Ackerville Baptist Church was added to National Register 15 years ago

Ackerville Baptist Church of Christ in Wilcox County, Ala.

Today – April 18 – marks 15 years from the day in 2003 that the Ackerville Baptist Church of Christ was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Many in the reading audience will be familiar with this old, one-room church, which sits just off State Highway 89, northwest of Snow Hill.

While reading about this old church last week, it occurred to me that I’d never actually been to see it in person, so on Sunday afternoon, to cure a bad case of cabin fever brought on by the bad weather on Saturday, I got in my truck and headed toward the old community of Ackerville.

I arrived a little after one o’clock, parked at the end of the shadowed drive leading up to the church property and stepped out of the truck. For a change, I was all alone on this little field trip, and as I stood there beside my truck for what seemed like a long time, there seemed to be no one around for many miles.

I walked up to the church and noticed a plastic sign screwed into one of the four wooden columns supporting the porch. As I got closer, I saw that it was an Alabama Black Belt Heritage “Listen & Learn” sign that encourages visitors to further “explore the site” by using a cell phone to listen to a recording that describes the church.

Standing there at the church steps, I had good cell signal, so I dialed the number and listened. According to the narrator, the church was originally built in Oak Hill in 1848 but was disassembled and moved by mule and wagon to its current location in 1886. After the turn of the century, the church’s attendance began to decline and regular services there ceased altogether in 1943.

When the recording ended, I hung up, walked around the church and then entered the gated cemetery behind the church, where I began to explore the graves, looking for the oldest I could find as well as the graves of any Civil War veterans buried there. Temperatures were cool on Sunday and there was a stiff wind, but I kept my eyes open for rattlesnakes as I walked in the grass between the headstones. In one corner of the cemetery, between the graves of Allyrae Palmer Wallace and Percy Edward Wallace, I squatted to examine a Daughters of the American Revolution ornament and was nearly jolted out of my skin.

My back was to the church, and it was in that moment that my ears were met with the loud, wooden “bomp-da-bomp-da-bomp” sound. I spun around, and my first instinct told me that someone (or something) had ran loudly down the length of the locked and empty church. I listened for a long time for a repeat of the sound, but all was quiet.

I walked out of the cemetery and looked inside the church through one of its rear windows. No one was inside, so I walked slowly around the building’s exterior, looking for anything out of the ordinary. As I rounded the front porch and made my way around the south side of the building, I nearly jumped 10 feet in the air when I heard a loud banging noise just a few feet away.

I spun in my tracks and glanced up in time to see the top of a double-hung window slamming against the wooden jamb. I could see that there were several inches of play in the loose window, and when the wind blew just right, it made a loud knocking sound. With that mystery solved, I strolled back to my truck and pointed it in the direction home.

In the end, there is no doubt that the Ackerville Baptist Church of Christ is one of the most historic and beautiful old churches in all of Wilcox County. If you ever get the chance to visit it for yourself, I highly recommend it. Also, if you make the trip alone, don’t be surprised by any spooky sounds, that is, unless the wind’s not blowing.