Founded in 1881 as Clifton Baptist Church with ten charter members and Rev. T.J. Taylor as its organizing minister, this church was first served permanently by Rev. W.T. Tate and later that year was admitted into the Broad River Association. It originally functioned as a union church, also serving other denominations in the village at Clifton Mill, later Clifton No. 1. As the mother of new congregations at Converse and Second Baptist, it bought its building from the mill company in 1896; that building was demolished in 1904-05, and the present church was built in 1905. In 1937 it became the First Baptist Church of Clifton, and about 1945 its 1905 bell tower was replaced in memory of seven citizens of the community who died in World War II.