Before there was a church, there was a congregation. According to the church website, "St. Paul’s began its 140 year history . . . with congregants  meeting under a grove of walnut trees on the Howard County side of the  Patapsco River as early as 1867 . . . In inclement weather, Sabbath School  moved into a large frame building opposite the cotton factory. Patapsco Circuit riders provided pastoral leadership."

By November of 1878, they had a building on the Howard county side of the Patapsco at the site where St. Luke's church now stands across Route 32 from the town.

In 1889, they took the church apart and moved it across the river to Norwood Avenue at Church Street. Originally, the church faced Norwood Avenue, but in 1903, as Main Street developed, they added a new facade, and the church has faced Main Street ever since.

When they moved, they gave the land in Howard County, where the church had originally stood, to the town's small African American community, who built St. Luke's on the evacuated land.