BURKITTSVILLE, Md. -- Historic preservationists are making a last-ditch plea to save a rickety old chapel that became a magnet for vandals after the release of the 1999 horror movie, "The Blair Witch Project," which was set nearby.
The Ceres Bethel AME Church, built in 1870 by freed slaves, is a part of the area's black culture long ignored by mainstream historians, preservation advocates say.
But vandals and nearly 20 years of neglect have nearly destroyed the two-room, wood-frame church in the rugged foothills of South Mountain, just outside the Frederick County hamlet of Burkittsville.
"Every six months, I put up new plywood, and every six months they come back again," said the Rev. Richard Dyson, of the Mount Zion AME Church in nearby Knoxville. "We've been worried that someone will set fire to the place."
In August, the nonprofit Frederick County Landmarks Foundation placed Ceres Bethel AME on its annual list of seven "most endangered sites," hoping to draw attention to its dilapidated condition.
"It's an important part of Burkittsville's history, and it's important to keep around," said Connie Stapleton, who compiled the list.
The church was the site of countless weddings, funerals and celebrations in the area's small black community before it was closed in 1984. Now it attracts late-night partygoers, thrill-seekers and movie devotees who have splashed the interior with graffiti, smashed the altar, repeatedly torn protective plywood off the doors and windows, and littered the inside with beer cans, candles and even an Ouija board.
The unwanted attention mirrors the attention heaped on Burkittsville, a rural community of less than 200, which became a "Blair Witch" tourist destination overnight in 1999, even though most of the pseudo-documentary movie actually was filmed elsewhere. The church is in the woods outside town, far from public view, but close enough for those seeking signs of the fictional Blair Witch.
The fact that it is a church gives it a certain twisted cachet for those seeking to summon spirits and witches. Convinced that the church was used by Satan worshippers after the film came out, Dyson held a nighttime ceremony in 1999 to expel lingering evil spirits. He found a Ouija board, he said, and drug paraphernalia.
Not long afterward, Dyson applied to the Maryland Environmental Trust for grants to restore the church. The money didn't come through.
Barbara Levin, a conservation easement planner with the Maryland Environmental Trust, said Ceres Bethel was close to receiving a grant of about $45,000 two years ago, but a technicality held up the application. She said that by making a few minor changes in the name listed on the property's deed, the church probably will be eligible to receive the money.
"If they got that correct, we could make it happen," Levin said. "This church has such historic significance, everyone involved in this project will make it happen."
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