Bethel Methodist (Troup County, Ga.)

The church was organized in 1830 and just four years ago on January 9, 1836, James R. Starr of Chambers County, Alabama sold Erasmus C. Alford land lot 102. But two acres of land were preserved for the Methodist Episcopal church where the meeting house then stood. The first meeting house was built of logs and had a balcony to seat the slaves. It stood to the left of the present church, on the hill in the vicinity of the Wallace cemetery lot. In my own imagination I picture the log church to be similar to the log house in the stained glass window of our present sanctuary. We do know the church had a balcony. The slaves made their way to the balcony where they sat during the services. In the 1840s, a Christmas Methodist conference passed the ruling to "let men and women set apart in the congregation." To insure obedience, the church probably had a partition that ran the length of the church. The men sat on one side and the women on the other. The pews that you sat on were probably slabs of wood without backs to them. The backs came later. According to the description of the traditional Methodist churches in the 1840s, the pulpit was probably high in the air, so high that sometimes as many as six steps were needed to enter it. It was so enclosed as to reach almost shoulder height of the average preacher. The first pastor we have remembrance of was the Rev. H.J. Ellis, who served the church in 1879. Right along with Bethel Church on almost on the same ground was the little one teacher school house. On December 26, 1887 John C. Davidson granted to the trustees of Bethel Academy a triangular parcel of land lying between roads leading to Bethel Church from south and east. It was stipulated that when the land ceased to be used for educational purposes, it should revert to his estate. The church building in which we worship today was built in 1906 when W.F. Hogg presented one acre of land to the trustees of Bethel Church on November 8, 1906. The cornerstone states that the pastor at the time was W.C. Fox. Bethel was noted for its barbecues which were prepared by Mr. Abb Hardy. They were held under the trees and people came from miles around for that delicious dinner. They were always held on Wednesdays because businesses in the cities closed at noon on this day. [This history is excerpted from an account by Daniel Bookhoop in the church files.]