Greater St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church

Front inscription

Tradition holds that the congregants of St. Paul Church organized in the 1870s and originally worshipped under a brush arbor. By 1884 members had built a church approx. 2 mi. E, near the Congaree River. They purchased that ½-acre lot for $3.00 from Lavina Anderson, whose husband James was one of St. Paul’s stewards.

Reverse inscription

St. Paul was founded as a Methodist congregation and later joined the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. In 1962 members acquired the current site from Samuel Jackson for a new church building. They met here several years before it was completed in the 1970s. In the 1980s the church adopted the name “Greater St. Paul.”