Solomon's Temple Union American Methodist Episcopal Cemetery
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Solomon's Temple Union American Methodist Episcopal Cemetery

Also known as African Union Church of London Grove Cemetery , Chatham Cemetery , Solomon's Temple African Union Cemetery

West Grove, Chester County, Pennsylvania, USA

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  • Get directions 816 North Guernsey Road
    West Grove, Pennsylvania 19390 United States
    Coordinates: 39.85432, -75.84091
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John Bell, it is said, escaped from slavery in Maryland some time in the 1830s and became a huckster in the vicinity of Chatham, Chester County. After fighting off a slave-catching party, he eventually accrued property and money, and on December 17th, 1849, for the consideration of $50, he gave an acre of land outside the village to James Wilmer, John Durnall, Perry Reed, William Lindsey, and John Mason, Trustees of the African Union Church, to erect what became known as Solomon's Temple. A small cemetery was established on the ground surrounding the church.

John Bell died in 1873 and bequeathed a considerable sum to the church. Shortly thereafter, led to a small congregation meeting at the former Williamson Methodist Episcopal Church in nearby Penn Township. However, services continued on at Solomon's Temple (which had become a U.A.M.E. Congregation in the 1860s) until the early 1900s.

By the 1960s, the church had fallen to ruin and the cemetery had become "covered with weeds, briars and saplings and many of the tombstones [were] leaning or [had] fallen over." A group of township residents petitioned London Grove Township to take charge and maintain the grounds, and in 1965 a county Judge ordered just that.

The stone foundation of the church remains, but the majority of the burials lack their original headstones that have been destroyed, buried or removed over time. Today the cemetery is kept up by the township and is nominally open to the public.





John Bell, it is said, escaped from slavery in Maryland some time in the 1830s and became a huckster in the vicinity of Chatham, Chester County. After fighting off a slave-catching party, he eventually accrued property and money, and on December 17th, 1849, for the consideration of $50, he gave an acre of land outside the village to James Wilmer, John Durnall, Perry Reed, William Lindsey, and John Mason, Trustees of the African Union Church, to erect what became known as Solomon's Temple. A small cemetery was established on the ground surrounding the church.

John Bell died in 1873 and bequeathed a considerable sum to the church. Shortly thereafter, led to a small congregation meeting at the former Williamson Methodist Episcopal Church in nearby Penn Township. However, services continued on at Solomon's Temple (which had become a U.A.M.E. Congregation in the 1860s) until the early 1900s.

By the 1960s, the church had fallen to ruin and the cemetery had become "covered with weeds, briars and saplings and many of the tombstones [were] leaning or [had] fallen over." A group of township residents petitioned London Grove Township to take charge and maintain the grounds, and in 1965 a county Judge ordered just that.

The stone foundation of the church remains, but the majority of the burials lack their original headstones that have been destroyed, buried or removed over time. Today the cemetery is kept up by the township and is nominally open to the public.





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  • Added: 23 Feb 2005
  • Find a Grave Cemetery ID: 2136773