In 1879, a group of farmers and businessmen established a new community, Baptist church, and cemetery near the new town of Whitney. The Bethlehem community attracted nearby families who moved to be closer to the Houston & Texas Central Railway line. The first burial in the cemetery was Newt Williams, a recent transfer from Towash Baptist Church, in 1880. For generations, families from Whitney and the surrounding area chose the Bethlehem Cemetery as their burial site or had loved ones reinterred here. When the church closed after 1919, the land was donated to the cemetery. Since 1900, members of the Bethlehem Cemetery Association have maintained this chronicle of Hill County history.