Sampson Bethell

The Bethel family were founding members of Brush Creek Baptist Church in Smith County, Tennessee in 1802. See http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mpsmith/V1_1_10.html.

• Religion: Member of Buck Creek Baptist Church
• Residence: Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States - 1790

Sources

• Updated from MyHeritage Match via sister Elizabeth Allen (born Bethel) by SmartCopy: Sep 8 2014, 2:09:36 UTC
• Updated from MyHeritage Match via mother Jean Bethell (born Hurst) by SmartCopy: Sep 8 2014, 4:09:17 UTC
• Updated from MyHeritage Match via mother Jean Bethell (born Hurst) by SmartCopy: Sep 8 2014, 4:09:17 UTC
• Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees by SmartCopy: Jan 6 2015, 16:37:10 UTC

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GEDCOM Note

From DeKalb Co., TN Historian Thomas G. Webb:

Sampson Bethell was born Jul 10, 1750, (1) probably in Frederick County, Virginia. He was almost certainly one of several children of William Bethell and his wife Jean (or Jane) Hurst. His father died in early 1756, when Sampson was only five years old. Apparently his father was a man of many talents; the inventory of his personal effects shows “a parcel of books, carpenters and coopers tools and shoemakers tools, and one violin”. He also owned three slaves.(2) By the time Sampson was ten he had a step-father; his mother by 1760 was married to Larkin Pierpoint. (3) It is not thought that Jean had any children by Larkin Pierpoint, nor is there any evidence that he had children by a previous wife. Sampson Bethell was so young when his father died that he could hardly remember him; apparently Sampson and his step-father had a very close relationship, as Samson named his oldest child Larkin.

Where and when Sampson Bethell got his education is not known, but he could read, could write an excellent hand, and had enough mathematical ability to do surveying of land. (4) His skill as a surveyor was put to use after Sampson, his mother and step-father, his brothers William and Samuel, and other relatives moved from Virginia to North Carolina about 1770. They settled in Guilford County, in what is now Rockingham County. There Larkin Pierpoint, William Bethell, and Samuel Bethell had farms which either joins or were within a short distance of each other. Although Sampson surveyed land for the others and appears as a witness on their deeds, he does not seem to have owned land himself. Apparently he lived on the homeplace with his mother and step-father, who owned 558 acres. (5)

Not long after the family moved to North Carolina, Sampson Bethell met the girl who was to become his wife. She was Mary Cantrell, the daughter of Isaac Cantrell and his first wife, Talitha Cloud. Mary was born December 4, 1754, (6) probably in New Castle County, Delaware, where the Cantrells lived before moving to North Carolina by 1758. Mary was one of the older children of her parents. Her father had several children by his first wife (possibly as many as sixteen) and nine more by his second wife. Mary was a young child when the Cantrells made the long trek from Delaware to North Carolina. One or more uncles and various cousins moved at the same time; the Cantrells were a large family. Mary Cantrell was probably better educated than many women of the time; she could at least read and write, for she signed as witness to a deed in 1792. (7) Just when and where Mary Cantrell met Sampson Bethell is not Known, but it was very likely at some sort of church service. Both the Cantrells and the Bethells had strong religious ties, generally to the Baptist Church.

On August 24, 1773, Sampson Bethell and Mary Cantrell were married. (8) He was twenty-three years old; she was nineteen. During the next twenty-five years, the would have twelve children born to them. During their early years of marriage, they apparently continued to live on the farm of Larkin Pierpoint. The Revolutionary War was fought in the years immediately following Sampson and Mary’s marriage. No record has been found indicating that Sampson took part on either side. Historians now estimate that about one third of the residents of the thirteen colonies had neutral feelings and just wanted to be left alone; perhaps Sampson was one of this group. Or perhaps he had some physical handicap of which we have no knowledge. There is a tradition that some of the Bethells were Quakers; religious beliefs may have kept him from serving in the army.

A few years after the Revolutionary War ended, Sampson Bethell and his family, along with Mary’s father and several others Cantrell relatives, made another move, this time to Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Sampson and Mary probably moved in late 1787 or early 1788; their son Tilmon Bethel was born in South Carolina on December 5, 1788. (9)

The Bethells and Cantrells lived in the Buck Creek neighborhood; the center of their religious activity was Buck Creek Baptist Church. Both families had been active in the Baptist Church in North Carolina, probably in the Wolf Island Baptist Church, which was founded in 1775 near the home of Mary Bethell’s father, Isaac Cantrell. The Bethells evidently joined the Buck Creek Baptist Church soon after they moved to Spartanburg County, South Carolina. They also seem to have been closely associated with John Hightower, the minister of Buck Creek Church; Sampson Bethell witnessed a deed for him in 1789. (10) In 1792 Sampson Bethell was sent as a messenger to the Association by the 72 members of Buck Creek Baptist Church, an honor reserved only for the most faithful. (11)

In 1795 John Hightower and several members of the Buck Creek Baptist Church left Spartanburg County and moved to Warren County, Kentucky, where they established Old Union Baptist Church on the west fork of Drake’s Creek. Apparently Sampson and Mary Bethell and their family made this move. Sampson had acquired 270 acres by grant from the State of South Carolina only a year earlier, on September 3, 1794. (12) This land lay on Buck Creek and Island Creek “in the Maple Swamp” and was evidently of little value; when Sampson finally sold it in 1801, it brought less than twenty dollars. (13) Sampson gave John Bankston, a neighbor, power of attorney to sell this tract on October 16, 1795. (14) This seems to have been when the Bethells left Spartanburg County, for they do not appear in the Spartanburg records after that date, even as witnesses.

