Byrd's African Methodist Episcopal Church is a historic

African Methodist Episcopal The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. It cooperates with other Methodist ...

(AME)

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

on Smyrna Avenue in Clayton,

Kent County, Delaware Kent County is a County (United States), county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Delaware. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 181,851, making it the least populous county in Delaware. The county ...

History

According to the U.S. Department of Interior,

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, Byrd's African Methodist Episcopal Church was built on the outskirts of

Clayton, Delaware Clayton is a town in Kent County, Delaware, Kent and New Castle County, Delaware, New Castle counties in the U.S. state of Delaware. Located almost entirely in Kent County, it is part of the Dover, Delaware Dover metropolitan area, Metropolitan S ...

in 1894. The church was named after the Rev. E. Byrd, who served as the pastor of Byrd's and Mt. Friendship. and
Accompanying six photos
' Prior to building and the establishment of Byrd's A.M.E. Church during the early 1890s, the Smyrna-Clayton area of Delaware boasted two A.M.E. churches. They were Bethel Church on the eastern outskirts of Smyrna, and Mt. Friendship Church in the countryside west of Clayton.Official website
Mt. Friendship was called the “Home Church” by Clayton members because prior Byrd's inception, all members of the black community, mostly railroad workers, walked several miles from Clayton to Mt. Friendship before the church's construction. This group of men, women and their families walked out to Kenton Road to Mt. Friendship, rather than through Smyrna to the older and larger Bethel Church. Within a decade after the raising of Mt. Friendship in 1886, the Clayton area residents began building Byrd's Church. Byrd's A.M.E. Church is a small Queen Anne style structure located at the eastern edge of

on a quiet street, Smyrna Avenue; its environment is the Smyrna-Clayton Road and the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

tracks to the north, open fields to the south, and open, early

residential development A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family resident ...

on either side. The church faces south on a slightly elevated parcel of land. It retains its earthen yard, trees, and considerable space on the deep lot behind its kitchen wing. The original main block is cornerstone-dated 1894.

References

External links

Official website
African Methodist Episcopal churches in Delaware Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Delaware Queen Anne architecture in Delaware Churches completed in 1894 19th-century Methodist church buildings in the United States Churches in Kent County, Delaware {{Delaware-Methodist-church-stub