Gillespie Chapel Church was organized about 1886. Meetings were held by Reverend Gillespie, returned missionary, in the home of Wallace Watts. The church building was started soon after and the church was organized after the building was completed.

The Methodist Episcopal Church sponsored a day school in the community for some years.

Services were held in the chapel until the 1970's. In 1984 the building was acquired by the Upper Cartoogechaye Community Club, which is comprised of former church members along with others interested in preserving it's unique history and architecture. The church features an unusual octagonal steeple and is the only one of this type in Macon County.

The club has been working since this time restoring and maintaining the building. The roof is once again covered with cedar shakes, and the original wooden pews and oil lamps are intact. The inside walls are tulip poplar, painted traditionally with the upper-half white and the bottom half brown.

The Club also maintains the cemetery, which is the final resting place of, among many local names, Marion D Hodgins, Civil War Veteran, and Lucy Davenport Carpenter, the grandmother and subject of Eva Carpenter McCall's books: Edge of Heaven, Children of the Mountain, and Lucy's Recipes for Mountain Living (co-authored with Emma Edsell.)