The John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church, Deal Island, Maryland

The abandoned and decaying John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church on Deal Island, Maryland.
The old fellowship hall is across the road on the left edge of this image.  (click to enlarge)
Nikon Z7; 24-70mm f/4 S lens @ 28mm; 1/125th sec. @ f/11; ISO 64

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I love to document small country churches as I travel down the back roads of America.  As I was wandering around Deal Island, Maryland last week, I saw this old, now abandoned church and graveyard.  Of course, I had to stop, walk around, look at it and wonder why it is in the state of abandonment and disrepair as you see it here.  Subsequently, I made a couple of images of the building and the cemetery.

From a brief bit of research I conducted on the Internet, I discovered an official 1987 document from the Maryland Historical Trust, State Historic Site Inventory Form describing this church.  In part, it reads:

"The John Wesley M.E. Church of Deal Island is a prominent landmark for the low, marshy landscape between Deal Island and Wenona. The late Victorian tee-plan church is extremely similar to contemporary black churches in other parts of the county, where the Gothic Revival finishes were used until the post-World War I period. The above-ground cemetery is not unusual in Somerset County. A black congregation has continously (sic) occupied this site as a place of worship since the third quarter of the nineteenth century." 

If you have any interest at all in this church or even in history, I would encourage you to read the document and look at the included photographs showing this church when it was still viable and in use.  Very interesting.  For example and I didn't see it when I was present, somewhere around the foundation is a cement or stone inscription saying the church was first built in 1889, then rebuilt in 1914.  You can find the PDF file here.

Someone must still visit once in a while as in the adjoining cemetery, although overtaken by weeds and some debris, I found several gravesites which had U.S., flags, looking relatively new, planted next to the graves of veterans.

This is the back of the church building. (click to enlarge)

Someone visits once in a while as these flags look relatively recently dedicated to those resting
in eternity below. (click to enlarge)

I think it is kind of sad that the history of this church, the people and families who attended it for about a century, may be lost.  Think of all the services that were held here, the weddings, funerals, various religious ceremonies, etc.  One day to all be forgotten.

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Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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