Miller Chapel A.M.E. Church

Front: This church, founded in 1867, was one of the first A.M.E. churches north of Columbia. It was organized when black Methodists in Newberry sent Carolina Brown and Winnie Simmons to Columbia for the third annual meeting of the South Carolina Conference of the A.M.E. Church. They asked Rev. Simeon Miller to serve their new church and later named it for him. Rev. Hiram Young was the first presiding elder. Reverse: The congregation first held its services in a cotton warehouse, but acquired this lot and built a church of their own in 1869-70. In 1870, when Miller Chapel A.M.E. Church hosted the first meeting of the Columbia Conference, conference delegates voted to found Payne Institute (now Allen University). This church, later enlarged several times, was covered in brick veneer in the 1970s.