Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church’s congregation organized in 1879. That year, founding trustees Carter Murray and Peter Kelty, said to have been Bethel’s first two pastors, acquired a one-acre parcel at this site. Tradition holds that members worshipped under a tent before building a wood frame church. Bethel was originally part of the A.M.E. church’s Gourdine Circuit. The first wood church was eventually replaced by the current building, which was later expanded and brick-veneered. For many years, Bethel housed a Black public school on-site until Williamsburg Co. consolidated its rural schools in the 1950s.