WATERTOWN — The Preservation League of NYS announces that the Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church is one of three grantees of the newly launched Preservation Opportunity Fund. The grant will fund emergency structural stabilization to mitigate water damage.
“This is exciting news for the Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church,” Shameika Ingram, founder of Preservation In Color, said in a press release.
“We have been working for the past three years to find grant funding while highlighting the history of the church. Being one of the recipients of the Preservation Opportunity Grant is another victory for the church.”
Following the formation of the AME Zion Church in 1821, the Thomas Memorial congregation was formed in 1878 and incorporated in 1880. The construction of their church building was completed in 1909 in the Late Gothic Revival style. It represented the only African American congregation in Jefferson County for several years.
The church’s masonry blocks were formed by the hands of the congregation and community members. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. It served as a place of worship for many years before it closed its doors due to a lack of congregation attendance and a need for extensive repair work.
The church has remained vacant since the passing of Mr. William “Buster” Crabbe in 2017 who was the church caretaker. In 2021, a group informally named “Friends of Thomas Memorial” began to discuss ways to preserve the church. This group consists of preservation experts who have devoted time to bring awareness to the need to preserve and repair the church structure.
In 2022, the church was included on the Preservation League’s Seven to Save list of endangered historic sites. This POF grant funding will help continue efforts in stabilizing the church’s failing structural infrastructure, caused by age and water damage.
“Adirondack Architectural Heritage is honored to serve as the fiscal sponsor for Preservation in Color and to support Shameika Ingram’s leadership in organizing the effort to preserve Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church in Watertown,” Erin Tobin, executive director of Adirondack Architectural Heritage in Keeseville, said.
The church got on Ingram’s radar when she was a civilian assigned to Fort Drum in 2012.
“Throughout my travels, I’ve always been interested in Black history, so I did some research about Black history in Watertown just out of curiosity,” she said.
“That’s when I came across information about the church. At that time, I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. William ‘Buster’ Crabbe, who was the caretaker of the church at that time. He gave me a tour. So, it was always something I kept in mind. I left the Watertown area in 2015 and always remember the church.”
In 2016, Ingram was in Germany. During the COVID-19 lockdown, she was bored, sitting in the house, and did a quick Google search about the church.
“I saw a couple of articles about how there was concern about the deterioration of the church,” she said.
“By this time, Mr. Crabbe had passed away. No one had been taking care of the church. The taxes were being paid on the church, but no one was taking care of the physical church itself. So, I started emailing the people who had wrote those two articles and they put me in contact with other people.”
After almost a year of email exchanges, a group of stakeholders started meeting virtually in the fall of 2021.
“To come with ideas, preliminary planning, preservation planning ideas as to how to save the church and what it needed in terms of repairs, funding,” Ingram said.
“Since then, I’ve been pretty much project managing this effort. Of course in January this year, we received 100,000 grant from the National Trust through their Preserving Black History grant fund.”
The Preservation Opportunity Fund grant is $30,000.
“Both grants will help repair the structural infrastructure of the church, of the roof, significant deterioration from both water damage and shingles on the rooftop have holes in it,” Ingram said
“So, there’s been significant water leakage, especially at the entryway of the church. So the structural infrastructure of the roof itself needs to be repaired and the roof needs to be replaced and hopefully we can also use some of the grant funding to repair some of the exterior masonry blocks because there is significant deterioration there due to cracks in these areas over the years. Both grants will assist with structural stabilization due to water damage.”
The Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church has a few former members that Ingram’s group have been in contact with over the past couple of years.
“There is no longer a worship service,” she said.
“There hasn’t been a worship service in years and during that time the population has changed, especially considering a heavy military area. There are always people coming and going in the community. When Mr. Crabbe was alive that was one of his issues was trying to build the congregation and growing, and trying to find sustainability and people.”
There is a lack of parking where the church is located, and other area churches have attracted people to them.
What are the future plans for the Thomas Memorial AME Zion Church?
“Ideally, it will be a place involving not only the history of the church but Black history within the Watertown, North Country area,” Ingram said.
“I’m not sure how that is going to look in terms of public access at this point of time because our focus is getting the repair work done. But yes, at some point, it will no longer be used for worship service. At some point it will used as a space for the preservation of Black history.”
Preservation In Color (PIC) is a platform that highlights the creative ways we preserve Black history, culture and community. PIC focuses on grassroots historic preservation community engagement and project management.
Adirondack Architectural Heritage is the nonprofit historic preservation organization for New York State’s Adirondack region, with a mission to promote better public understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of the region’s unique and diverse architectural heritage.
Also receiving POF funding in 2024:
– Albany County Historical Association’s Ten Broeck Mansion Roof Restoration, Albany, Albany County
– Old Fort Johnson’s Gutter Restoration, Fort Johnson, Montgomery County
As Preservation League President Jay DiLorenzo said when the grant program was first announced in February, “We have seen a clear need from nonprofits across the state for more grant funding specifically for capital improvement projects. Through our new Preservation Opportunity Fund, we hope to meet some of that need.”
The launch of this grant program coincides with the Preservation League’s 50th Anniversary and the organization’s recent five-year plan, which laid out clear goals for the statewide nonprofit moving forward.
The creation of the Preservation Opportunity Fund is a key tactic to meeting the organization’s goal of “Protecting our heritage from loss.”
Giving organizations the money they need to complete pressing projects will enable them to successfully steward those historic sites for many more years to come.
Annual grants made from this fund will support discrete capital projects on historic buildings, sites, structures, and objects. Organizations with an ownership interest in, or a long-term lease of, a historic property requiring preservation, restoration, or rehabilitation, are eligible. These grant funds aim to help those organizations that already have a clear idea of what their historic building needs — but may not yet have the funding in place to make it happen. preservenys.org/preservation-opportunity-fund.