Belden Bethel Chapel broke off from the Belden Church that's sits at the foot of Belden Hill. Unfortunately, back in the early 1960s, there was a church split. Some of the congregation left and went to a Methodist church. Several followed Reverend Raymond Spencer and started a new church in one of the family's houses meant for a hired hands family to live. Our church was known as Belden Bethel Chapel and incorporated August 17, 1965. We used the living room as the sanctuary, and the bedrooms were the Sunday School classrooms. They used this house as the church until our current building came up for sale.
Some of the original members were the Spencer's, Gilmore's, Macbeths, Wright's, Carpenter's, Marvin's, Swackhammer's, and Andrew's. Reverend Spencer went out and grew our little church on Beechridge road with an abundance of children. Many loved that little house that became our church, but we outgrew it, and that is when the Lord opened the opportunity to buy the Old Baptist church.
Our building was built in 1846 by the First Baptist Church and Society of the Town of Colesville. They originally sold the building to a real estate man, Albert Warner, for $5000. He intended to turn the building into four apartments. However, it was sold to Belden Bethel Chapel on June, 10th 1966. Rev. Donald LaShure was the minister at the time, and served in that capacity till April 1967.
With a lot of faith and hard work, we came up with the $1500 down payment needed to buy the church. A big thank you to Hilda Carpenter and Patty Percival for going door to door asking for pledges and James Carpenter and Bill Rhodes for signing notes at the bank.
Through the years God has blessed us with our pastors. However, Mrs. Wright was there to keep the church together in between.
Mrs. Lelia Wright - the glue that kept us together for years.