The cemetery stands on Fairfield Street at the site of the first meeting house of Bethel Church, which was incorporated in December 1823 by the S.C. Legislature. The wooden meeting house was built on lot number 174 of the Town Plat of Winnsboro on property bought from Hugh Barkley, a veteran of the War of 1812 who died in 1836 and is buried there. Originally affiliated with the Associate Presbytery of the Carolinas, Bethel became affiliated in 1842, under the guidance of the Rev. Thomas Ketchin, with the Associate Reformed Synod of the South. Pastors who served in the original meeting house were Rev. James Lyle from 1825 to 1834, Rev. Thomas Ketchin from 1844 to 1851, Rev. Charles Bowen Betts from 1855 to 1869, and Rev. John McClintock Todd from 1872 to 1879. In 1873 a new house of worship was built across the street on land acquired from George H. McMaster. Among the earliest graves are those of relatives and descendants of Covenanters and Seceders, dissenters from the Church of Scotland who had immigrated to America to escape religious persecution.