Flat Creek Baptist Church

Marker #:

16-68

Title:

Flat Creek Baptist Church [Darlington]

GPS:

N 34° 21′ 41.68″  W 79° 50′ 32.37″

Address:

1369 Society Hill Rd. (#16-133)

Darlington

Erected:

2011

 

Inscription

Front:

This African-American church was founded in 1877, with Rev. Daniel Jesse as its first pastor. It held its first services in a brush arbor and acquired a site about 2 mi. SE on Flat Creek Rd. in 1881, building a frame sanctuary there. The church, known through the years as Simmons’ Flat, Summer’s House, the Grove, and Marggie Branch, was renamed Flat Creek Baptist Church by 1927.

Reverse:

In 1913 Rev. Henry Hannibal Butler (1887-1948), newly ordained, came to Flat Creek Baptist Church as his first pastorate. Butler, principal of Darlington Co. Training School / Butler School in Hartsville (renamed for him in 1939), was later president of the S.C. State Baptist Convention and president of Morris College. The congregation moved here and built the present brick church in 2000.