The historic Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church at 226 E. Howry Ave. houses the oldest church congregation in DeLand and the oldest AME church in Florida. In 1878, a group of African American residents met together to worship under a brush arbor at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Levi Collett on Voorhis Avenue near the current church.

Bethel AME Church - original building c.1881. Corner of the current building under construction seen in the right corner.  Photo: Florida Memory

1907 Cornerstone with initials of members who worked on the building. Photo: Bill McIntyre

By 1881, the congregation had built a small wood-framed building next to the current church property to hold worship services. In the 1880 Federal Census, the first held after the earliest pioneers settled in DeLand, the County of Volusia recorded 3,300 residents, of which 452 were African American, and 189 of those lived in Precinct 2, which was DeLand and West Volusia.

The wooden church sufficed for 25 years, but then the church decided to build something larger, and John A. Lankford of Chicago, the official architect for the national AME Church, designed a new Gothic Revival Style building for DeLand’s Bethel AME congregation. Construction began in 1907 on the wood-framed masonry building, which is now listed on the City of DeLand Register of Historic Places as historically significant at the local level.

The men of the church did the labor, making concrete blocks mixed with Florida sand and molding them on the site. Members who worked on the arduous project carved their initials into the stones at the base of the building, and more than 15 of these are still visible. They laid the cornerstone on April 27, 1907, under the direction of the Rev. S. C. Baker, pastor, and worked on the building for years, adding features until 1915.

The church features steeply pitched gable roofs, two towers with pyramid style roofs, and Gothic arch window openings and doors. The roofs and towers are covered in pressed metal shingles above the rusticated block foundation. The interior features a wood-paneled domed ceiling, a curved chancel rail, curved pews and a beautiful stained-glass window installed in 1919. On the south façade, three flat roof and gabled additions have altered the original structure.

The church built an annex in 1954 under the Rev. F.A. Massey’s pastorate. In the early 1970s, the annex was updated and renovated under the Rev. Carl F. Brinkley, a beloved longtime pastor. Congregants David Watts, Lewis Gibson, Amos Cleveland and Curtiss Jones provided the labor for those renovations, and the side street adjoining the church was named Brinkley Avenue in the pastor’s honor. In recent years, the interior has been refurbished and preserved, while maintaining the beautiful wood millwork. Today the historic church continues as a place of praise and community spirit under the pastorate of the Rev. Reginald Johnson.

Bethel AME Church today.  Dreggors Collection WVHS photo archives.