The Bethells remained in Kentucky about six years. Their son Larkin Bethel entered a land grant of 200 acres on Trammel Fork of Drake’s Creek on September 20, 1798. Sampson Bethell served on the Warren County, Kentucky, grand jury on February 4, 1800, and his son Cantrell Bethell had jury duty the following day. (15) Larkin Bethel appears in the Warren County, Kentucky, Tax List for 1800/1801, but by December 1801 Larkin was living near Liberty in Smith (now DeKalb) County, Tennessee. (16) Also residing near Larkin Bethel in Smith County in 1801 were Richard Cantrell (husband of Larkin’s sister Constance) and Daniel Allen. Daniel Allen married Elizabeth Bethell, who was probably a sister of Sampson Bethell. Daniel Allen was witness to a 1782 survey of Sampson Bethell in Guilford County, North Carolina; it may have been Daniel Allen who first settled in Smith County and encouraged the Bethells to come there. The first settlement in that particular area had been made only three years earlier, in 1798.

Probably Sampson and Mary Bethell were in Smith County in 1801; unquestionably they were there on May 29, 1802, when they along with their son Cantrell Bethel, were among the sixteen members who constituted Brush Creek Baptist Church. (17) Another of the sixteen members was Thomas Jordan, who had lived near the Bethells in South Carolina and also sold his land there in 1795. (18)

After 1802 the information concerning Sampson and Mary Bethell becomes very meager. No record has been located showing that Sampson bought land in Smith County, Tennessee. He apparently leased land from a Sampson Williams; on April 9, 1812, John Looney sold land bordering the “tract that Sampson Bethell leased of said Williams, it being whereon John Hays now lives.” (19) Just when Sampson Bethell leased this land, or what he did afterward, is not clear. His son Cantrell Bethel came to Liberty and helped establish Salem Baptist Church in 1809. Sampson Bethell is not listed on the membership roll for Salem Church. The 1809 list of members has a Polly Bethell, who asked for a letter of dismission on August 1810. This might have been Mary Cantrell Bethell (Polly is a nickname for Mary), or it might have been Cantrell Bethell’s wife, who was also named Mary.

The Brush Creek Church minutes before 1828 are lost, so any information in them is gone. It seems likely that Sampson and Mary Bethell moved about 20 miles from liberty to Sink Creek in Warren (now DeKalb0 County, Tennessee. Their daughter Constance and her husband Richard Cantrell made that move in 1809, (20) leaving Liberty and settling on Sink Creek in Warren (now DeKalb) County. There they became members of the Bildad Baptist Church, which covers the years from 1812 to 1816, Also has the names of four of the younger sons of Sampson and Mary Bethell: Green, Tilman, Chester, and Bluford. All were received “by experience,” and all were dismissed by letter within the four-year period, (21) indicating that they were living in the vicinity of Bildad and that they then moved away.

It is my belief that Sampson and Mary Cantrell Bethell and their family moved into Warren County, Tennessee, about 1809 and that Sampson Bethell died there about 1813. There would be no record of his death or of the administration of his estate because the Warren County records prior to 1827 were lost in a fire. After Sampson’s death, Mary moved back to Liberty, where she lived alternately with her sons Cantrell and Tilman. (Tilman Bethel was received by letter into Salem Baptist Church at Liberty in August 1814.) By 1815 all of Sampson and Mary Bethell’s children were married except the youngest, Bluford. The Bethells did not own land, so there was no reason to maintain a household of their own. The 1820 census of Tennessee shows the household of Cantrell Bethel with an older woman living there; very likely this was his mother. Cantrell Bethel was a traveling preacher and spent some years as a missionary on “the frontier.” (22) The older woman does not appear in the 1830 census; probably Mary Cantrell Bethell died between 1820 and 1830, and probably at the home of her son Tilman Bethel, as the Sampson Bethell Bible came down in his family.

The children of Sampson and Mary Bethell were scattered in Indiana, Illinois, and in Carroll, Franklin, and DeKalb Counties in Tennessee. It is not impossible that Sampson and Mary moved with some of the children, but evidence indicates that they died in Tennessee. The tradition in the Illinois branch of the family is that Sampson and Mary “spent the balance of their lives near Liberty, Tennessee.” (23)

They had spent most of their lives moving about, from Virginia and Delaware to North Carolina, where they married, then to South Carolina, from there to Kentucky and on to Tennessee. Since they spent only a few years at each place, and since they lived always on what was then the frontier, we can safely assume that their home was always a log house of two or three rooms. There were no cookstoves then; the Bethell, like everyone else-both rich and poor-did their cooking on the fireplace. Mary and her daughters spent much of their time preparing food, spinning, weaving, and making clothes.

Since only one deed shows Sampson Bethell owning land (and that swampland of little value), it is possible that he followed some occupation other than farmer, perhaps as shoemaker, like his father. This idea is mere speculation; there is little real evidence to support it. It should be noted, however, that of seven of his sons of whom we have knowledge, one was a teacher, one a doctor, and two were preachers- this at a time when more than 90 percent of the people were farmers.

Sampson and Mary Bethell placed a strong emphasis on religion; they were leaders in establishing and maintaining the Baptist Church whereever they went, as were their children. Their sons Cantrell and Cloud were both Baptist Preachers, their son Tilman was clerk of Salem Baptist Church, and their son-in-law Richard Cantrell was clerk of Bildad Baptist Church. We have less knowledge of their other children; they may have been equally active in the church.