Several stones in Bethel Cemetery record the date of death as 1852 and 1853, with many others added through the 1860’s, well before the Bethel Church was built on Manchester Road. The founders of Bethel Church were looking for a place to build a place of worship when the St. Louis Marble Company gave two acres for a church, as well as five acres for a cemetery that was located directly behind (south) of the church. A Quit Claim was given on May 19, 1873 to Joel R. Frazier, Peter M. Brown, John Letcher, Thomas M. Wright and Philander P. Lewis, trustees of Bethel Society of “the Methodist Episcopal Church South”. The Bethel Church building was completed in 1875.
The cemetery has long been an important part of Bethel’s service to the community. The first burial after receiving the ground was in August 1873 of a Mr. William Atwell. Mr. McLoon, Superintendent of the Glencoe Lime Company kilns, donated the gravel for the first drive in the cemetery. The first road into the cemetery was to the east side of the church, just west of the white farmhouse (which wasn’t there at that time). Raymond Wright, J. W. Fridley, and other men with teams hauled the gravel and built the roads. Those interred at Bethel were always placed facing east.