The chapel of Martha and Mary, of which there were seven built by Mr. & Mrs. Henry Ford as a perpetual tribute to their mothers, Mary Ford and Martha Bryant. The first of the chapels stands in Greenfield Village, Michigan, and was completed in 1929. The others, completed in the 1930’s, were located in Sudbury, Massachusetts; Two in Richmond Hill, Georgia, Macon, Michigan; Dearborn, Michigan, and Willow Run, Michigan.

This chapel, the place of worship for the Belleville Presbyterian Church, was the one originally built for Camp Legion Unit at Willow Run, Michigan. In the 1940’s, Ford sold the chapel to Kaiser-Frasier, who sold it to General Motors in the early 1950’s. GM used the building to store office files. When Cherry Hill Baptist Church outgrew the little chapel and decided to build a new church, they sold the chapel to the Belleville Presbyterian Church for one dollar in July 1978.

It required months of research and diligent planning on the part of the congregation to restore the chapel to its present state, the first worship was held with much joy and thanksgiving on July 15, 1979. The chapel was officially dedicated on November 11, 1979, the twentieth anniversary of the first meeting of the congregation at the old township hall.

The Martha-Mary Chapel now stands a few short miles from where it was originally constructed and on the property that (coincidentally) belonged many years ago to the Ford family. Of the seven chapels, this is the only one currently in use as a regular place of worship. It is also the only one, outside of Greenfield Village Chapel, that is making use of the original pews and other furnishings. We at Belleville Presbyterian Church take great pride in our pretty white chapel, and we invite you to enjoy it with us each Sunday Morning.