Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church grew from a small gathering into a thriving institution in The Hill Community and for two centuries has served its spiritual and social needs. In 1818, the African Methodist Episcopal Conference in Baltimore sent Reverend Shadrack Bassett to Easton to expand the A.M.E. mission to the Eastern Shore, and from atop an oxcart he preached to 100 people near here, forming the Bethel Society, the first A.M.E. group in the region. The congregation first met in a blacksmith shop, purchased this property in 1820, and later built its first church. By 1829, the site included a building called Bethel Church. Between 1840 and 1860, several houses were constructed on the property. The current church building was erected in 1877 and dedicated by Frederick Douglass in 1878. Archaeological work at the site has uncovered layers and artifacts that help date changes in the landscape, including a large borrow pit where clay was dug to make bricks around 1770 to 1815, possibly for a house across the street built by James Cockayne between 1802 and 1813, and the foundation of a home where Bethel ministers once lived, dated to the 1860s by pottery, bricks, and a belt buckle stamped with the Maryland State emblem worn by Civil War-era soldiers.