70-49-15
Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church Site 5503 Lincoln Avenue 1916–1984
The original Seaton Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church stood immediately south of the new church that was built in 1983–84. The original 1916 church, however, was an important element in the then-new and developing community of Lincoln. The 1916 church was a front-gabled building of wood frame construction, with shallow crossgables on each of the long sides, and a corner entry tower and porch; it fronted west onto Lincoln Avenue. Centered in the west gable front was a three-part window, surmounted and set off by a shallow semi-elliptical molding. Each of the north and south sides of the nave was varied by a projecting crossgable which formed a shallow transept. There was a two-story pyramidal-roof square tower on the south side, set back slightly from the southwest corner of the building; entrance was into the west face of this tower through a small pedimented entry porch. The church was sheathed with German wood siding, painted white, as was all of the trim. On the interior, the walls of the nave were covered below the chair-rail with dark vertical wainscoting, and there was a small, slightly raised altar at the east end. The first services in the new community of Lincoln were held in the small general store run by W.A. Davis, and were soon conducted by the Reverend Daniel P. Seaton, who had purchased a lot in Lincoln in 1913. In that same year, four of the new residents, acting as trustees of the Bethel A.M.E. Church of Lincoln, purchased a lot for the construction of a church. Services continued to be held in the Davis store and in Seaton’s home while money was raised to build the church. Construction of the Bethel A.M.E. Church was underway in 1916. Daniel Seaton died in 1918; his will contained a legacy to the Bethel Church, and since that time, in his memory, the church has been known as Seaton Memorial A.M.E. Church. The church was a focal point of the Lincoln community for nearly 70 years. By the early 1980s, however, with the new residential construction in Lincoln, the church was no longer large enough for the expanding congregation. The trustees purchased adjoining lots in 1982, and in the following year began construction of a new brick church building. The 1916 church was demolished in 1984.
Seaton A.M.E. Church shown here in a 1983 photograph.
104 LINCOLN African-American Historic and Cultural Resources