I was headed north up Green Street Road to check out the old schoolhouse there last month when I stopped at New View of the Cross, the old Bethel Church1. The sanctuary traces back to the 1850s, but the graveyard behind it reaches even further into the past. I had to take a look.
Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church traced its beginnings to 1836, when Wade Posey gathered a tiny, seven-member congregation inside the 10-by-12-foot cabin of Eli H. Anderson. That tiny room did the job for a while, but the need for space continued to grow. By 1839 or 1840, the congregation was ready for something more substantial. Fortunately, John Shrack stepped up and donated a lot, and a larger log church rose on the spot2. Fire claimed the early building a few years later, but the congregation rebuilt. The church standing today dates to 18593 and carries every bit of that layered history in its frame, joists, and belfry.
Bethel Cemetery rests behind old church. It’s a quiet yard on a hill that holds the distinction of being the first graveyard in Niles Township and one of the earliest anywhere in Delaware County. Around 600 souls from both Delaware and Jay Counties were laid to rest there, their stones facing east in the long-standing tradition of anticipating the rising sun. All except one, that is! One of the church’s founders, Jacob Shirk, rests near the center of the cemetery, and his headstone stubbornly defies the pattern4. His grave is the only one oriented north–south in a small mystery in a place steeped in history.
I only wandered Bethel Cemetery for a few minutes, just long enough to know I’d barely scratched its surface. I missed Jacob Shirk’s puzzlingly-placed grave, and I walked right past the marker of little Lucinda Ann Evans, believed to be the cemetery’s earliest burial when she died at just two years old in 1840. I didn’t spot any of the twelve Civil War veterans resting there, either; Bethel M.E. served as a recruiting station for Union soldiers6.
Another pair of graves I completely missed lies in the James Andrew plot. Their story is the kind you don’t forget once you’ve heard it. Local tradition claims that at least two caskets there, those of a mother and her young daughter, were originally fitted with glass panels so visitors could look upon their faces one last time. The glass was apparently replaced with metal long ago7, but the tale lingers. It adds another layer of mystery to an already fascinating cemetery! With so much history tucked into every corner, it’s clear I owe this place a much longer, more attentive visit.
The trustees of Bethel Church sold their historic building and its old graveyard to New View of the Cross in 20227. That transfer sparked a question I’ve carried with me for years: what happens when a modern congregation inherits a cemetery that predates it by generations? Cemeteries aren’t just parcels of land, of course- they’re archives of local memory and resting places for pioneers, veterans, and families whose stories helped shape a township. How does a new church step into that stewardship? What responsibilities come with taking ownership of a place so deeply rooted in someone else’s past?
I don’t know the answer. Still, standing on the hill surrounded by six hundred weathered headstones, I realized that Bethel is more than an old church and an even older cemetery. It’s a living record of the people who carved their lives out of the northeastern corner of Delaware County. Even after a brief visit, their stories still tug at me. Now that New View of the Cross carries the torch, the stewardship of those memories continues in different hands. As for me, my quick detour on Green Street Road turned into an open invitation to come back, walk a little slower, and more closely inspect the history waiting there.
Sources Cited
1 Delaware County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2025). Parcel ID: 0426400006000. Delaware County, Indiana Assessor. map, Muncie, IN.
2 Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. book, Kingman Brothers.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 Satterfield, E. (1985, June 16). Bethel Church Officials Exploring Old Cemetery. The Muncie Star. p. 14.
5 (See footnote 4).
6 (See footnote 4).
7 (See footnote 1).
