Three years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Rev. Frank Morris (Morris College) and 15 other charter members founded the church under a Brush Harbor (hush arbor). The first “brick and mortar” building for the church was a small log house. In 1878, Flat Rock Baptist Church was among the 10 churches granted dismissal from the Rocky River Association of Anderson County to form the Seneca River Missionary Baptist Association.

New Harmony United Methodist Church has transitioned throughout the decades with the continued changes that occurred within the Methodist denomination of the Protestant church in the United States. Its roots date back to 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, with the founding of Trinity Methodist Church that started in a log cabin in Walhalla, South Carolina.

Earliest records indicate Cross Roads Baptist Church to be the oldest known African American church in Oconee County, South Carolina. The original church was a log structure built in 1860 in the Crossroads Community now Westminster, South Carolina.