservation district would provide the greatest assurances for preservation. One idea now before the historic preservation board is whether to extend the present boundaries of the district so that more African-American historic properties might be protected. However, extending the district is not a simple process; the Land Development Code provisions for historic preservation would need to be changed, and residents in areas covered by an extending district would have to approve it.
Regardless of whether such a thing could happen — let’s remember that city politics are occupied with so many clamorous things these days — Mount Zion deserves a place in the city’s history. Telling its story here should only convince residents to do something more lasting and permanent.
According to Eric Case, Historic Preservation Specialist for the Florid State Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, grant monies are available to both non-profit organizations and agencies of state government (like the City of Mount Dora) for preservation projects for historic structures and cemeteries. If the building is used for religious purposes, grant funds can only be used for exterior work — sealing the building, outside repairs. The funds can even be used for moving the church, but only if the structure is in danger where it is. The grants are awarded annually, with applications received in April.
The other source of funding apart from the city’s operating budget would be the Mount Dora Community Trust of Mount Dora, which has given more than $7.7 million to the community since 1972 through scholarships, endowments and grants. A Community Trust grant enabled he Lake Cares food pantry was able to purchase $4,000 walk-in freezer, Mount Dora firefighters got $7,000 for a laddermill (an exercise devise that helps them train to climb ladders), and Serenity Park is coming into existence with support from the Community Trust.
While the Community Trust may be the first resort for the immediate repairs Mount Zion needs, a wider preservation plan requiring Trust support might involve the complete restoration plan for the church wherever it ends up, as well as restoration of several abandoned cemeteries and other unserved historic African-American properties in the area. All of these could combine into a history project for which the window of opportunity is quickly passing as property values start to escalate as the Wekiva Parkway builds out.
4. One preservation scenario: Mount Carmel-Simpson Cemetery
An important lesson in historic preservation in Mount Dora — with particular emphasis on African-American history projects — can be found less than half a mile down the road from Mount Zion Primitive Baptist.
In 2010, a community effort led by the Mount Dora Historical Museum and Sam Sadler restored Simpson-Mount Carmel Cemetery, a black graveyard next to St. Patrick’s. Originally a one-acre parcel granted in 1883 by grove owner Milton Simpson for burial of his migrant workers, in 1896 — the same year Mount Zion was originally built — it was conveyed to the Cemetery Association. Why it was named for Mount Carmel — the Tangerine church — and not Mount Zion may be because at the time, Mount Zion had its own cemetery next to that church.
By 2010 Simpson-Mount Carmel been untended for decades, perhaps since the white cemeteries in the area became integrated. (Pine Forest, Mount Dora’s main cemetery, didn’t start allow blacks until after 1984.) The much-larger Tangerine-Zellwood African American cemetery may have become favored as the remaining families centered there.
Sadler wrote me in an email about how the project came about.
As a small child living in Tangerine, our little twelve seat school bus picked up a small handful of children at the Tangerine Grocery store each morning to journey into Roseborough School on Fifth Avenue. My oldest memories were to always look over at a little cemetery out the right side bus window that was very visible. A few little headstones appeared in full sunlight shadowed by a few virgin pines.
Fast forward sixty years, for I always knew there was that little cemetery still laying peacefully on that hill but the undergrowth has seemed to just make it disappear from sight. On Channel 9 News one evening I was intrigued about a couple talking about a cemetery that time had forgotten. I immediately the next day journeyed throughout the woods for where I thought I remembered those little head stones may lay. To my surprise it was somewhat North of where I expected to find it.
Sadler went to the Mount Dora Historical Society, and they work on developing a community restoration project of the graveyard. Mount Dora Community Trust provided a $4,500 grant, and a number of citizens and local businesses also made donations.
Then the community got to work clearing out the fallen trees and weeds and decades of forest litter. Eight depressions were found as well as nine markers. Clearing continued and four more graves were found. Southeastern Surveying, an Orlando company, donated their services; using ground-penetrating radar, another 48 graves were located.
Next, efforts were made to identify and memorialize the people who were buried there. Sadler designed and created permanent markers for the unmarked graves, and a Boy Scout troop built a gazebo to shelter visitors. Another troop worked with Mount Dora High students, Deborah Burchill of the Historic Society and the Northeast Black History Committee to research what they could about the occupants of identified graves.
At a dedication ceremony in November 2010, sixteen Mount Dora High students read life stories of the interred. Here is the one for Mike Dunn, who was Mount Dora’s first postal carrier, who died on March 25, 1925 at age 70:
Mike Dunn
I was born into slavery on St. Simons Island, Georgia in 1855 during the time when the first locomotive ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway. Coincidentally, many years later I would work for a railroad in Florida. My mother worked in both cotton and rice fields then. After the Civil War, we remained in Georgia for a time. But not finding much work there after the war, my family decided to move to central Florida where we heard there was work in the orange groves.
In 1889 I married my beautiful Angeline. We took up living in Mount Dora, where during that time, terrible freezes sent most of the northerners back home and wiped out the groves. I had to find some other type of work which I did carting anything I could. The fancy name for my work was a “drayman.” But there was nothing fancy about hauling wood to saw mills on a buckboard and then having to carry the wood from the mill to the steam shack.
In 1905 while living in Mount Dora, Mr. David Simpson found much work for me to do in his orange groves. Why after the terrible freezes in 1895 and 1897, new citrus trees started maturing. There was more than enough work for all of us then. One of my jobs while working in the groves was to move the harvested produce from the fields to the wagons. I seemed to like that better than picking fruit.
So, being a man who would rather walk than just stand around, I left the fruit picking business and was lucky enough to get a job working again as a drayman for the Atlantic Coast Lines Railroad in 1915. Thank the Lord I was too old for the draft at that time! I would cart interesting things, things I’d be seeing for the first time in my life. Why I’d see tires for a Model T Ford and lots of packages from far away places I’d never heard of like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. I would deliver these packages to the Mount Dora Post Office that arrived by train from folks up north.
Being the only mail carrier in Mount Dora at the time, I was able to start collecting stamps off those packages which people didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they were more than willing to give me stamps to add to my collection. I also remember hearing all the townspeople buzzing about the exciting news when Dr. Orin Sadler put that telephone line in from his home to the train station. It was amazing to hear people’s voices coming through a wire as I waited at the depot for my next delivery to arrive.
There were scary times too back then. Once, a house was being dragged through town by horses. The men who did this were called “nightriders.” It struck a chord to hear the lady owner screaming and begging them to leave it be.
Another horrible thing happened on December 9, 1922 that scared us folks. Seems there were some white folks who took the law into their own hands up in Perry, Florida and killed a black man accused of murder. He didn’t get a trial. And almost a year has passed since that Rosewood incident was the talk in town. As for me, I just try to keep to myself and do a good job for folks here in Mount Dora, which seems to be more of a fair and civilized place for us colored folks than the rest of Florida, at least for now anyway. I hear there’s a young 15 year old boy living in Umatilla who in about 19 years or so, will change all that when he runs for sheriff of Lake County.
To share my memories with you has been such a pleasure. Much has been carried in my mind all these years. Even the brain hemorrhage I suffered couldn’t erase them from my memory. And just so you know, passing peacefully with my endearing Angeline at my side is my last and best one.
Here is a great example of both how a community can work to reclaim lost part of its history, creating not only immense good will — something certainly of lasting, perhaps permanent effect — but also a creating a space for history to be felt, observed and walked through. Digital experiences (like reading this article!) cannot provide more than a fraction of that sensory encounter, and as communities continue to be emptied out by digital disruption, such islands are increasingly rare and valuable. The quiet presence you feel in the restored Mount Carmel-Simpson cemetery is sustaining, and there is hope that more stories from those who are buried there will continue to emerge.
Perhaps Mount Zion has much to add to that story — to our story.
— David Cohea (djcohea@gmail.com)
Up next: Why is saving this little church so important?
In this series about Mount Carmel 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
