Mount Olive A.M.E. Church

Front inscription

This is the first permanent site of Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. Church leaders acquired this site from Hilliard and Joanna Goodwin in 1899, a few years after the Town of Swansea was chartered. Congregants organized several years earlier and are said to have met under a brush arbor before building their first church here. The church’s founders included members of the Hildebrand, Johnson, and Lykes families.

Reverse inscription

Many of Mount Olive’s original members had previously been enslaved in this part of Lexington County and worked as farmers after emancipation. The congregation was initially part of the A.M.E. Church’s Columbia District and later joined the Wateree District. The first A.M.E. church in Swansea, Mount Olive was a valuable community resource for local African Americans. The current church dates to c.1909 and was later brick-veneered.