Bell's Chapel
Community
Bell's Chapel was
located just south of Rockett on Bell's Chapel Road. We
often think of it as only a beautiful little cemetery
which is still being used, but at one time it was its own
church and lodge community.
This community had
its beginning in 1846 when John Bell, his family and his
brothers, Joseph and Robert Bell, came from Virginia to this
area. They built the first two log cabins on Brushy
Creek in 1848. There were less than 100 people in the
county in 1851, but through the next decade a steady stream of
wagon trains came into the area. Many of them settled on
Brushy Creek or Red Oak Creek.
Soon a group
decided to build a Methodist church and buy land for a
cemetery. In September, 1875, they acquired a deed for
two and three-fourths acres of land from the Squire A. Rockett
estate, paying $65 for it. The same year, John C. and
Elizabeth Gibbons gave two and four-fifths acres of land to
the Methodist Episcopal Church South, to be used for "a
church, parsonage, burial ground, other church purposes, but
for no other use whatsoever." Trustees at that time were
G. C. Parks, George Butcher, William and James Sprowls, G. M.
Butcher, Robert George, Samuel Uhl, and J. H. Swindell.
Red Oak Masonic
Lodge No. 461 proposed to the trustees that its members be
allowed to help with building the church and to add a second
story which would be a meeting place for the lodge. This
required removal of restrictions set by the Gibbons in the
original deed, which was done by affidavit. At the same time,
John and Elizabeth Gibbons bought (for $5) one-fifth acre of
land from George Collins, which adjoined the original land
given, and presented this deed to Joseph Bell, J. H. Burkhead,
Burney Haynes, W. H. Ballard, J. W. Evans, S. M. Butcher and
J. N. Lowrance. Masonic Lodge No. 461 was named in the
deed with its committee of I. G. Culbertson, A. Wooden and T.
J. Cole. Charter members of the Lodge were S. A.
Bayless, James M. Burkhead, I. C. Culbertson, James M.
Caldwell, J. W. Evans, T. J. Farrar, John S. Farrar, C. C.
Gibbons, C. P. Hardesty, M. B. Lewis, C. M. Lea, W. C. Lewis,
J. B. Merideth, John B. Owens, George C. Parks, J. H. Pierce,
W. D. Robinson and Abram Wooden.
The church was
under the Northwest Texas Conference, Lancaster district.
Andrew Davis was first presiding elder of the church,
and Rev. John S. Davis was one of the first pastors. For
many years an active membership was maintained, among whom
were the Harvey Lowrance family, John Gibbons, Mae Burkhead,
Joe Marshall, Tom Stroud, George Butcher, Lewis Butcher, Jim
Eagle, George Callin, John Owen, Dr. Conger, W. B. Haynes, N.
R. Parchman, Joe and Catherine Bell, Mr. and Mrs. Meeks, Mrs.
Jennie Fry, the Sam Hardesty family, the T. W. and M. R.
Bryant families, Mrs. Cherry and daughter, the Miller family.
Mrs. J. I. Davis, Mrs. Myrtle Powell and Mrs. Billy Bell
joined the church in childhood.
In 1877, Jodie M.
Bell [Joseph Monroe Bell – great-great-grandfather of Sylvia
Smith], who had come as a small boy to this area, was the
first to be buried in the cemetery which was named for him.
When the MK&T
Railroad was built through the area in the 1880s, it bypassed
Old Red Oak, and a new Red Oak grew up around the railroad
station. The Methodist congregation decided to build a
church in New Red Oak in 1901. Bell's Chapel building
was torn down in 1908 and the lumber used to build a parsonage
in Red Oak. Soon after, Lodge No. 461 was disbanded.
Following this, a
Cemetery Union Association was organized to oversee Bell's
Chapel and the Baptist Cemetery of Red Oak, separate records
and funds to be kept. A reorganizational meeting of
Bell's Chapel Association was called in March, 1953, when Red
Oak Methodist Church elected Glenn Bell, grandson of Jodie
Bell, R. C. Lowrance and William M. Holder as trustees.
The group voted to continue the annual Decoration Day on
the last Sunday in April, as chosen in 1927, and also to have
a memorial service and place flags on the graves of all
soldiers buried here.
There are
twenty-three Confederate soldiers, one Union, three World War
I, eight World War II and one Korean War buried in Bell's
Chapel. Some names of the Civil War soldiers are J. M.
Bell, Dr. Conger, J. M. Burkhead, I,. G. Culbertson, Jim
Childers, Robert Eason, Sammy Fry, W. B. Haynes, Joe Marshall,
Billy Pierce, Mose Rutherford, S. A. Rockett, John Sullivan,
Tom Wicker and Tom Yates.
One of the hallowed
spots in Ellis County is Bell's Chapel Cemetery in the Red Oak
- Rockett area. A shaded and quite place where 470
pioneers and their descendants are buried, it has been
preserved for posterity by a small group of people devoted to
its care and preservation. Some five and three-fourths
acres of land comprise the site of the burial ground located
approximately three and one-half miles southeast of Red Oak
and two and one-half miles northwest of Rockett on Rockett
Road.
On April 26, 1970,
a Texas Historical Marker was placed at the north entrance of
the then 95-year-old cemetery, alongside a brick and granite
marker erected earlier. Association members point out that
much credit is due Mrs. A. L. L. Feltenberger for compilation
of records regarding the historic landmark. The former
Miss Emma Wright, Mrs. Feltenberger is the granddaughter of
William B. Haynes, an early day pioneer associated with
establishment of the landmark. Her aunt, Mrs. Myrtle
Powell, assisted her in earlier years. The records
reveal that a majority of the 470 graves in the cemetery are
marked with identifiable headstones with some birth dates back
to 1804, 1807 and 1810.
References:
Information from
records of Bell's Chapel Cemetery Association, furnished by
Fannie Humphries, Sect-Treas. 1994
Picture - Waxahachie Daily Light, 1st pub. 1950s;
repub. by Martha Jane Bryce, April 1976.
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