4757-63 Chene Street
Sewing Machine Store, John Werner Tailor, Real Estate Office, Motor City Tobacco Co., New Friendly Missionary Baptist Church
By the late 1890s, two small dwellings were on this section of Chene Street where the New Friendly Missionary Baptist Church would later stand. Though Chene Street would eventually become one of Detroit’s strongest commercial corridors, most of the initial development on the thoroughfare was residential, not commercial.
By the 1921 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, the northern parcel had a small wooden storefront, and the southern one had a wooden dwelling with a large garage. Both these structures differed from those in 1897, and, oddly enough, the Sanborn Map lists different addresses for them. Likely, this was a misprint.
I believe there were at one time three storefronts between these two buildings—two in the one to the south and one in the structure to the north. Though the parcels are combined today at 4757 Chene Street, these buildings once utilized the addresses 4753 (south end) through 4763 (north end).
In February 1928, someone at the structure at 4757 Chene Street was selling a Martha Washington sewing machine for $69. The ad said it cost $69 two months prior and came with a walnut case. A few months later, an advert in the paper listed more sewing machines for sale—both new and used, for what they called the lowest prices in Detroit.
In October 1928, the structure at 4753 Chene housed a tailor run by John Werner. On October 2, 1928, a bomb went off inside the tailor, and Detroit police claimed that there was no connection to the bombings that had led to the trial and acquittal of the Purple Gang in the cleaners and dyers’ wars of the 1920s.
In December 1932, there was still some kind of residential structure at 4757 Chene Street, the same address that had previously listed sewing machines for sale. Sammy Yu, a Detroit youth who lived at the address, won both coloring and letter-writing contests that month. The latter was pertaining to Orphan Annie, a comic strip in the Detroit Free Press and papers nationwide.
In November 1942, the storefront at 4763 Chene was vacant, and an article in the Detroit Free Press titled “Young Hoodlums Run Amok in City” said that a group of kids broke windows at the building. In November 1944, an advertisement in the paper listed the address as some sort of real estate office that was selling homes to black Detroiters. It was common for newspapers’ housing ads to be openly segregated in Detroit, even into the 1960s.
In October 1945, Charles H. Feucht died. His obituary listed him as the Motor City Tobacco Co. owner, which they listed at 4757 Chene, though I haven’t found another mention of it.
The 1950 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map lists the south building as two storefronts and the one to the north as a warehouse. Potentially, the structures were already in cahoots. The southern structure was cement block and the northern one was brick.
In 1961, New Friendly Missionary Baptist Church was incorporated on the state level. The registered address was on Fullerton, and that was changed to a home on Beresford Street in Highland Park in 1971. The congregation was on Chene Street by 1963; however, I can’t be certain it was at this location. A photo in the Detroit Tribune in December 1963 shows Reverend Eddie Millhouse and his wife, Reverend Otis Hall, and Reverend J. H. Edwards at New Friendly Baptist’s banquet on Chene Street. The church’s sign credits Reverend Eddie Millhouse as the founder.
New Friendly MBC’s Community Mass Choir Concert was listed in the Detroit Free Press in 1989. The concert cost $10 and benefited the church fund. After that, I haven’t found much information about New Friendly MBC online. In the 2000s, the church’s holiday meals were in the paper a few times.
Though it appears the congregation has thinned over the years, the church has a newer sign and still meets on Sundays. The current pastor is listed as R. E. Millhouse Senior. If New Friendly Missionary Baptist Church weren’t here, these structures would likely be vacant lots like the entire block across the street and much of Poletown East.
