Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Front: Mt. Zion Baptist Church organized in the 1880s. Tradition holds they first met under a brush arbor on land owned by local farmer Adonis Dezelle. In 1887, Dezelle and Rev. Anthony Alston, pastor of First Baptist church of Summerville, acquired one acre of land at this site for what was then called the Baptist Church of Taylor’s Hill. Members built their first permanent house of worship here soon after. Reverse: Church trustees took ownership of the property in 1892, by which time the congregation had adopted the name Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Several church buildings have stood on the site, the most recent of which dates to the 1960s and has been renovated several times. Adjacent to the building is a community burial ground established by church founders and known as Mt. Zion or Dunmeyer Hill Cemetery.