My paternal ancestors moved from Pennsylvania to Indian Territory in the 1870s and lived--by permission from the Cherokee Nation, in rural Mayes County. A few are buried near where they once lived. The town called Bethel is no more. But its cemetery remains.
When I first searched for the grave of my father's great-grandfather, burial records were scant online. Findagrave had a mere four million memorials. I was new to genealogy. Where to begin?
My Great-Aunt Lois Childers told me her husband Sam's grandpa was buried in the Alberty Cemetery between Pryor and Chouteau. But warned me his tombstone had not been there when they last visited in 1989. The cemetery was knee-high with weeds that hot day they climbed the hill. Sam's first cousin, Adolphus "Bob" Ackley and wife Annie, had asked to see Bob's grandfather's grave.
Bob Ackley filmed their hike into the brush. The Alberty graveyard search begins one minute 55 seconds into this video:
I first visited the Alberty Cemetery in February 2005 after locating a copy of an article from The Daily Times newspaper in Pryor Creek. Writer Kathy Parker detailed the extensive cleanup performed that Spring by Florene Gass, her son Charles Gass, his wife Barbara Gass, and Florene's sister Della Mae Deason.
Just in time for Memorial Day. Stilwell family's search for the past finds forgotten cemetery -- Kathy Parker, May 23, 2004.
It had been years since Florene Gass and Della Mae Deason visited their grandmother's grave.
"I only remember being here one time (as a child)," Florene said.
So finding their way back to what had become a forgotten place proved to be a challenge.
The two women now live in Stilwell and were surprised to find old familiar landmarks such as Cry Baby Bridge were gone.
"We only knew how to get here across the bridge (Cry Baby Bridge)," Florene's sister Della Mae said.
But eventually they found Alberty Cemetery, a place once called Bethel.
When they got there, they could hardly find the grave.
The cemetery had gone back to woods.There were big trees, small trees, briars, brambles, weeds and varmints.Trees had grown up through some graves. A once well-tended graveyard was impassable.
Buck Franklin who leases the land from the Corps of Engineers provided access for the sisters through a gate he had built off Highway 412A near the Chouteau power plant.
"I just thought somebody ought to see what they (Florene and Della Mae) have done in there," Franklin said.
What they've "done in there" is no small feat since there were only three and sometimes four to do the cleaning, all women save one. Making several trips from Stilwell, they brought their own equipment and bought the gas to run it.
Florene said it's what they had to do once they found the place.
"Mom thought a grave ought to look like a grave," she said, "so we pulled all the grass off."
The grave was Florene's grandmother Sarah Jane Shephard, whose headstone bears the years 1866 to 1934. They also have another ancestor buried in the cemetery, Katherine (Bond) Clinton.
Franklin and his father, who leased the land before him, put up the gate because the cemetery was being so badly defaced. Franklin's father also put a fence around the cemetery, which had people buried in it as recently as the 1970s.
Since that time the woods have reclaimed the burial plots.
In fact, about 10 years ago several of the gravestones were removed and thrown off Cry Baby Bridge. GRDA came in with their equipment to salvage the stones.
Deason and Gass started with their grandmother's grave but the whole cemetery was such a mess, cleaning one grave was "like spitting in the ocean." So, along with Florene's son Charles and his wife Barbara, they have been cleaning and clearing the cemetery.
A map at Pryor's library calls the place Bethel Cemetery. Bethel Church once stood nearby along with a community including New Canaan School according to Franklin. The map suggests the area was at one time known as the McNair School District before World War II.
The road is now cleared to the cemetery, and I called the MidAmerica Industrial Plant to set up a time for someone to let me through the locked gate. Once through, it was about a mile into the woods.
The cemetery is T-shaped, divided into an older part running north and south and a newer part running east and west.
Buried in the older part are 19 people who were born before 1850. Over half the people buried in the old section died before 1890. It seems there are more children and infants than adults in the cemetery. One plot holds an entire family which died within a week of each other in 1932."
Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA)'s right-of-way crew, Bruce Willis, Jerry Harris, Nathan Willis and Todd Hayes, mowed the approach to the cemetery and Steve Stough of the excavating crew graded the road.
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If you had family who once lived near Bethel in Mayes County, you may be interested in what occurred there during World War II.
In 1941 DuPont Company began building a munitions plant near the Alberty Cemetery in Bethel. TNT and Tetryl (a detonator) were produced at this powder plant. It created thousands of jobs for workers during this Depression era. Much-needed jobs. Read this from the Oklahoma Historical Society. The numbers are amazing:
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=OK069 German prisoners of war also lived and worked nearby. Imagine that!
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=PR016 Today that area is the property of MidAmerica Industrial Park. Those interested in visiting the Alberty Cemetery should first contact MidAmerica to request permission.
https://maip.com/