“S” is for Silver Bluff Baptist Church

  “S” is for Silver Bluff Baptist Church [Beech Island]. Located near the South Carolina-Georgia state line, Silver Bluff Baptist Church is one of the oldest independent African American Christian congregations in the United States. Traditional accounts have dated the organization of the church to around 1775, though some type of religious association among area slaves may have developed as early as the 1750s. Indian trader George Galphin permitted black and white preachers to minister on his plantation. George Liele, an enslaved person, was converted in 1773 and later manumitted so that he could preach to plantation slaves in the vicinity. After the Revolution, the church was reorganized and most of its members moved to Augusta. A smaller party remained and in 1873 constructed the building that today houses the Silver Bluff Missionary Baptist Church.