The First African Baptist Church at the Settlement is one of the oldest Black churches in the United States, established by formerly enslaved people who remained on the island after the Civil War. The current building — a simple structure of wood boards with plain glass windows and a corrugated tin roof — dates from around 1893 and seats perhaps 30 people. It is still occasionally used for services and as a gathering place for the descendants of the island's former African American community.
The church is a short walk from the Dungeness ruins along a sandy track through the maritime forest. A small cemetery nearby has graves of community members dating back to the 19th century. The building is modest in the extreme, but its place in both African American history and in the modern American imagination — thanks to the Kennedy wedding — gives it an outsized significance.