The Bethel A.M.E. Church is the oldest African-American Church in Huntington, and is also one of only two North Shore African Methodist Episcopal Churches still holding services.
The Church has served as a center of African-American community life for over 156 years.
The original incorporators of the Church were brickyard workers employed in the Crossman Brickyards on Huntington's West Neck. Unfortunately, the Church's early records were destroyed in a fire. The founders of the church and their families are buried in a small church-yard cemetery located to the rear of the church. Eleven headstones survive, but archaeological study has shown that graves lie beyond marker locations.
The Church purchased the property on which it is currently located in 1844 from the Huntington Methodist Church. The Huntington Methodist Church had erected a small house of worship there in 1837-38 that had more recently been used by them for Sunday school classes.