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The I. O. Jones House is a good example of Queen Anne/Classical Revival transition style popular at the turn of the last century. The house retains stylistic characteristics of asymmetrical massing, varied roof lines and the wrap-around front porch with the turned columns and balustrade which is typical of this period of architecture. The primary window treatment is one-over-one sash with simple post and lintel surrounds. The front door is a single doorway of one large beveled pane of glass flanked by sidelights and tran- som with decorative muntins. The front of the house has a projecting bay area at the roofline that is capped by a pedimented gable with an oval window. A second gabled roof end on the north elevation has a centered oval window with delicate tracery. The house sits slightly angled on the lot, coupled with its large scale makes it prominent on the streetscape of S. Main Street. Marsha O’Brien purchased the house in 1974 and currently lives there with her husband Glenn. This is the first local landmark designated in the Town of Wake Forest in 1991.
Friendship Chapel Baptist Church “Old Cemetery”, circa 1865 The Old Cemetery of Friendship Chapel Missionary Baptist Church (referred to as the Old Cemetery) is closely tied to the history of Wake Forest College, the Town of Wake Forest, and the historic Town of Forestville. Friendship Chapel is the African-American offshoot of Forestville Baptist Church, which was founded in 1859. Although slaves had always been invited to worship
in the balcony of Forestville Baptist, after Emancipation the congregation helped establish a separate church for its black members and this became Friendship Chapel, so named for the kindness and good feelings surrounding the joint effort. The historic Old Cemetery is associated with the present day church, although it is no longer used for interment. Oral his- tory suggests that prior to Emancipation
the surrounding African-American community used the area containing the cemetery for covert Christian worship services. Following Emancipation, the community continued to meet at the site and began using the area as a cemetery perhaps as early as the late 1860s. The landowner eventually deeded the parcel to the church. The parishioners believe the cemetery was closed in the 1950s when it was determined to be full. The Old Cemetery of Friendship Chapel Missionary Baptist Church is historically significant because of its association with the establishment of that community’s first African-American reli- gious congregation. It is the location where an estimated 567 members are buried (400 individual marked and unmarked graves identified on the basis of surface features, 277 possible graves in the areas surveyed with GPR, one possible mass burial). The mass burial, local oral history suggests, was linked to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and is said to be the burial site of both black and white residents who succumbed to the virus.
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