- Douglas Chambers, videographer for the Historic Schools of Bethel video project, completed filming of the Bethel Middle School campus, with the intention of comparing structure locations at today’s campus with historic buildings that existed until their demolition in the early 1970s.
- The Historic Schools of Bethel video project is in the editorial phase, with the following sponsors: Bethel Rural Community Organization’s Historic Preservation Committee, Roxanna Billings, Pat and Ted Carr, Carol Litchfield, and Purple Ridge Studio. The studio, owned by Mark Pinkston, will provide musical interludes for the production.
- Bethel Writers additions: Former editor of “The Mountaineer,” Vicki Hyatt, received the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce’s Woman of Distinction Award for 2024. Bethel writer, Steven Tingle’s first book, Graveyard Fields, is followed by a second novel also set in Haywood County, Buried Lies Janet Linneman Frazier, wife of the pastor at Riverside Baptist Church, has written three books in the Southern Cities Redemption Series as well as five other books, including Murder Mystery Dinner Show for Churches.
- The committee uncovered a cassette tape recording of Mrs. Will Hyatt. Douglas Chambers, videographer, transposed the recording into a readable format. Born in 1885, Mrs. Hyatt relayed details about schooling in Haywood County, including information about Bethel schools. Members of the Historic Preservation Committee, via newspaper sleuthing, traced Mrs. Hyatt’s heritage as the daughter Carrie and James McIntosh. Her father opened one of the first pharmacies west of Asheville, and her husband was Chairman of the Haywood County Commissioners. Historians sought her expansive knowledge of local history, and her information is recorded in the archives of Western Carolina University Library.
- Roxanna Billings, Evelyn Coltman, and Carol Litchfield met with Haywood County Commission Chair, Kevin Ensley, concerning the County Home Cemetery. Billings presented Ensley with a transcript of her genealogical research regarding the twenty-nine people buried at the cemetery. Ensley had previously provided a map that helped to identify the location of the cemetery, and he also offered a deed proving the history of the property sold to the county by Colonel Joseph Cathey’s heirs. The county continues to own the cemetery property, and the committee awaits resolution by the county as to whether remains have been removed to other locations as some individuals have claimed.
- In addition to the County Home Cemetery, Kevin Ensley notified the committee about the location of a third slave cemetery off Burnette Cove Road. The committee was previously aware of the Cathey Slave Cemetery off Highway #110 and the Edmonston Slave Cemetery off Lake Logan Road.
- The committee had previously documented six Bethel Cemeteries for the BRCO website. In 2025, the committee added four Cruso cemeteries to the listings: Gwyn Cemetery, New Cruso Cemetery, Cruso United Methodist Church Cemetery, and Cogburn Cemetery #1. The committee has located seven cemeteries previously undocumented in George Augustus Miller’s Cemeteries and Family Graveyards in Haywood County, 1979.
- Melissa Timo, Cemetery Specialist with the Department of Archaeology, provided the committee with registration numbers of the ten cemeteries in Bethel that were already documented via Citizen Cemetery Site Forms. In exchange, the committee forwarded research, photos, and documents relating to some of these cemeteries for which the committee held additional information.
- The committee filed three additional Citizen Cemetery Site Forms for cemeteries not listed with the NC Department of Archaeology: Cathey Slave Cemetery, County Home Cemetery, and Michal Cemetery. These cemeteries are now registered with appropriate numbers with the Department of Archaeology.
- Ted Carr and Charles Rowe reinstalled Lenoir’s Creek Cattle Farm’s historic marker that was dislodged by a storm.
- Members of the Historic Preservation Committee (Frances Adamson, Roxanna Billings, Evelyn Coltman, Carol Litchfield, and Phyllis Vance) presented a program to Bethel Middle School eighth grade students about local history. Data included in the presentation provided details about Bethel’s Native American heritage, the passenger pigeon (for whom Pigeon Valley is named), early settlers of Bethel, the 1776 Rutherford Trace March, and the history of Presbyterianism and the Bethel Presbyterian Church (BRCO’s home base).
- Frances Adamson donated to BRCO’s file library her historic photos of the community from her family collection.
- Frances Adamson donated to the library a copy of the history of Bethel Baptist Church.
- The BRCO Newsletters included articles by Evelyn Coltman about early churches and cemeteries in Bethel: four Cruso Cemeteries, County Home Cemetery, Long’s Community Cemetery, and the Michal Cemetery. The Pigeon Valley Award for Historic Preservation to Carroll Jones, educational outreach to Bethel Middle School, and the six camps that have been located in Bethel were other articles included in the bi-monthly newsletter.
- An online program, “Come Hell or High Water,” by David Weintraub, historian with the Center for Cultural Preservation, about the history of flooding in WNC - the causes, how natives have dealt with these weather events, and methods for mitigating future flooding – was presented in synopsis format to the committee.
- A visit with Charlie Evans, overseer of the Long’s United Methodist Church and Long’s Community Cemetery, resulted in his donation of a family photograph of the James Evans House that he claims to have pre-Civil War heritage.
- BRCO’s speaker for the May meeting, Blair Tormey, mirrored the interest of the HP Committee regarding historic cemeteries. Tormey has conducted cemetery searches using ground penetrating radar.
- Historic Preservation Committee members Frances Adamson, Roxanna Billings, Evelyn Coltman, Carol Litchfield, and Phyllis Vance presented a program to children in the summer enrichment program at Morning Star United Methodist Church. Speakers focused on helping the first and second graders to understand the meaning of “history” via an interactive identification game involving the historic art prints in the dining hall. Students also learned the meaning of “ecology” by participating in a flower planting session in which they learned about Monarch butterflies and milkweed while disbursing milkweed seeds into the air.
- The Historic Preservation Committee shared a booth with The DAR and Haywood County Historical & Genealogical Society at Shelton House’s Blue Ridge Heritage Festival.
- Stephanie Love, with the Artway Art Studio at Folkmoot produced a watercolor on canvass of the historic County Home that existed in Bethel from 1911 – 1954. This facility for indigent citizens was the state’s response to homelessness in the 20th Century. The building remains today as the Pigeon Valley Rest Home at Silver Bluff Village.
- The Committee gifted the two caretakers of Green Hill Cemetery with a copy of Book 5 of Legends, Tales & History of Cold Mountain because it includes details about styles of grave markers at the Waynesville cemetery as well as a history of the cemetery by Malinda Messer.
- A visiting hiker requested information about the massive wall in the Lake Logan area. Fortunately, Book 3 of Legends, Tales & History of Cold Mountain contains an article about Ruben Inman’s wall. Research from Cheryl Haney’s book, My People: History of a Mountain Family, relayed the history of the site as part of the original home place of the Reverend James Anderson Inman family . Author Carroll Jones decided to hike to the area, and a refreshing revisit of the wall story will appear in his new book, Glimpses into Haywood County’s Past.
