Organized by 1919, the Freewill Baptist congregation of New Hill Baptist Church first met at a wooded 6.5-acre site approximately one-half mile north, where it built a wood-frame church and established a cemetery. A storm destroyed the first church in the early 1950s, and after members bought this 2-acre site from the Marlboro County School District in 1953, they began worshipping here. The current block church was built in 1975. From 1953 to 1975, New Hill Church met in the former Brightsville School, built in 1920-21 as an unusual barn-roofed, 2-story Rosenwald school for African Americans. It replaced an older one-room schoolhouse and was later converted to 1-story. In the early 1950s, the school enrolled 70-100 students in grades 1-7 before closing in 1953 as part of the consolidation of Marlboro County’s country schools.