Built in 1860, this abandoned one-room church and cemetery are located down a dirt road in central Ohio. The church has unfortunately been left to rot but the cemetery is still minimally maintained. In the cemetery, there are an interesting mix of headstones. Some seem to be in great condition while others are barely legible. Some date back as far as the 1860s while the newest one I saw was from 1951, giving us some idea of when the church either disbanded or moved. As far as the church goes, the floor is full of holes, it has suffered some graffiti, there is a giant crack in the rear wall, the chimney is crumbling and the belfry is rotting. I've made two trips to this church, one in November 2012 and one on Sunday. The only real change I noted between trips was the disappearance of a pile of ceiling tiles. The pictures are a mixture from both trips.

1. The overgrown church. The plaque above the front window identifies the church as being built in 1860.


2. Something that interests me is that the church has two front doors. I've seen this before but never learned the reason. Also, the flag planted next to a grave shows that somebody had been there relatively recently.


3. Here's where I'll tell a short story. The woman in this picture from 2012 is my mom. For awhile, she didn't know about my UE hobby but ended up finding out due to my sister's big mouth. I figured that this would be a good place to take her and show her UE firsthand so maybe she'd quit telling me how dangerous it was. I don't think she enjoyed herself. The only phrases I heard her use were "be careful of that" and "hurry up." On the plus side, this led to a funny picture. I was taking a picture of a headstone that said "Mother" and she just happened to walk into the picture with an irritated expression on her face.


4. The headstone on the left was probably the most impressive and well-maintained in the cemetery. Right next to it is a small stone that I could only read half of.


5. This might be my favorite picture from the outing.


6. The giant crack in the wall at the rear. The brick on the outside is also cracked.


7. I'd bet that this church looked really nice back in its day.


8. There was a pile of bench seats on the floor which is collapsing under them.


9. A hole in the floor of the altar in the rear. It makes me sad that somebody probably stole that flag from a grave and was messing around with it in here.


10. Standing on the altar late in the day.


11. Under the church is a small crawlspace. There wasn't much down there except spiders.

It's small, but this place is one of my favorites. There's something about old rural churches, schools and houses that just elevates them above everything else. Maybe because they were more personal for the people that lived, learned and worshiped there all those years ago. I've been here twice now and probably will continue to return when I'm in the area.

And I take it ur mom still isn't a fan?

Posted by Dare2Hide And I take it ur mom still isn't a fan?

Not exactly. I think she's begun to tolerate it but I try not to bring it up around her.

Lame sauce!

That is lame. My ma's told me stories for years of breaking into abandoned mansions in the 50s and 60s with my grandmother and great-grandmother. I'm quite envious, really.
Some folks just can't seem to grasp the fact that we all live in a state of perpetually imminent death. While that steeple is certainly going to topple through the roof of that church one day sooner than later which will probably kill anyone inside, you're probably just as likely to be there when it happens as being stricken down by an aneurysm. Given the former, at least you'd get a brief glimpse of a steeple falling on you.
Sweet find, love the yard - but I'm a bit of a taphopheliac. Aside from the creeper swallowing the church, it's interesting how well kempt the immediate grounds are.

Do you know what denomination the church is? With regard to the two front doors... I know that back in the day Quaker churches could be divided in half via a mobile wall so that when town business was being discussed, men and women would be separate. Which sounds bad at first, but they did it so that everyone could speak their mind and have a fair say without worrying about whether they were contradicting their spouse, which allowed all parties to have a fair say and not risk bringing political issues into the home. I don't know if they had separate entries, though. It was just the first thing to come to mind.

This is a nice set. Thanks for sharing. I've seen one or two old churches (one of them is gone now and the other was being used for hay storage. Sigh. Oh, and the other other one has the cutest exterior but is also being used as a farm outbuilding now). I agree with you about buildings that have a little more reflection of past personal lives, like schools and houses. So many stories.

Posted by skrimace Some folks just can't seem to grasp the fact that we all live in a state of perpetually imminent death. While that steeple is certainly going to topple through the roof of that church one day sooner than later which will probably kill anyone inside, you're probably just as likely to be there when it happens as being stricken down by an aneurysm. Given the former, at least you'd get a brief glimpse of a steeple falling on you. Sweet find, love the yard - but I'm a bit of a taphopheliac. Aside from the creeper swallowing the church, it's interesting how well kempt the immediate grounds are.

I like this argument. I may use this next time the subject comes up. I think the township mows the grass but that's about all they do. Because some of the graves are maintained and some clearly aren't, I'm assuming those are kept up by family members.

Do you know what denomination the church is? With regard to the two front doors... I know that back in the day Quaker churches could be divided in half via a mobile wall so that when town business was being discussed, men and women would be separate. Which sounds bad at first, but they did it so that everyone could speak their mind and have a fair say without worrying about whether they were contradicting their spouse, which allowed all parties to have a fair say and not risk bringing political issues into the home. I don't know if they had separate entries, though. It was just the first thing to come to mind.

It was a Lutheran church. That sounds like a much better explanation than my friend's joke about entering through one door as a sinner and leaving through the other as a saint.

Haha XD

As I was sitting there typing that I was trying to remember whether the Lutheran church my parents attended when I was a kid had one door or two. Could also just be a traffic thing. Honestly I have no idea; I've never heard a similar anecdote about Lutheran churches, and my grasp on religious history in this country isn't great but I don't have the sense that a Lutheran church would have been quite the same kind of all-purpose center of the town the way a Quaker church/meeting hall was as much the social and political heart of it's community as it was serving the spiritual need.

The early white settlers in my neck of the woods were somewhat less, er, "enthusiastic" about their religion. Still, churches (sometimes ambiguous 'christian' churches that claimed no specific sect) were usually town hall - that or the saloon. I think in many cases the church was just the largest building around that had seating and wasn't full of livestock.

'Dem doors. Who the fuck knows, really. May be no reason other than the entire town cramming into a building at the same time really sucking through a single door. Makes more sense than funeral doors in old Victorian homes.
Props to the township. That graveyard looks pretty damn shipshape to me.

Thanks for posting. At first I was thinking, "It looks like someone mows the grass", but then it occurred to me that those might be the November photos and grass wouldn't grow then in any case.
My mother was always nervous about my explorations as well but she did enjoy the photos I brought home.

Cute location! Poor mom...I know dem feels! I had to tell my mom we were hitting up a location in east Cleveland and she about killed me!

i hope you took that flag in #9 and retired it properly.

I took pictures of a cemetery down in Ky, and posted them on here and got yelled at for it...said this wasn't a ghost hunting sight, and I needed to take me emo photos elsewhere...