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Bethlehem Lutheran Church
Cemetery Anderson County, South Carolina Genealogy
Trails |
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 Traditions and History of Anderson County, 1928 by Louise Ayer
Vandiver , pg 60-61
There has been one Lutheran
Church in the county. It was in Fork Township, organized in 1876,
Reverend Dr. Smeltzer its pastor. At that time the Lutheran College was
located at Walhalla, and Dr. Smeltzer was its president. The membership of
the church was never large, and after the removal of the college to
Newberry the congregation dwindled away to such an extent that the
building was finally sold to the Methodist who established a church there
under the leadership of Reverend "Charley" Ligon. In its surrounding grave
yard, however, sleep some of the Lutherans who once worshipped there.
Among the leaders of the church were the Cromer family.
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Willie Walker
Cromer 1866 - 1890 ( Jun 18,
1866- Apr 8, 1890) Age 24 years Died the Day his only Daughter
Borned Willie (Talulah)
Cromer Dunn |

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Memorial 1980 Grandchildren:
Talford James Willie
C. Joe Justus George Doris Rececca Mary
Dunn |

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Lula Lee Aug 18, 1886 - Nov 8,1888 d/o Ella and William
Lee |

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Also reported
buried at Bethleham Lutheran Church Cemetery are:
Anna
Dickert: Oct 11,1851 - Jun 15, 1898 Anna E. Feltman:
Oct 11,1851 - Jun 15, 1893, w/o William William M.
Feltman: Oct 2,1887 - Nov 26, 1916
There are many
unmarked graves. |

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Anderson Intelligencer March 9,
1898
Cromer, Adam F., died
near Williamston 27 Feb. 1898 and was buried 1 Mar. 1898 at Double
Springs in Fork Township beside his first wife who died 1 Jan. 1885.
He was a native of the Upper Dutch Forks section of Newberry County
where he was born 24 June 1824 and lived until 1875 when he moved to
the Fork.
In 1848 he married Counts, Sarah C. of Newberry
County. From this union four children survive: 1. Cromer, James
H. 2.Cromer, John S. 3.Cromer, Adam C. 4. Cromer,
Lizzie, ..........all reside in the Fork.
During the war he served under Col. Ellison S.
Keitt in NC and SC, was a member of the Lutheran Church and was a
moving spirit to build Bethlehem Lutheran Church in the Fork that
became a Methodist Church 10 years ago.
Dr. E. Olin Hentz who
practiced in Anderson during the early half of the twentieth century
was a descendant of the same line of Cromer's. His grandmother was a
sister to Adam F. Cromer.
Willie Walker Cromer is my great grandfather. He
died at age twenty three, the same day, April 8. 1890, his only
child, my grandmother, Willie Talulah (Cromer) Dunn, was born. He is
buried in the cemetery at Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
The
people buried there with inscribed stones were all related and
likely some of those with field stone markers. Willie Cromer's
parents apparently died when he was two or three years old. The 1870
census shows that he lived with a cousin, Lavenia Ellen (Cromer)
Dickert and her husband, Marion Dickert in Newberry. He came with
them to Anderson County in 1875. They attended Mt. Zion Lutheran
Church in Newberry.
The Anna E. Feltman buried there was a
niece of Marion Dickert's. And the Lula Lee was a daughter of Willie
Cromer's sister, Ella, and her husband, William Lee. They left here
soon after the death of their daughter and went to Texas. After
William Lee died, Ella married William Thomas Hatcher. She died in
1947 in Cass County Texas.
There were more Cromer's who came to
the Fork about the same time (all relatives). Some of them are
buried at Double Springs Baptist Church and some at Smith Chapel. Of
course its only a guess but some of the graves marked with field
stone may be where the Dickerts are buried. I can't find another
cemetery close by where they were buried.
....written by Jason Dunn (Dec 2006) and placed
here with his permission (Jan 2009) |

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