Parker's Chapel "Old Taylor Field"

Parker's Chapel was a community of landowners. Most families owned their own land and grew dark-fired tobacco, then strawberries in the early twentieth century, and the settlement also had a blacksmith shop and a grocery. By local tradition, homecoming celebrations began in July 1884, and generations still return. When the 1923 school went up, the citizens raised six hundred dollars, the county supplied the land and the Rosenwald Fund gave twelve hundred. The church building here is the third on the site, built in 1956-57 and bricked in 1970.

What the plaque says

Parker's Chapel "Old Taylor Field" Located .5 of a mile north of here is the Parker's Chapel Community. The community began shortly after the Civil War when descendants of ex-slaves Sam and Lucinda Groves-Coakley migrated to "Taylor's Old Field." They were followed by Lucy Perdue and family from Virginia, and later by the Dye, Hobdy, and Gibbs families. Growing tobacco and strawberries provided the settlers a livelihood. Built circa 1870, the first church at Old Field also served as the community's first school. The community and church received its name from the Rev. James Parker, the first pastor. In 1906, Parker's Chapel Church hosted the East Fork Missionary Baptist Association. Parker's Chapel School was built in 1923 with assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. The school closed in 1960. Until 1965, when the Portland schools desegregated, African-American children were bused to Gallatin. In the mid-1940s, the Flower and Garden and Community Improvement clubs of Parker's Chapel were organized.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wynnewood State Historic Site — 16 mi
  A National Historic Landmark log inn at the Bledsoe's Lick springs, beside a Mississippian mound center and tied to the domestic slave trade.

More markers nearby

• Richland — 2.1 mi
• Bishop William McKendree — 2.1 mi
• Zollicoffer's Headquarters — 2.4 mi
• Fountain Head — 2.5 mi