The first meetings of what became St. John Methodist Church were held under a brush arbor. The congregation completed its first permanent sanctuary, a one-room frame structure, in 1867. After outgrowing that building, the members built a larger frame church in 1907. Following nearly seventy years of service, that building was replaced by the current sanctuary in 1976. The cemetery contains graves dating from as early as the 1890s and remains in use, with more than 600 graves of church members and other African Americans from Hartsville, Darlington, Lamar, and surrounding areas.