The large Loblolly Pine tree on the right side of the photo below is the Bicentennial Tree at Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal (brick) Church. It is over 260 years old.
The marker (pictured below) is posted at the bottom of the Bicentennial Tree and is barley visible above.
Pat Neild once questioned whether or not the Bicentennial Tree was correctly identified. In 2010 he spoke with DNR Forester Scott Daniels and opined that the loblolly pine at the Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal Church is unlikely to be a Bicentennial Tree, as the current church was not constructed until 1857. An earlier church existed across the road, but is now gone. The Dorchester County list of Bicentennial Trees includes a loblolly pine, listed at 220 years old (in 1976) at the Bethlehem Methodist Church on Taylors Island. There is a large loblolly pine on the church grounds which may be the tree identified in 1976. However there is a question as to whether the builders of the “new” church would have allowed a valuable timber tree to remain in place while they built the church. In 1857 “preservation” was not much practiced. The 2013 designation by the Maryland Big Tree Program seems to have ended the controversy.