Bethany Rest Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker, so let's see what the ground out here near Chambers Creek has to say. Way back in 1857, a small group of settlers made the long haul out of Alabama and put down roots in the Alvarado area, near Chambers Creek. The Frost family came.

The Newby family. The Murphree and Head families too. They weren't arriving to some finished, waiting town; they were building one out of raw Johnson County dirt.

Now among those Head family folks were Sampson and Betty Ann Blakely Head, who settled about a mile north of this very site, in a community that came to be called Fairview. Their son, a man who went by Ben (full name A.A. Head), eventually married a woman with one of the more poetic names you'll ever hear spoken aloud in Texas: Sarah Alabama Bethany Newby Head.

Roll that around for a second. Sarah. Alabama.

Bethany. Newby. Head.

In 1903, Ben and Sarah donated two acres to a church that at the time went by Head's Chapel, though it would come to be known as Bethany Church. Then, five years on, in 1908, the trustees of that church made a quiet but consequential decision: they set those two acres aside as a burial ground. Now, the earliest settlers in the surrounding area, they'd been going to the Buel and Jones cemeteries nearby.

But this new ground, Bethany Rest Cemetery, was about to receive its first marked grave. That grave belonged to Marcy Thompson. Fifteen years old. 1908.

Earlier unmarked graves may exist; the marker is careful to say that, and it's worth sitting with. Time kept moving, as it does. A cemetery association formed in 1917, and one of the first things they did was add a fence, because even the dead deserve some protection from a world that doesn't slow down.

The church congregation itself carried on until 1960, when it disbanded and donated one more acre to the cemetery before going quiet. Today, Bethany Rest features curbed plots, metal fencing, vertical stones, and a gated entry. It stands as an important historical reminder of the rural community that grew up around Chambers Creek: families from Alabama who showed up in 1857 with not much more than their names and their nerve, and left something that's still here to visit.

That's the story the ground keeps.

What the marker says

Bethany Rest Cemetery A small group of settlers from Alabama arrived in the Alvarado area, near Chambers Creek, in 1857. Among them were the Frost, Newby, Murphree and Head families. The family of Sampson and Betty Ann Blakely head settled about a mile north of this site in a community that came to be called Fairview. Their son A.A. "Ben" Head and his wife, Sarah Alabama Bethany Newby Head, donated two acres to Bethany Church, originally known as Head's Chapel, in 1903. In 1908, the trustees set it aside as a burial ground. Many of the earliest area settlers were buried in the nearby Buel and Jones cemeteries. At the church's burial ground, known as Bethany Rest Cemetery, the first marked grave, that of fifteen-year-old Marcy Thompson, dates to 1908. Earlier unmarked graves may exist. A cemetery association formed in 1917 and added a fence to protect the graves. The church congregation disbanded in 1960 and donated an additional acre to the cemetery, which today features curbed plots, metal fencing, vertical stones and gated entry. It serves as an important historical reminder of the surrounding rural community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002