A historic South Jersey church is the only surviving building from Glendale, a mid-19th-century settlement that now sits within Voorhees Township’s borders.
Now, that church, listed on both the state and national registers of historic places, is for sale.
Glendale Methodist Episcopal Church’s schoolroom, which makes the church one of the oldest standing public school buildings in Camden County, hosted meetings for abolitionists before the Civil War. Famed poet Walt Whitman spent months there recovering from a paralytic stroke, writing poetry, and bathing in a creek behind the church, historic preservationists said in documents explaining the property’s significance.
“Anytime you put a property for sale, it’s in danger,” said Margaret Westfield, a Woodbury-based preservation architect who worries that the church’s future owner might not keep its historic qualities intact. Westfield nominated the church for the national register in 1995, oversaw grants for the building, and created a preservation plan for the property.
The Camden County church, at Haddonfield-Berlin and White Horse Roads, was built in 1855.
Keller Williams Realty listed the property this summer for $455,000. The 1,800-square-foot building includes a church sanctuary, basement, and kitchenette.
Keller Williams Realty and the listed real estate agent did not respond to requests for comment.
The Greek Revival-style church was last sold in 2022, when the United Methodists of Greater New Jersey, a Neptune-based religious organization with hundreds of congregations, sold the building to Seventh Day Holy Ghost Church for $245,000. Seventh Day’s IRS filing describes the organization as a Protestant place of worship.
Chocolate Obasoanya, Seventh Day’s founder, said the church building is in good condition, but the congregation wants to relocate.
“We’ve been using it well,” Obasoanya said. “We just want to downgrade.”
Long before Seventh Day purchased the property, Quaker Alexander Cooper donated the land to three church trustees in 1855. Glendale’s residents helped build the church so long as the building’s lower level, which had a separate entrance, could serve as a school and meeting place, according to a sign installed at the church and shared by Westfield.
“Honestly, this building is one of the most significant buildings in South Jersey. People don’t recognize that,” Westfield said.
County and state grants have helped restore the church in recent decades, Westfield said, including a nearly $124,000 historic preservation grant in 2004 that helped stabilize the structure and restore the exterior to recreate its look from the 1930s.
The historic church property’s front entrance was once flanked by two tulip poplar trees dating back to 1855, but energy company PSEG chopped them down four years ago. The aging trees had been protected by the New Jersey Historic Sites Council, which found in 1997 that chopping down the trees would have an “adverse effect” on historic preservation of the property, Westfield said.
Camden County has since widened the intersection and added a turning lane in “what was once a high-crash zone,” said Dan Keashen, the county’s public affairs director.
Westfield said the removal of the trees, which she had pushed against, and the widening of the road make the church’s main entrance leading to the sanctuary unsafe to use. An elder at Seventh Day emailed Westfield for help in 2023 as workers dug out the stumps. The trees, the elder wrote, had offered worshippers a shield from the road to get to the church’s front door.
Zed Fox, president of the Camden County Historical Society, said the society has no position on what should happen to the property.
Stephen Steglik, Voorhees Township’s administrator, said the township has no current plans to acquire the building, which is just a two-minute walk from the police department.
“We hope any future use of the property will benefit the township and enhance the quality of life for our residents,” Steglik said.
The church’s presence on the national and state historic registers offers the property some protections, including from federally funded projects, but not from private buyers. The person or entity that buys the property could alter or demolish the 19th-century church if desired.
But Westfield said a buyer would have no rational reason to demolish the church, because the slope of the property makes the land pretty much unusable without the church there. Unless a new congregation moves in, Westfield said, the best use for the property would be a private residence, with the first floor and former school serving as a living room and kitchen and the upstairs sanctuary transforming into bedrooms.
Westfield said she hopes the new owner will preserve the church’s historic exterior and keep Glendale’s story alive. If she hadn’t moved into a new home so recently, Westfield said, she would have tried to make it her own.
“It needs a new steward,” she said. “It needs somebody to come in and save it.”
Inquirer South Jersey