Bethlehem Church Cemetery

Bethlehem Church Cemetery contains the graves of the original founders and charter members of Bethlehem Methodist Church, including benefactors, constructors, architects, soldiers, preachers, and evangelists. Among those buried there are Ebenezer Hearn (1794-1862), James Rutledge (1789-1864), Rev. James Tarrant (1743-1840), Adam Tarrant, a slave (1797-1885), and the original Mortimer Jordan (1799-1866). Many of the aging wooden markers have disappeared. More than 300 children died before living six months because of the primitive medical care of the time, and thirty members of the Snow family are buried there, thirteen of them young children. A child-size statue of Jesus stands there representing children. The cemetery also holds five Civil War veterans: James Asbury Brown (1844-1913), Jasper L. Butler (1834-1916), Joseph Nathaniel Rutledge (1836-1918), Caleb R. Warnick (1829-1917), and Mortimer Jordan's son Charles Jordan (1833-1863). Other faithful Christians associated with the growth of Methodism included the Sadler families, the Brown families, including William Sr. (1769-1852), and the Snow families, including William Hill Snow (1787-1864). In 2018, as Bethlehem Methodist Church marked its 200th anniversary as the original Methodist Church in Alabama, it remained the only church in Alabama still at its original site, never burned or moved, and the cemetery was listed in the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage by the Alabama Historical Commission.

Hueytown, Alabama · United States