West Somers Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery

Somers, United States

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The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

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Heritage registerNational Register of Historic Places↗

The West Somers Methodist Episcopal Church, also known as Tomahawk Chapel, stands on Tomahawk Street in Somers, New York, a small wooden structure built in the 1830s in the Greek Revival style. Erected by a prominent West Somers resident to serve the local agricultural community, the church was intentionally modest—so diminutive that circus pioneer Hachaliah Bailey compared it to a tiger's cage. Though burials in the adjoining cemetery had begun nearly a decade before construction, the church itself was never formally recognized as a congregation within the Methodist Episcopal denomination, instead relying on itinerant ministers to lead services. Its Sunday school classes long provided the only educational opportunity for area children, and the cemetery became a final resting place for many early members, remarkably more than half of whom lived past seventy. As suburbanization and the creation of New York City's water supply reservoirs transformed West Somers in the twentieth century, the church declined. By the 1950s, deterioration required replacement of its porch columns; later restoration and relocation preceded its 2011 listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which encompasses the building, cemetery, and surrounding stone wall.

Movement

Greek Revival architecture

Type: church building
Heritage: National Register of Historic Places listed place
Place: Somers, United States

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Location

41.33080, -73.75080