Local organization to preserve artifacts of Shiloh Baptist Church
The fate of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Butler was finally decided Tuesday, March 12 after a judge approved the redevelopment authority’s final plan for the building.
The nearly 110-year-old church will be demolished, but not before the religious organization Fishbone Ministries removes important artifacts in an effort to preserve the history of the first Black church in the county.
The list of items detailed in court documents include Bibles and hymnals, church pews, a piano, an organ, church signage, a Communion tray, a baptismal pool, a display case, doors and trim and the cornerstone of the church building.
According to attorney Andrew Menchyk, the redevelopment authority became conservators of the church in October after officials expressed concerns over the “dilapidated state of the building.” The building was condemned by the city in 2020.
Martha Brown, grant manager for the redevelopment authority, confirmed the concerns around the structure in a hearing March 7 before Judge Kelley Streib.
“It’s unstable, the city of Butler deemed it condemned. The roof is coming in, the walls are bowing,” she said.
With the approval of the authority’s plan, Menchyk said they intend to award the project to EXC, an excavation contractor based out of Zelienople for the price of $12,633.
Fishbone Ministries will be coordinating with the redevelopment authority and the contractor to remove the listed items before demolition.
Over the years, the building located on Hayes Avenue has suffered cracks in it’s foundation and water damage from flooding, according to a Butler Eagle article from 2021.
Though not home to a congregation for nearly 10 years, the building carries a hefty legacy as the home church of Lettie Hall, who was the wife of Shiloh pastor David Brown Dade.
Hall was enslaved by Confederate sympathizer Dr. Samuel Mudd of Charles County, Md., who set the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth after he fled the Ford’s Theatre after assassinating President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
According to an article by local historian Bill May, Hall prepared a meal for the escaped fugitive that night.
Mudd was convicted of aiding and conspiring in a murder by a military commission for helping Booth and was sentenced to life in prison. He was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.
After Hall married Dade, she lived in Butler for the next 14 years. She died in 1936 at the family residence in the Island section of the city and was buried in an unmarked grave in Butler's Rose Hill Cemetery, until the Dr. Samuel Mudd Society erected a stone marking her final resting place several years ago.
