Jerusalem Baptist Church

Front inscription

This church, organized soon after the Civil War, is one of the oldest African-American churches in Darlington County. It held its first services a few miles E under a brush arbor on Snake Branch, a creek near E. Carolina Ave. The first permanent church, a log building, was built there. Trustees acquired this site in 1898, built the present church in 1907, and chartered the congregation in 1908.

Reverse inscription

This church, built in 1907 as a frame building, was described as “a splendid achievement” when it was covered in brick veneer and rededicated in 1939. It had a congregation of more than 350 during the Depression. Rev. Henry H. Butler (1887-1948), pastor from 1932 until his death, was also for many years the principal of the Darlington Co. Training School/Butler School and later president of Morris College.