Fodor's Expert Review Dominican Evangelical Church

The historic Dominican Evangelical Church is the oldest original building left in Samaná. Back in 1824, a sailing vessel called the Turtle Dove, carrying several hundred enslaved people who had escaped from Philadelphia, was blown ashore in Samaná. The structure actually came across the ocean from England in 1881 in a hundred pieces and was reassembled here, serving the spiritual needs of the African-American freedmen. In 1946 a citywide fire wiped out most of Samaná's wooden buildings and Victorian architecture; this church was miraculously saved.