Existing comment:
Historical Archeology at Emory Church
Emory Church and the Brightwood Community
The former parsonage for Emory Church was located south of the current church between 1891 and 1950. The cellar for the parsonage remains buried in this location, as may some outbuildings south of the church.
Brightwood has been a biracial community to its early-19th century beginnings. The area called "Vinegar Hill" extending west from Georgia Avenue, along Rock Creek Ford Road, NW, was held by African American landowning families through the 1940s. Much of this land was held by relations to Elizabeth Thomas, one whose land Fort Stevens was constructed in 1862.
Emory was part of the Southern Methodist Church until the Methodist church unified in 1939. While Emory Church had African American members in the mid-19th century, the congregation was large White [sic] until the late 1960s when the church, like Brightwood was transitioning to majority-African American and immigrants of African and Carribean [sic] descent.
The former parsonage is part of the landscape of Emory Church at its most segregated, while the Brightwood neighborhood was quite diverse.
Archeologists will explore the buried remains of the 1891-1950 parsonage at Emory Church, excavating the cellar and locating other small buildings nearby. The goal of this portion of the excavation is to understand the relationship between the congregation of Emory Church and neighboring Vinegar Hill. |