Today you will follow the journey of a local architectural treasure constructed in the late 19th century. It was packed up and moved to its current location 131 years later. To claim a find on this virtual cache you will need to answer two questions, one answer can be found at the beginning of the chapel's journey and one at the end.
1. At the posted coordinates you can see a small metal plaque on the wall to the east of the black security fence and gate. What is the single ten-letter word on that plaque?
2. There is a yellow hydrant at the NE corner of the chapel. There are three numbers on the back side; one has 4 digits, one has 3 digits, and one has 1 digit (ignore the fraction). What is their total?
The Church of the Good Shepherd has occupied the corner of Hillsboro and McDowell Streets since 1875, but the grand Gothic Revival building seen here today is not the original structure. A frame chapel was designed in the vernacular, or ‘Carpenter,’ Gothic Revival style by the Rev. Johannes Oertel of Swanee, NC. Services were held there for the first time on Easter Sunday 1875. The congregation continued to grow, and by the mid 1890s, the need for a much larger worship space had become evident. The Carpenter Gothic chapel and the adjacent parsonage were moved to the Morgan St. side of the block to accommodate the new church.
In the early 21st century the church needed to expand again. The original church, now known as All Saints Chapel, which had sat on the back of the church lot for a hundred years, needed to go. A local developer/preservationist stepped in to rescue the historic building. On June 18, 2006, the 70-foot-long, 40-foot-wide, 235,000-pound structure was moved half a mile east down Morgan Street to the edge of historic Oakwood.
After the Chapel was safely settled in its new location on South East Street, the team began looking at dozens of old photos of the Chapel so they could restore it to its original glory, from ornate lighting fixtures to intricate wood trim. Nearly $1.5 million and countless man-hours later, the Chapel has been restored to reflect the work of its original designer, Reverend Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, and the sanctuary looks like it did upon opening for its first service on Easter Sunday in 1875. Today All Saints Capel operates as a special events venue.
Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the Geocaching Blog.