| By Neil Johnson, reporter/anchor, Big Radio |
People can chip in and buy cookies this Saturday to support a restored, Civil War-era cemetery chapel on Janesville’s northwest side.
Richard Snyder, a leader of the Oak Hill Chapel friends group, says they’ve joined forces with friends of the Oak Hill Cemetery itself, and a bake sale benefits the upkeep of the stone and stained glass chapel and the cemetery surrounding it.
Oak Hill is a city-owned property, but the friends groups have spent a decade reviving the chapel and restoring older gravestones around the cemetery.
Over the last year, donations to the Oak Hill friends’ helped pay for a wrought-iron fence at the cemetery entry and ongoing work to the circle courtyard and entry at the front of the chapel.
Oak Hill Chapel was built in the U.S. Civil War era by the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order whose creation of the stone sanctuary was in honor of soldiers killed in the Civil War.
People at the bake sale can step inside and see the work the friends group has done to revive and restore the chapel and its ornate stained glass windows.
The bake sale’s from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in the Oak Hill Chapel. If you’ve never been there, it’s at 1275 North Washington Street.
Snyder says it includes door prizes and a silent auction, along with wood-and-stained-glass creations.
