Darlington County · Marker 16-76
St. John Methodist Church
W. Seven Pines St., near intersection with Tomahawk Rd., Hartsville vicinity
Front inscription
The first meetings of what would become St. John Methodist Church took place under a brush arbor. The congregation completed their first permanent sanctuary, a one-room frame structure, in 1867. Having outgrown that building, the members built a larger frame church in 1907. After nearly seventy years of service, that building was replaced by the current sanctuary in 1976.
Reverse inscription
The St. John Methodist Church Cemetery contains graves from as early as the 1890s and is still in use. The cemetery contains over 600 graves of church members and other African Americans from Hartsville, Darlington, Lamar, and surrounding areas.