Bethlehem Methodist Church

(Front) This church, on this site since 1889, grew out of Sardis Methodist Church, a mission station organized in 1887 with a small frame church on Old Camden Rd. 3 mi. E. When that church burned in 1889, its elders accepted a donation of 4 acres here from David Byrd for “New Sardis Methodist Church.

” This church was completed and dedicated in 1890 as Bethlehem Methodist Church. (Reverse) At first on the Clyde circuit, this church, averaging about 250 members in its early years, became the main church of the Bethlehem Circuit when that circuit was created in 1910. A parsonage built that year, on an acre donated by F.W. Howle, served as the circuit parsonage until 1953.

Bethlehem School, across the road from the church, was a rural primary school from 1906 to 1913. Sponsored by the Darlington County Historical Commission, 2012