{"nrhp_refnum":"94001092","name":"Mount Moriah Baptist Church And Cemetery","other_names":["VDHR No. 128-234"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"3521 E. Orange Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Roanoke (Independent City)","county":"Roanoke (city and county)","state":"VA","lat":37.30432170900008,"lon":-79.89074947299997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-09-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story frame Baptist church built about 1908 and an adjoining half-acre cemetery at 3521 East Orange Avenue near the eastern edge of Roanoke, Virginia. The two parts are linked by right-of-way along an old road trace.","why_significant":"The property is described as one of the most intact historic African-American religious properties in the Roanoke area. It is tied to one of the region's earliest African-American congregations, which tradition dates to 1858, and the cemetery is reputedly an enlargement of an earlier slave burial ground. The church is also a well-preserved example of a simple, minimally ornamented rural frame church, a type now rare in Roanoke.","narrative":"Mount Moriah Baptist Church and Cemetery sit on a wooded hillside near the eastern limits of Roanoke, Virginia. The church, built about 1908, is a small one-story frame building with weatherboard siding, a raised fieldstone foundation, a front vestibule and a rear chancel bay. Inside, plastered walls, a cove ceiling and original handmade pews and pulpit survive. A 1950s fellowship hall and 1993 bathrooms were added with little loss of historic fabric. The adjoining half-acre cemetery holds more than one hundred burials, many unmarked, dating from the 1870s to the present. Church tradition traces the congregation to 1858, when enslaved people received permission to worship in a brush harbor, and the burial ground is reputed to have started as a slave cemetery. Trustees bought land for the church and graveyard from 1870 onward. The property is recognized for its role in local African-American heritage and as a rare surviving example of a simple rural frame church within the city.","period_of_significance":"1870 - 1944","architect_builder":"Unknown (the form says parishioners built the church without the aid of ministers)","architectural_style":"No style","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still in use as a church with a maintained cemetery; burials continue to the present. Bathrooms were added in 1993, and the exterior and interior are described as virtually unaltered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:01.228891-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/49/6833/41683349/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/94001092.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94001092/171b618e09-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94001092/171b618e09-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Jerrye &amp; Roy Klotz, MD","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MOUNT_MORIAH_BAPTIST_CHURCH_AND_CEMETERY,_ROANOKE_CITY.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jerrye &amp;amp; Roy Klotz, MD</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MOUNT_MORIAH_BAPTIST_CHURCH_AND_CEMETERY,_ROANOKE_CITY.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41683349","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Moriah_Baptist_Church_and_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16895458"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/roanoke/mount-moriah-baptist-church-and-cemetery-94001092/"}