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National Register Nominations: North Harpersfield Churches and Graceland Cemetery Chapel are nominated!

North Harpersfield Churches and Graceland Cemetery Chapel

TRW wrote nominations for two listings that have been approved for the State Register of Historic Places and are currently under review by the National Park Service for National Register listing.


The North Harpersfield Churches consist of the Methodist Episcopal Church and Free Church, sited directly across the road from one another and, though both were built in 1857, they exhibit two distinctly different architectural styles, Greek Revival and Gothic Revival. This was due to doctrinal disagreements which led part of the Methodist congregation to found their own nondenominational church. The history of the two buildings remained linked as the Free Church later became a community center sometimes used by the Methodist congregation.


The Graceland Cemetery Receiving Vault is an equally interesting building. Built in 1902, it was designed by Garnet Douglass Baltimore, a civil engineer and landscape architect and the first African American graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The building is a rare example of a large above ground receiving vault that is also combined with a chapel and as such has great significance in representing this building type throughout New York state. It exhibits an eclectic blend of Neoclassical, Gothic, and Romanesque stylistic elements, including an impressive hammerbeam roof in the chapel.


NYS Site News mention: Governor Hochul Announces 15 Nominations for State and National Registers of Historic Places | Governor Kathy Hochul (ny.gov)

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