The church was built on the foundation of an 1820 Presbyterian church that burned down in 1849. Opened in 1850, it served as the Bethesda Presbyterian Church until 1925, when the congregation erected a new church on Wilson Lane, farther south in Bethesda. When the church moved to its new location in 1925, the trustees sold the building and 7 acres (2.8 ha) of land to Mrs. May Fitch Kelley. The Presbyterian congregation, however, retained ownership of the cemetery.[2]
Mrs. Kelley lived in the church building for many years. In 1945, the property was sold to a French Algerian Catholicmissionary group called the Missionaries of Africa, commonly known as the White Fathers. In the 1950s, the property was transferred again, this time to the trustees of the Temple Hill Baptist Church.[2]
Legacy
In the 1860s, the church's pastor, Rev. Edward Henry Cumpston, began lobbying the local postmaster, Robert Franck, to rename his post office from "Darcy's Store". Franck did so in 1871, and the surrounding community took the name as well.[3]