{"nrhp_refnum":"04001265","name":"Cokesbury Church","other_names":["Cokesbury United Methodist Church","DHR File#273-001-0171","Cokesbury M.E. Church"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"13 Market St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Onancock","county":"Accomack County","state":"VA","lat":37.71407662400003,"lon":-75.75214755199994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2004-11-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Cokesbury Church is a single-story Greek Revival frame church with a later Gothic Revival entrance and bell tower, at 13 Market Street beside the town square in Onancock, Accomack County, Virginia. It was erected in 1854-55 and has an adjoining cemetery.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is one of the two oldest surviving Methodist church buildings on Virginia's Eastern Shore and the best preserved, since the older church at Oak Hall was heavily altered. Its Greek Revival body with late nineteenth-century Gothic Revival and Victorian changes reflects local church design trends from 1850 to 1900. It also represents the early Methodist meeting in Onancock, founded around 1788.","narrative":"Cokesbury Church is a single-story frame church at 13 Market Street, next to the town square in Onancock. Built in 1854-55 in the Greek Revival style, it has a temple front, weatherboard siding and a raised stuccoed brick foundation. A Gothic Revival entrance and bell tower was added in the 1880s after a storm destroyed the earlier cupola, and a major remodeling in 1892-94 brought stained glass windows from Philadelphia, oak pews, grained woodwork and a coved ceiling. Hurricane Hazel damaged the spire in 1954, and it was replaced by a shorter pyramidal one. The church grew from a Methodist meeting established around 1788 after a visit by Francis Asbury. It was listed for architecture because it is one of the oldest surviving Methodist churches on Virginia's Eastern Shore and the best preserved. A cemetery with about thirty markers, including four ministers' graves, lies to the north and west. The congregation held its last services in 1996.","period_of_significance":"1854-1894","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Mid-19th Century/Greek Revival; Late Victorian/Gothic (tower addition)","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"The congregation held its last services in 1996. The building's current functions are listed as church, auditorium, museum and cemetery.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:02.632533-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/5/6792/41679205/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/04001265.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001265/ad51cada9c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/04001265/ad51cada9c-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Joel Bradshaw","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Onancock-Cokesbury-churchside.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Joel Bradshaw</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Onancock-Cokesbury-churchside.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41679205","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokesbury_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5141735"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/accomack-county/cokesbury-church-04001265/"}