Method is a neighborhood in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...

. A former village it was established by emancipated African Americans after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. It contains several historic buildings. It includes the Berry O'Kelly Historic District an

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2017.

History

The settlement which became Method was founded by two half-brothers, Jesse Mason and Isaac O'Kelly in 1872, based on a purchase of 69 acres outside Raleigh. The largely wooded area was sold in plots to Black families, with more than fifty households settled by 1900. The village had by then retail and postal facilities, and two railway stops on the

Norfolk and Southern Railroad Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North ...

. The area was initially known as "Mason's Village" and later also known as Slab Town or Planktown (these latter names given by nearby white community members) and Masonville. The name "Method Village" was promoted by local business leader Berry O'Kelly, who had moved from Chapel Hill at the age of 10 and grew up there. As of 1894, there were three schools, and in that year O'Kelly sponsored the development of what became the Berry O’Kelly Training School, an eight-building complex covering elementary to high school, which attracted support from the

Sears-Roebuck Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as ...

Foundation (it is now a community center). There was also a church, Saint James A.M.E. Method Road was built in 1923. The village was annexed by Raleigh in 1960. A plan to widen a highway through the school site was defeated and the school and then the community received historic designation. A park in the community is named for educator and civil rights leader Harveleigh Monte Rivera White.

Historic District

The Historic District includes the St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1923 and extended to the rear in 1999. It is a red brick

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

building, with brick laid in

running bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by si ...

. With photos. It includes the grave of Berry O'Kelly, with a gravestone giving March 14, 1931 as date of death.

References

Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Raleigh, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Raleigh, North Carolina {{RaleighNC-NRHP-stub

History

Historic District

See also

References