Bethel Church and Cemetery
Frankston, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rev. James Madison McCarty (1802-1869) is the first Primitive Baptist minister known to have served in this area. In 1853 Bethel Primitive Baptist Church of Christ was established as a member of the Union Association organized by Daniel Parker. Church services were held one weekend a month. Members of the congregation participated in holy services of communion and foot washings during conference meetings. Singing for the services was performed in the non-instrumental sacred harp method. The church was the primary religious and social gathering place for the Sandflat community. The oldest documented burial in the Bethel Cemetery is that of the infant child of Daniel and Elizabeth Willingham Cook, who died on August 7, 1855. Among those buried in both marked and unmarked graves in the cemetery are veterans of the Civil War, World War I and World War II. After the railroad was built through the county in 1900, bypassing this area in favor of Frankston to the north, the Sandflat community began to decline. Worship services at Bethel Church ceased in the 1940s. The cemetery remains as a reflection of the area's heritage. (1994)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Bethel Primitive Baptist Church of Christ was established in 1853 within an association organized by frontier preacher Daniel Parker, holding services one weekend a month with communion, foot washings, and unaccompanied sacred-harp singing. It was the heart of the Sandflat community until the railroad bypassed the area for Frankston in 1900 and the town slowly emptied; worship ended in the 1940s. The cemetery, holding veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars, is what remains.
Why it matters
It preserves a vanishing world of Primitive Baptist worship and shape-note singing, and a community that faded when the railroad chose another route.
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Related people
- · James Madison McCarty
- · Daniel Parker
Themes & tags
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