Bethel

Bethel, near Farm Road 1651 eight miles southwest of Canton in southwest Van Zandt County, dates to October 27, 1858, when William F. Palmer and his wife deeded acreage for a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and a cemetery nine miles southwest of Canton. In 1936 Bethel comprised a school, a church, a cemetery, and scattered dwellings, but by the 1950s the school had been consolidated with the Canton Independent School District. In 1965 the church, the cemetery, a single business establishment, and several dwellings marked the townsite, but population figures were unavailable. By 1984 only the church and scattered dwellings remained.