Bertie County NC Churches: Holy Innocents Episcopal Church File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by "Neil Baker" In reference to the old Church on the Avoca Farm, Merry Hill. The Church is Episcopal and the name is Holy Innocents, completed in 1880 by Cadmus Capehart's widow Mary Martin Capehart. At that period of time, Mrs. Capehart felt that traveling from their home, Elmwood, to St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Windsor, was too difficult, so she asked her husband to build a small Episcopal Church for their seven young children at Elmwood. In October, 1879, Mr. Capehart began this project, but only the framing was completed when he died suddenly on October 29, 1879. Mrs. Capehart and children returned to her family home, Scotch Hall, at the insistence of her father. Later the original framing was moved to Avoca on land donated by Dr. William R. Capehart. Mary chose the name "Holy Innocents" for her children, all at the age of innocence because their father (Cadmus) had died young at age 33. On October 12, 1880, the church was consecrated and the rector from St. Thomas held services there very third Sunday. The oldest grave is that of James Lockhart, who departed this life on December 7, 1753 in the 54th year of his age. This is one of four graves that was moved there from Scotch Hall that was built in 1838. Scotch Hall is not owned by the Capehart heirs anymore. This information that I just provided came from Mr. H. Mack Bell and his wife from Merry Hill. This came from an article that appeared in The Daily Reflector from Greenville, NC as told to them by George Capehart who owned Scotch Hall at the time. ======================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation.