Union Chapel

Samuel and Louise Armstrong, who were committed to the religious education of young people, donated a lot on Porter Street at the north end of the island as the site for a Sunday, or "Sabbath," School as it was then known. Local volunteers completed the construction of the Union Chapel in 1887. It was never intended to be a "church" and was never dedicated as such. However, provisions in the Armstrong deed permitted use of the building for other religious meetings as long as they were nonsectarian. Circuit ministers and clerics from churches in the region came to preach, and this melding of various Christian beliefs earned the Chapel its "Union" name.

From its opening on Christmas Eve in 1887, the Union Chapel has served as the social as well as religious center of Catawba Island life through the 1960s. PTA meetings and other functions were regularly held at the Chapel, which continued to serve Catawba as an occasional meeting place even after the brick Catawba Island Township Community Hall and Fire Station was built in 1951. The last religious services in the Chapel were held by the Firelands Presbyterian Church in the 1980s and in 1992 ownership of the Chapel was transferred to the Catawba Island Township Trustees. The building sat vacant until 2017, when the trustees and the newly-formed Catawba Island Historical Society renovated the Chapel and reopened it as The Catawba Museum at Union Chapel. Union Chapel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 8, 2021.

-->>Read the original article about the National Register of Historic Places selection here.