Mt. Zion Methodist Church

Mt. Zion Methodist Church was founded in 1868 with Rev. James Wesley Johnson as its first minister, and its early services were held in a brush arbor. In 1870, trustees purchased this 1 ¾ acre tract to build a “Negro Schoolhouse” sponsored by the church, the first in the Mars Bluff community. The sanctuary, originally a frame building, was built in 1875 on a tract purchased from the school, and it was extensively remodeled and covered in brick veneer in 1970. The nearby cemetery, established in 1876, includes the graves of early church leaders such as Anthony H. Howard (1840-1908), a former slave who served in the S.C. House of Representatives during Reconstruction and was also one of several black farmers who grew rice here after the Civil War.

South Carolina · United States