Chief Cornerstone Baptist Church

African Americans had established Chief Cornerstone Baptist Church by 1876, during a period when many Black southerners worked to build independent community institutions in the wake of Emancipation. John and Harriet Gregory, who had formerly been enslaved, sold a half-acre of their property to the church’s trustees. Members worshiped under a brush arbor, an open-sided shelter with a brush roof and a mound of earth serving as a lectern, before building a log sanctuary. The church’s cemetery is the final resting place of many community members, including veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean War.