"Wake Forest Historical Museum" Archive

Wake Forest Historical Museum recognized for efforts to protect cemetery

“Old Cemetery” of Friendship Chapel Missionary Baptist Church

The North Carolina Museums Council has presented an Award of Excellence to the Wake Forest Historical Museum for a 2017 survey of a historic cemetery in the Town of Wake Forest associated with a church formed by former slaves soon after the Civil War.

The survey was conducted with many purposes, including protection of the cemetery and education of the community about its importance in the history of the area.  The cemetery is known as the “Old Cemetery” of Friendship Chapel Missionary Baptist Church.  It was the congregation’s first cemetery and was used for about 70 years starting in the 19th Century and continuing into the 20th Century.

Funded by the Jandy Ammons Foundation, the survey was administered by the Wake Forest Historical Association, which had proposed the project to the foundation.  The historical association is an offshoot of the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society, the non-profit organization responsible for the museum.

An archaeologist operates survey equipment while accompanied by leaders of Friendship Chapel Missionary Baptist Church

The survey was conducted by New South Associates, which specializes in such work. Employing ground penetrating radar, a non-invasive technology, New South located and documented nearly 600 burials and one mass grave.  Many of the burials were no longer marked in the cemetery.  A substantial number of the burials had been marked originally with rocks or wood from nearby fields.

The Award of Excellence is intended to honor exhibits, publications and programs that exemplify excellence in the museum field. It was presented to the museum on March 18 in Greensboro at an annual conference of the North Carolina Museums Council.

The survey project has won other awards, previously, including the 2017 Anthemion Award from Capital Area Preservation, a non-profit organization dedicated to historic preservation.  Recently, the Town of Wake Forest designated the “Old Cemetery” a local historic site.

Categories: Inside WFU

Museum to unveil Women of Wake Forest exhibit

The Wake Forest Historical Museum (in Wake Forest, N.C.) will unveil the Women of Wake Forest exhibit at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 23. The brief event will include a screening of a North Carolina Humanities Council-funded oral history film, followed by a short panel discussion led by noted history scholar and author Emily Herring Wilson (MA ’62).

The museum website (www.wakeforestmuseum.org) is updated with event information and a sneak peek at the exhibit brochure featuring three exceptional honorees: Lib Greason, Peggy Allen and Ailey Mae Young.

Categories: Events

USB renamed Alumni Hall

Alumni Hall signThe former University Services Building has been renamed Alumni Hall.

The building houses several offices: advancement (which includes alumni services), Deacon One card, parking & transportation and residence life & housing. It previously housed human resources, information systems and others.

The new Alumni Hall has its origins in the original Alumni Building on the original campus.

The original Alumni Building was constructed in 1906 with funds raised from the alumni by J.B. Carlyle., according to Ed Morris, the executive director of the Wake Forest Historical Museum & Wake Forest College Birthplace.

Alumni Building on Old CampusAn accidental fire damaged the original building badly around 1950. Because the decision to move to Winston-Salem had been made, the administration decided to take the building down rather than try to repair it. The  Wake Forest Birthplace Museum has the cornerstone of the building on display.

The original building was primarily a classroom building. One photo that Morris has indicates that it held physics on the first floor, applied math on the second floor, and English on the 3rd floor.

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