Location: NC 751 south of Chatham/Durham county line
County: Chatham
Original Date Cast: 1968
A modest, single-room white frame church just south of the Chatham/Durham county line, the O’Kelly Chapel today is opened only on special occasions. Its size belies its significance to the denomination known as the Christian Church. In 1794 James O’Kelly removed himself from the Methodist Church to found a movement which became that brand of Protestantism. In North Carolina the denomination is perhaps best known for the role its leaders played in the founding of what is now Elon University.
O’Kelly, a Virginian, differed with the mainline Methodists on several counts. He was opposed to the use of bishops and, at the Baltimore conference in 1792, sought to offset their growing power by increasing democracy in church government. When his resolution failed, he led thirty-one ministers out of the meeting. The dissenters first called themselves “Republican Methodists” and in 1794 assembled in a general meeting in Surry County, Virginia. The Christian Church quickly set roots across the South.
Around 1794 O’Kelly moved to Chatham County and founded the church which came to bear his name. His remaining thirty-three years were spent serving the denomination, traveling among its churches, attending gatherings, and ordaining ministers. O’Kelly is buried 300 feet west of the chapel. Today the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ owns the building.
References:
Elizabeth A. Georgian, "'That Unhappy Division': Reconsidering the Causes and Significance of the O'Kelly Schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 120, no. 3 (2012): 210-235
W. E. MacClenny, The Life of Rev. James O’Kelly (1910)
William T. Scott, A Brief History of the Christian Church (1956)
Catherine Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina (1993)
Rachel Osburn and Ruth Selden-Sturgill, The Architectural Heritage of Chatham County, North Carolina (1991)