Bethel Presbyterian (Chattooga County, Ga.)

The history of Bethel Presbyterian is the history of the northwest Georgia mountains and the sturdy Scots Irish pioneers who settled so much of it. It is the story of the associated Armuchee Academy and the Reverend T.C. Crawford and the remarkable educational institution he built on the mountain back roads of Dirt Town. And finally it is the story of Bethel Yard, the beautiful and timeless burying ground of the Bethel community and her citizens. Bethel Presbyterian sits in a lovely rural setting in the north Georgia mountains, just as it has since it was built in 1847. In 1846, local Presbyterians near Dirt Town petitioned the Cherokee Presbytery to create their own church since the nearest was Pleasant Green Presbyterian on the other side of Taylor's Ridge and this meant leaving home before daylight and returning after dark. The petition was approved and a log meeting house was constructed on land in the Dirt Town community that was donated by Augustus Bryant on lot 183 that he had acquired in the lottery. On this gently sloping hillside was a graveyard already containing interments as early as 1838. This was the beginning of the lovely and historic Bethel Yard burying ground. It was also on this land that Reverend T. C. Crawford came to Dirt Town from North Carolina to open a school. He was a man of letters who had graduated from Davidson College as salutatorian and attended Columbia Theological Seminary. At Bethel, he established Armuchee Academy, the first high school in Chattooga County. Students came from as far away as Alabama and Tennessee. Both the school and the church prospered and in 1849 construction began on the clapboard structure you see above. Even though Bethel was remote and Chattooga County was spared any major battles, the Civil War came calling in many highly destructive forms. Several Confederate units were organized out of Chattooga county but the first was "The Chattooga Volunteers", organized two months after the firing on Fort Sumter. Others soon followed as the war progressed and many sons of Bethel and Dirt Town answered the call. Of 291 documented interments, 27 are Civil War veterans. This is a remarkable concentration of Civil War service in one church community. For more information, see "Bethel Presbyterian Church - Dirt Town, Chattooga County, Georgia" by Thomas Weaver Weesner.