Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 08/04/10

SUMMARY

Located four miles south of Mount Holly, the Bethel Methodist Church is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A for its association with religious development in Union County. It is also being nominated with local significance under Criterion C as a good example of a plain/traditional church in the county. Because the church is still owned by a religious organization, it is also being submitted under Criteria Consideration A: Religious Properties. When the building was built in the late 1800s it was known as the Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church, though the congregation changed its name and affiliation over the years. Today the building is owned by the Bethel Methodist Church, though services have not regularly been held there since 1998.

ELABORATION

When it was organized by the Territorial Legislature on November 2, 1829, Union County was a large division that encompassed all or part of present-day Bradley, Calhoun, Ouachita, Ashley, Drew, Dallas, Cleveland, Nevada, and Columbia counties. Initially the seat of government was at Camden, but as the legislature began carving out parts of the county to form other counties it became necessary to relocate the government to a more central location. After a brief time in the town of Champagnolle, the public buildings and records were moved to their current location in El Dorado. At the same time the county government made this move, Maj. E. W. Wright and his family moved to the northwest part of Union County from Georgia in 1843. He was followed by Col. C.M. McRae in 1844. These families formed Mount Holly, a remote settlement nearly forty miles from the nearest community.

Methodist circuit riders and Primitive Baptist congregations organized the county's first church services in the 1830s, but other denominations would soon arrive. Union County residents formed a Missionary Baptist church in 1844 and a Methodist Episcopal South church in 1846. A large number of settlers in Mt. Holly had Scottish ancestry, creating a need for a Presbyterian church in the area. The community's founders, Maj. Wright and Col. McRae, were instrumental in the formation of the first such congregation in 1846, the Mount Holly Presbyterian Church. The church soon became the most prominent of its kind in Southern Arkansas, and in 1877 its members constructed a new building described as "a neat and tasty church edifice, the most ornamental, and perhaps the best church building in the county." Other early Presbyterian congregations in Union County included the Scotland Presbyterian Church, formed in the mid-nineteenth century, and the El Dorado Presbyterian Church, organized in 1850. The pastor at each of these churches was Rev. William S. Lacy, who moved to Union County in March 1845 and worked to build religion in the area until his death in 1880.

Another Presbyterian congregation in the area was the Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church, founded at Mount Holly in 1861. A deed dated January 7, 1861, indicates that one of the church's founding families was able to provide land for the first place of worship. In this transaction Alfred and Jane Morgan sold nine acres of land to P.B. and Isaiah Morgan, the Ruling Elders of the Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church, for $45. This parcel of land was located on a small hill, 250 to 300 feet above sea level, located about four miles south of Mt. Holly and two miles north of Marysville. The land to the north of the church property slopes gently northeast and drains into Smackover Creek, which flows into the Ouachita River between Camden and El Dorado. The land to the south slopes south to a drainage that empties into the Ouachita River in Louisiana.

Details of the Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church's early history are cloudy. According to Ida Lewis Crumpler's unpublished "History of Bethel Methodist Church," there were already a couple of buildings on the land that the church purchased in 1861. One they used for church services, while the other was a school that the community operated before the church purchased the land. Sometime between 1861 and 1890, the congregation tore down those structures and built the existing church using many of the materials they salvaged from the demolition. The school probably met in the new church building until 1928 when it consolidated with the Mount Holly School District. The Morgan, Foster, Payne, Moody, Thompkins, Davis, McDonald, Hughes, Phillips, Williams, Vine¸ Cannady, Rogers, Bennett, Cox, Lewis and Smith families all attended the church and school during this early period, from the late 19th to the early 20th century. Pastors serving during this time included Rev. Oakley, Rev. Kavanaugh, Rev. Inzer, Cicero Kennedy, and J.E. Anderson.

In 1926 the Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church congregation voted to change its name to the Bethel Protestant Methodist Church. As a result, W.V. Tompkins, chairman of the Little Rock Presbytery's Committee of Abandoned Property, executed a quit-claim deed on the property on August 4, 1935. The deed stipulated that ownership of the property be transferred from the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America to the trustees of the Bethel Protestant Methodist Church--including J.S. Lewis, M.O. Hughes, and Mrs. India Tompkins--for the sum of one dollar. The ministers of the Bethel Protestant Methodist Church included:

Brother Nunn

Brother Stonecipher

Brother Oliver Tisdale

Brother Corn

1940: J.A. Wade

1941: G.B. Pixley

1943: Oma L. Daniels

1945: J.R. Martin

1947: A.E. Jacobs

1949: W.W. Barron

1950: K.K. Carithers

1952: Henry A. Stroup

1954: C.V. Mashburn

1956: C.E. Lawrence

1959: Dewitt Harberson

1961: George C. Bailey

1963: George Cleary

1966: Ralph S. Mann

1970: James B. Swain

1978: Dorsie T. Caldwell

1980: Everett M. Dobson

In 1985 the trustees removed the word "Protestant" from the church's name, leaving it with its current name, Bethel Methodist Church. Regular Sunday services continued until 1998; today the church is used only for special events.

While Bethel Methodist Church is not as heavily used as it once was, it remains a historically significant structure in Union County. The plain/traditional building, with its simple white-frame construction and rectangular floor plan, is a good example of a rural Arkansas church. It has also been an integral part of the community, serving members of both the Cumberland Presbyterian and Methodist faiths for over 100 years.

 Goodspeed, 824.

 Land deed, Alfred and Jane Morgan to P.B. and Isaiah Morgan, January 7, 1861. Copy obtained from James Smith, North Little Rock, AR.

 Ida Lewis Crumpler, "History of Bethel Methodist Church." Unpublished manuscript. Manuscript in possession of Jimmy and Gloria Eubanks, Stephens, Arkansas; Robert W. Worley, A History of Methodist Churches in Union County, Arkansas (El Dorado, Ark.: the author, 2002), 14.

 Worley, 15.

 Quit-claim deed, W.V. Tompkins to the Trustees of the Bethel Protestant Methodist Church, August 4, 1935. Copy obtained from James Smith, North Little Rock, AR.

SIGNIFICANCE

Located four miles south of Mount Holly, the Bethel Methodist Church is bring nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A for its association with religious development in Union County. It is also being nominated with local significance under Criterion C as a good example of a plain/traditional church in the county. Because the church is still owned by a religious organization, it is also being submitted under Criteria Consideration A: Religious Properties. When the building was built in the late 1800s it was known as the Bethel Cumberland Presbyterian Church, though the congregation its name and affiliation over the years. Today the building is owned by the Bethel Methodist Church, though services have not regularly been held there since 1998.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crumpler, Ida Lewis. "History of Bethel Methodist Church." Unpublished manuscript, 1998. Manuscript in possession of Jimmy and Gloria Eubanks, Stephens, Arkansas.

Green, Juanita. History of Union County. 1954.

Land deed. Alfred and Jane Morgan to P.B. and Isaiah Morgan. January 7, 1861. Copy obtained from James Smith, North Little Rock, AR.

Quit-claim deed. W.V. Tompkins to the Trustees of the Bethel Protestant Methodist Church. August 4, 1935. Copy obtained from James Smith, North Little Rock, AR.

Smith, Elizabeth Lewis. Mount Holly: History and Memoirs, 1982.

The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern Arkansas. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890.

Worley, Robert W. A History of Methodist Churches in Union County, Arkansas. El Dorado, Ark.: the author, 2002.