Miller Chapel AME Church

This church, founded in 1867, was one of the first AME 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 AME Church.  They asked Rev. Simeon Miller to serve their new church and later named it for him.  The congregation first held its services in a cotton warehouse but acquired this lot and built a church in 1869-70.  In 1870, when Miller Chapel hosted the first meeting of the Columbia Conference, delegates voted to found Payne Institute (now Allen University).

KEYWORDS: AME, ALLEN UNIVERSITY, MILLER CHAPEL AME CHURCH