All Saints’, Warrenton, now listed in the National Register of Historic Places
By the Rev. Brooks Graebner
On August 8, All Saints’, Warrenton, was officially entered in the National Register of Historic Places, thus marking it as a property of intrinsic significance to our nation’s heritage and worthy of being preserved.
This designation was the culmination of a four-year process that began in October 2021, when the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) made its initial determination that All Saints’ was potentially eligible for the National Register and gave the All Saints’ Revisioning Committee permission to proceed with making a formal application.
MORE THAN AN APPLICATION
Completing the application requires exhaustive research and technical documentation. Thanks to a grant from the Town of Warrenton, the committee was able to secure the professional services of Heather Slane, an architectural historian with extensive experience in the preparation of National Register nominations in North Carolina. Slane began work on the nomination in January 2024, and she had a complete draft ready to send to the SHPO that August.
For the next six months, the staff of the SHPO worked with Slane to fine-tune the nomination form before passing it along to the State Advisory Committee for their review and approval. The State Advisory Committee gave its unanimous approval to the nomination on June 19 of this year, after which it was forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register at the National Park Service for the final determination, which was favorably granted on August 8.
Being able to say that All Saints’ is a listed property on the National Register is a fitting validation of all the work that has already gone into bringing this church and its legacy to greater attention. What is especially rewarding, however, is to have the significance of All Saints’ carefully and extensively documented. Once the completed nomination form is uploaded to the National Park Service website, that documentation will be accessible to everyone.
One of the criteria by which All Saints’ was measured for National Register eligibility concerns the historic integrity of the property. That is, does it retain its original location, design, workmanship and materials? In the case of All Saints’, the answer is overwhelmingly affirmative. The exterior and interior are essentially unchanged, and the materials of the walls and floors remain largely intact.
Another set of criteria concerns design and construction. Is it distinctive in its style, its materials or its methods? Through her research, Slane was able to determine that All Saints’ is unlike any of the extant African American churches in Warrenton in both style and materials; indeed, in its use of rusticated concrete blocks, it is unlike any other church building in all of Warren County. Moreover, it differs substantially in design and material from the African American Episcopal churches in neighboring counties, such as St. Anna’s, Littleton, and St. Matthias’, Louisburg. So All Saints’ clearly met the criteria for distinctive architecture and construction.
What truly gives All Saints’ its local significance, however, is its size and prominent placement. Slane describes it as “the physical and social anchor of the African American community,” and a building that, when built, “was highly visible both from the African American residential development to the west and from the White businesses to the northeast.” Indeed, from the time it was completed in 1918 until 1936, when the nearby community center was built, All Saints’ provided the local Black community with the largest and most convenient gathering space for not only religious but also educational and social purposes.
BEYOND WARRENTON
But All Saints’ wasn’t just eligible for listing as a building of local significance; it also met the criteria for a property of national significance. Of the more than 100,000 properties listed in the National Register, only 2,600 meet the criteria for national significance.
All Saints’ qualifies because it is both a church built to serve a local community and a church erected as a national memorial to the Rev. Thomas White Cain (1843-1900), an African American Episcopal priest who was born in Warrenton and who perished, along with his family and his congregation, in the hurricane that swept through Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900.
Cain was an inspiring figure for African Americans, and for Black Episcopalians in particular. In 1889 and again in 1892, Cain represented the Diocese of Texas at General Convention, the only Black priest to serve in that capacity until the 1940s. In 1893, as strict racial segregation was becoming institutionalized throughout the South, Cain successfully filed a lawsuit for being denied a Pullman sleeping car berth between Missouri and Texas for which he had already paid. Thus, it is not surprising that Cain’s seminary classmate, the Ven. John Pollard, our diocesan Archdeacon for Colored Ministry in the early 1900s, would propose that All Saints’ in Warrenton be built as a memorial to his friend and colleague. Pollard, acutely conscious of Cain’s special significance for the Black community, made the further suggestion that Black Episcopalians take the lead in raising the funds for the building of the church.
When Pollard died in 1908, his successor as diocesan archdeacon, Bishop Henry Beard Delany, pressed forward with Pollard’s vision for All Saints’ as a memorial to Cain, funded chiefly by Black Episcopalians. Delany even adopted a fundraising strategy by which Black Sunday school children would make contributions of 25 cents each to underwrite the cost of a single concrete block in the construction of All Saints’. This much has been known and widely shared since 2018. Only recently discovered, however, were documents showing how many individuals and congregations actually responded to this appeal.
While pursuing research on Delany in the archives of Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, diocesan archivist Lynn Hoke and I found the minutes for the September 1914 Colored Convocation meeting held in Warrenton. The All Saints’ building fund report from those minutes showed the far reach of financial support for the construction of All Saints’. Contributions were listed from as far away as Ohio, Georgia and New Jersey. The convocation itself passed a resolution calling on every Black congregation in the diocese to contribute to “this splendid memorial.” Then, last year, Hoke found an entry in a special account book kept by Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire. There the bishop had recorded a 1913 contribution of $10 from the Sunday School of All Saints’, St. Louis, Missouri, for All Saints’, Warrenton. It was written confirmation that Black children took Delany’s appeal to heart.
To the best of our knowledge, All Saints’, Warrenton, is the only church in our country constructed with the support of a national fundraising appeal targeted particularly to Black Episcopalians, making its story and significance truly remarkable.
WHAT COMES NEXT
Now that All Saints’ has been listed in the National Register, an appropriate recognition ceremony will be planned in the coming months. It will be a celebration of this achievement and thank everyone involved in making it come to fruition.
As for All Saints’ itself, the work of seeing to the preservation of the building continues. This is a process that requires time and care, so as much of the original fabric and appearance is preserved as possible.
The All Saints’ Revisioning Committee’s vision for All Saints’, however, has never been simply to preserve the building, but also to restore it to service for the people of Warrenton and Warren County. The committee is currently in conversation with missional partners to join us in working to see All Saints’ become a home of ecumenical social ministry that engages in a variety of programs to serve its community and neighbors.
Stay tuned for more news about all these developments.
The Rev. Brooks Graebner is the historiographer for the Diocese of North Carolina and a member of the All Saints’ Revisioning Committee. Contact him at history@episdionc.org.
