Marlboro County · Marker 35-45
Beaver Dam Baptist Church
Brickyard Rd. (S.C. State Rd. 36) and Phillips Circle, Wallace
Front inscription
By the 1890s, residents of this section of Marlboro County organized Beaver Dam Baptist Church. Also known as Cross Roads Church, they first met west of here at a place off Old River Road, near the Pee Dee River. Members held burials at a cemetery near that site until the 1990s. The church’s first pastor was Rev. Benjamin Franklin Humphrey. Its name is taken from nearby Beaver Dam Creek.
Reverse inscription
For many years, the church supported a public school for African Americans known as Beaver Dam or Irby Colored School. By 1917, the church had moved to a nearby 1½-ac. lot off Brickyard Road. The original building at this site was likely replaced by the current church, a wood frame building later veneered with concrete block. The church was damaged by a major tornado in 1984 but survived.