Built in 1853 as Bluffton Methodist Episcopal Church, this congregation was organized by whites, and in 1861 its 216 members included 181 African Americans who were likely enslaved to its white congregants. The church caught fire during the Civil War but survived. By 1874, local freed people began worshiping here as an African Methodist Episcopal church eventually known as Campbell Chapel. It was part of a wave of Reconstruction-era AME churches organized to serve southern African Americans' spiritual and educational needs, and in 1875 it was one of two churches in the AME Bluffton Mission, which had 190 members. Though altered several times, the building was first purchased by nine founding trustees for $500, and Campbell Chapel congregants worshipped here until 2004.