Some remember it as a school where children learned to read and write. Many remember it as a stop for slaves on the escape route of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Others remember it reverently as a house of worship to which everyone in the neighborhood walked on Sunday mornings. Some remember it as the final home of the Terre Haute’s first courthouse bell. It is known as a speaking site of prominent Americans, and The National Register of Historic Places recognizes it as an important piece of our nation’s history. Many in the community see it as a treasure worthy of great care and preservation.
It is the Allen Chapel, a working, practicing Methodist Episcopal Church that began as an African-American congregation in 1837, and it has been all of the above.

For the past 19 years, the Allen Chapel at Third and Crawford streets has been undergoing a struggling preservation campaign headed by Terre Haute resident Joy Sacopulos. Because it remains a working church, it is difficult to get the necessary funding for preservation, she said.

Started by Bishop William Paul Quinn, Allen Chapel was the first black church in Terre Haute. Today, it is the oldest surviving African-American church in western Indiana. The congregation formed in 1837 and worshiped in a small white house west of the current church, which was built in 1913. A tunnel under the old church building led to the banks of the Wabash River. Escaping slaves from the South used this Underground Railroad stop while making their way to Canada on lumber boats. The congregation continued to aid black families by housing and feeding them during their struggle to establish new homes following the Civil War.

One of the first ministers at Allen Chapel, Hiram Rhoads Revel, (1827-1901) was the first African-American to serve in Congress as a U.S. Senator, representing the state of Mississippi during the Reconstruction in 1870 and 1871. Revel attended the Indiana Union County Quaker Seminary, Knox College in Illinois and a black seminary school in Ohio, eventually becoming an ordained minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As one of the first ministers at Allen Chapel, he opened a school for black children in the church’s basement in 1850. African-Americans were not allowed at that time to attend public schools. The church school attracted many African-Americans to the area so their children could be educated at the subscription school for 25 cents a week.

“It was like a Mecca for families who cared about education,” Sacopulos said. The school educated some of the first African-Americans to graduate, some of the first African-Americans to become teachers and some of the most prominent African-American speakers and politicians.

James Sidney Hinton (1834-1892), born in Raleigh, N.C., came to Terre Haute with his family in 1848. He attended the subscription school in the basement of Allen Chapel and continued with a Quaker high school education in Terre Haute and college training in Greenville, Ohio. He was an active recruiter for volunteer African-Americans during the Civil War, and became the first African-American trustee for the Wabash and Erie Canal after the war. In 1881, he was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives to become Indiana’s first black legislator, according to the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1872.

Allen Chapel, which has been the speaking site of many prominent Americans, including Frederick Douglas, Eugene V. Debs and Jackie Robinson, was the site of the 35th annual Indiana Conference of African Methodist Episcopalian churches in 1874. Alexander Washington Wayman, the seventh bishop of the AME Church presided. It is believed that next to Frederick Douglass, Bishop Wayman was the most recognized African-American in the United States at the time.

The congregation was sizable until the 1960s redevelopment of the city. Longtime Allen Chapel member Cynthia Handley has attended worship at the Allen Chapel all her life. She said her mother used to talk of her grandmother and grandfather attending the same church, and she remembers a time before the redevelopment when “everybody just walked to church.” The redevelopment scattered many of the neighbors and members of the church, she said. Today the church membership is between 20 and 40 members and includes several longtime members, some Indiana State students and other new attendees. The church is open to anyone wanting to worship, Handley said.

It was in 1997 that Sacopulos learned of the dire state of the church building. Among its many problems was a major roof leak. Realizing that the small congregation could not carry the burden of preservation, Sacopulos organized a volunteer group to help renovate the building. She said the Friends of Historic Allen Chapel, organized as a non-profit historic preservation council, sought the advice of the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, which recommended a seven-phase renovation plan. The plan calls for tuck-pointing; masonry repair; refurbishing of soffits and fascia; new gutters, roof, exterior doors, carpet and a cooling and heating system; rewiring of the electrical system; installation of fire and security alarm systems, restored windows and a new kitchen and handicapped restroom. The first part of the handicapped accessibility adaptations in phase VI is complete, Sacopulos said. Following the installation of a chairlift and shaft, the volunteer organization will be ready for interior repairs and restoration.

Money for the restoration and preservation has come from grants from the Wabash Valley Community Foundation, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, the Hulman Public Building Trust, the Indiana Chemical Trust, the Lilly Endowment Gift Phase IV Program through the Community Foundation, the Walmart Foundation, the Efroymson Foundation of Indianapolis and significant gifts from First Financial Bank, the Fort Harrison Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Martha P. Sharp.

Char Minnette, who works on the history of the Allen Chapel and publicity for its restoration said, “Because it is a living church, it is very difficult to get grants and funding, but there needs to be a great awareness of what a treasure the Allen Chapel is to the history of Terre Haute.”

Recently, an historic discovery was made when Keith Williams, service director of Buzard Pipe Organ Builders in Champaign, Ill., inspected the Allen Chapel organ in the church’s basement in June. The instrument could be dated as early as 1905, Williams reported. Photos of Allen Chapel indicated that the Verney Pipe Organ was in place before 1913. Although the organ is not in operating order, Williams said restoration is possible. Williams believes the organ is the only Verney still in existence in its original location and “should be cherished and preserved.”

If you are interested in helping with preservation of Allen Chapel, call (812) 234-2718.

Other articles by Marjorie Hopkins

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