Salem Methodist Episcopal Church and Salem Walker Cemetery

The Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1864, may be Michigan's least altered example of Greek Revival church architecture. Methodist circuit preachers began visiting Salem as early as 1834. Elder C. M. Anderson, who also ministered to South Lyon, Oakland County, established a Methodist class in Salem in 1863. On February 15, 1864, James B. Van Atta, Anthony M. Farley, Lorenzo D. Perkins, William Hollingshead, Ashley Root, John V. King, and John C. Ingalls, acting as trustees, purchased a half-acre of land for a church site from Carlisle and Mary A. Ham for five dollars. The 1881 History of Washtenaw County noted that "In 1864 the M~ E. church, in Salem, was dedicated, and the Church organization was perfected, with a membership of about 25 .... Previous to that time there had been a temporary Church organization and preaching at different points in the township .... " Services continued at what was later known as the "West Salem Church" until 1912.

The former Salem Methodist Episcopal Church and the adjacent Salem Walker Cemetery occupy a two-and-one-half-acre tract at the southeast corner of Angle and Tower roads in Salem Township, a formerly rural area at the western edge of the Detroit metropolitan area that is now seeing substantial suburban development. The church, a clapboarded, gable-roof building with a simple, square-plan, spireless belfry, has remained virtually unaltered since its construction in 1864. The Salem Walker Cemetery, fronted on the street sides by an ornamental iron fence dating from 1909, contains graves dating back to 1834.