Bethel Baptist Church of Christ and Cemetery

The plaque mentions a brief late-1870s merger with the Nuecestown Baptists; their town lay in Nueces County, northwest of Corpus Christi. Henry Kinney founded it in 1852, requiring each settler to buy 100 acres at a dollar an acre and at least ten cows. English and German settlers first called it the Motts, for its tree clusters. The Nuecestown Raid struck it on March 26, 1875. It had a stage inn, a ferry, packing plant and gin, but declined after the railroad passed it by in 1905. By 1980 only its 1892 schoolhouse and its cemetery remained.

What the plaque says

Bethel Baptist Church of Christ and Cemetery Organized on May 6, 1873, the Bethel Baptist Church of Christ was the first Baptist congregation in San Patricio County. The ten charter members represented the pioneer area communities of Sharpsburgh, Moore's Lake Settlement, and Meansville. Under the supervision of L.D. Young, a Baptist missionary, John Walker Baylor was selected as the first pastor. Alexander Moore served as the first deacon. Early worship services were held in Moore's Lake Settlement and in the Methodist Church sanctuary at Meansville. In 1877 trustees of the Bethel Baptist Church of Christ purchased land at this site from J.M. Garner for construction of a chapel and for the establishment of a burial ground. The cemetery was first used in 1877 for the burial of an unidentified Mexican girl. The earliest marked grave is that of E.A. Paschal (1857-1878). Also buried here are seven Confederate veterans of the Civil War and many pioneer settlers of the area. For a brief time during the late 1870s the church merged with the Nuecestown Baptist fellowship. Although the Bethel congregation never officially disbanded, services here ended in 1914 after members began attending the Baptist Church in Odem (2 miles north). (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Aquarium — 14 mi
  A nonprofit aquarium on the tip of Corpus Christi Beach built around the Gulf and the Caribbean, with the largest coastal wildlife rescue center in Texas behind the exhibits.
• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 14 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.
• Art Museum of South Texas — 14 mi
  Philip Johnson's 1972 museum on the Corpus Christi bayfront, joined in 2006 by Ricardo Legorreta's Miller Wing, holding more than 2,000 works mostly from Texas and the Americas.
• USS Lexington Museum on the Bay — 14 mi
  An Essex-class carrier of 1943 moored off North Beach, the Blue Ghost that Tokyo Rose kept reporting sunk, and the Navy's training carrier for nearly three decades after.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church of Odem — 1.0 mi
• Odem First Baptist Church — 1.2 mi
• Meansville and Kaleta — 1.4 mi
• Calallen — 4.7 mi