Bethel Baptist Church
(Front Text )
This church was organized in 1851 by Revs.
Lewis Parker and John Hoover, with twelve
charter members and Rev. Hoover as its
first minister. The congregation has
worshipped on this site, on land donated
by Mathias Mathis, since it was organized.
It first met under a brush arbor, then in a
log church built in 1852. The second
sanctuary here, a frame church, was built
in 1887.
( Reverse Text )
The present sanctuary here, built in 1949,
is attached to the 1887 church; it was
remodeled in 1984 and again in 1991.
Four members later became Southern
Baptist ministers: Revs. W.E. Weekley,
W.H. Dowling, G.D. Kinard and W.E. Brant.
Pastors with the longest tenures at Bethel
were Revs. John Hoover ( 1851 ~ 68 ) and
L.S. Shealy ( 1917 ~ 20 and 1934 ~ 47 ).
Marker is at the intersection of Confederate Highway (State Road 640) and Bethel Church Road (State Route S-3-106), on the right when traveling east on Confederate Highway.
Courtesy hmdb.org
