Preserving Mount Tabor AME Zion Church in Mount Holly Springs
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Asia Tabb
AIRED; January 23, 2026
Listen to the podcast to hear the full conversation.
For Carmen James, Mount Holly Springs isn’t just a place on the map — it’s a feeling.
“When I think about Mount Holly Springs, the first word that pops into my head is comfort,” James said during a recent appearance on The Spark. “It’s like a warm blanket on a cold day… a place where you just feel comfortable.”
Born in Carlisle and raised in Mount Holly Springs, James grew up surrounded by the people, places, and traditions that shaped her sense of community. That connection eventually led her to help spearhead the Mount Tabor AME Zion Church Preservation Project — an effort to restore and share the history of a small but deeply significant African American church tucked along a once-rural dirt road.
A Church at the Center of Community Life
For generations, Mount Tabor AME Zion Church served as the heart of Mount Holly Springs’ Black community. James recalls walking to church as a child, careful not to scuff her Sunday school shoes.
“You dressed up to go to church,” she said. “You walked up that dirt road, went into this one-room sanctuary, and you were surrounded by people you grew up with — people you went to school with, played baseball with, who were your friends.”
Inside the sanctuary, children were grouped by age for Sunday school, but the church’s lessons went far beyond scripture.
“That’s where we learned the Ten Commandments,” James said. “That’s where we learned public speaking when you did poems during the holidays. That’s where Harvest Home happened — bringing canned goods to share with the neighborhood and the needy.”
She describes the church as more than a place of worship.
“At that particular point in time, it was the foundation of the community,” James said. “And ironically, the foundation in our restoration project was the first thing we worked on.”
A Building Left Behind — But Not Forgotten
By 1970, regular services at Mount Tabor had stopped. The church, which never had running water or indoor plumbing, was eventually overtaken by nature.
“I would deliberately drive down the street just so I could see the church,” James said. “Eventually, you couldn’t see it anymore because of the overgrowth.”
Although she had moved away to Philadelphia, James said she knew the building was deteriorating.
“If I had to put a date on it, I’d say around 1980,” she said. “My mom told me, ‘It’s in really bad shape.’”
Still, it would take decades — and the right moment — for preservation efforts to truly begin.
A Spark That Ignited a Movement
That moment came in 2016, when local historians Lindsay Varner and Pam Steele began collecting oral histories in Mount Holly Springs. They were encouraged to speak with the Gumby sisters, whose family had lived in the town since the 1800s.
“In a small town, trust matters,” James said. “They weren’t sure they wanted to talk to strangers — until the pharmacist told them, ‘These people are okay.’”
One of the sisters, Harriet, led the historians behind her home and pointed toward the overgrown church and cemetery.
“She said, ‘We’re concerned about the legacy of our grandfather, Elias Parker,’” James recalled. “He built that church, and he’s buried in that cemetery.”
Varner was the first to fully impress upon the group just how significant the site was.
“She told us, ‘This is history — real history,’” James said.
That realization deepened when Varner revealed that seven members of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) — African American Civil War veterans — were buried in the cemetery.
“I was totally embarrassed,” James admitted. “I should have known what USCT meant. These were Civil War veterans, buried in a cemetery we used to think of as just a creepy old place you walked past.”
From Abandoned Property to National Recognition
What followed was nearly a decade-long journey. Ownership of the abandoned church and cemetery was eventually transferred to the Borough of Mount Holly Springs, which partnered with a newly formed nonprofit — the Mount Tabor Preservation Project.
With just seven founding members, the group incorporated, wrote grants, and began restoration work on behalf of the borough.
In total, the project has secured more than $329,000 in grant funding, including a $275,000 grant from Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development.
“That grant allowed us to match all of our other funding,” James said. “And if you look at the church today, you can see the result.”
Preserving the Past, Sharing the Future
The restored church now stands as both a historic landmark and an educational space. While it has electricity, it remains true to its origins — without plumbing, just as it was when first built.
“The front of the church is all original wood,” James said. “It’s log and chinking, pine floors, pine logs — and we preserved as much original material as we possibly could.” 
Mount Tabor AME Zion Church is now listed on both the Cumberland County Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places.
But for James, preservation isn’t the final goal.
“In the past, it was the foundation,” she said. “Now, it’s the future.”
She calls the church “a little nugget of history” — one that deserves to be shared.
“We didn’t always know that people wanted to hear this story,” James said. “Now we do. And we can’t wait to keep telling it.”
2026 Mt. Tabor Tours and Events:
May 9 – tour at 1:00 PM
June 13 – tour at 1:00 PM
June 20 – Juneteenth Program at 10:00 AM
July 11 – Reading Frederick Douglass Together Program at 1:00 PM
August 8 – Tour at 1:00 PM
September 12 – Tour at 1:00
December 12 – First Holiday Fundraiser at 3:00 PM
