Longs Chapel

Longs Chapel
Front and western side
Longs Chapel is located in Virginia
Longs Chapel
Longs Chapel is located in the United States
Longs Chapel
Location1334B Fridleys Gap Rd., near Harrisonburg, Virginia
Coordinates38°30′45″N 78°45′44″W / 38.51250°N 78.76222°W / 38.51250; -78.76222
Area0.5 acres (0.20 ha)
Built1871 (1871)
Built byJacob Long, T.J. Orndorff
NRHP reference No.06001042[1]
VLR No.082-5264
Significant dates
Added to NRHPNovember 15, 2006
Designated VLRSeptember 6, 2006[2]

Longs Chapel, also known as Old Athens Church and Athens Colored School, is a historic Church of the United Brethren in Christ church and cemetery located at Zenda near Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia. It was built about 1871, and is a small, one-story, frame structure with a standard gable-fronted nave form with weatherboard siding, metal roofing, stone foundation piers, a small belfry, and an apse added about 1900. It measures approximately 20 feet by 30 feet. The cemetery includes multiple grave depressions, fieldstone tombstones, and a number of professionally carved marble monuments. The church also housed a one-room school for African-American children where Harrisonburg educator Lucy F. Simms had her first teaching post in 1877.[3] The school at Zenda closed in 1925 and the last services at Longs Chapel were held in the late 1920s. The building was subsequently used as a hay barn. The last burial was in 1935.[4]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  3. ^ MacAllister, Dale E. (2020). Lucy Frances Simms: From Slavery to Revered Public Service. Lot's Wife Publishing Company. p. 305. ISBN 9781934368497.
  4. ^ J. Daniel Pezzoni (May 2006). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Longs Chapel" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying four photos


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