Husband of Bethany Arnold Callaway. The notation on the cemetery stone for John and Bethany Arnold Callaway indicates they came from Halifax Co., NC is in error. Research has shown that they came from Onslow Co., North Carolina. John was the son of Edward Callaway (born 1711 - died 1769) and Elizabeth (born before 1723 Somerset Co., Maryland - died after Nov. 1784 Anson or Rowan Co., NC or Wilkes Co., Georgia.

The John Callaway Family of Wilkes Co., GA (
from: An Account of The John Callaway Family and Home in Wilkes Co., GA by Brantly Mercer Callaway, II (Columbus, GA: Callaway Family Association, 1983), pp. 13-15:

...Before coming to Georgia, John Callaway had married Bethany Arnold, 1750-1844 (?), and bringing his family he settled in Wilkes Co., GA, in 1783 on a tract of land located on the head waters of Clarks Creek, a branch of Long Creek, which enters into Broad River. The land was granted to him by the State of Georgia, possibly for service in the Revolutionary War. One Tract contained two hundred acres and another one hundred and ninety-four acres. These grants are on record in the office of the Ordinary in Washington, Georgia, and in the office of the Secretary of State, Atlanta, Georgia. He built a log house approximately one hundred yards southwest of the location of the Callaway family cemetery. Since there were twelve children in his family and Rev. Enoch Callaway, the youngest, was born in 1792, some of the children must have been brought with them from North Carolina. The family occupied this house for several years, clearing the fields nearby for cultivation. Other land adjoining this was bought, and John Callaway had a frame house built sometime near the year 1800. This house was located three-quarters of a mile west of the original log house, about seventy-five yards east of the Enoch Callaway residence which was built about 1840. Here he died in 1821, and here his widow Bethany Arnold Callaway lived until her death in 1844. Not much information is now available about John Callaway but in judging from the characteristics of his children and tradition some deductions are justifiable. He became moderately prosperous, as shown by his frame house built early in the occupance of the land, by his acquisition of additional land, in all aggregating 2000 acres, and by the property listed in his will. He was law abiding in pioneer times, and his associates were the substantial citizens of the community. The home was furnished with the ordinary comforts and provision of the times.
He and his wife and children joined Sardis Baptist Church, constituted in 1788, which was located three miles westward. His daughters married reputable citizens, some of whom became "well-to-do." The members of his family had solid dependable characteristics, according to all tradition, showing heritage and training. The ownership of slaves was the result of the profitable production of cotton in an environment which accepted slavery without question. The period of 1800-1820 was generally prosperous for these settlers. John Callaway and Bethany Arnold Callaway reared fourteen children, some of whom married and settled nearby., while others migrated to other sections of Georgia and Alabama. He had acquired about 2000 acres of land and twenty-five slaves as well as other property to be bequeathed, which must have classed him as a man of substantial means. He had bought acquired and sold tracts of land other than his home place prior to 1800; and he had registered for the State land lotteries in 1803, 1806. He was a member of Sardis Baptist Church for many years, joining under the ministry of Jesse Mercer as Pastor at or soon after the organization of the church. At the death of John Callaway in 1821, thirty-eight years after coming to Georgia and settling this place, his body was buried in the Callaway family Cemetery, on his own land and near where he had built his first log house residence in the Cherokee Indian "ceded lands" in Wilkes Co., GA. This cemetery no doubt already had been established by the burial of bodies of those relatives and neighbors who had died, long before his death. Its establishment on his land classed this home as important in family affairs. His wife's body was buried beside him at her death in 1844, and a large number of his descendants are interred here.

Facts and Incidents Relating to the John Callaway Plantation
from: An Account of The John Callaway Family and Home in Wilkes Co., GA by Brantly Mercer Callaway, II (Columbus, GA: Callaway Family Association, 1983), pp. 47-48:

John Callaway and Enoch Callaway in the environment of their age, held a number of negroes as property. These slaves lived in log cabins near the homestead, and worked the farm under an overseer. Neither the cabins nor the food and clothes all of which was produced on the place, were more thanbadequate to meet bare necessities, but tradition is that they were treated with care and consideration accorded valuable property and some of them were held in kindly esteem. Many of them joined the nearby Sardis Baptist Church, the church of the white owners--as shown by the church records, and some were said to have developed notable christian character. There were probably few slaves on the plantation until after the invention of the cotton gin near 1800 which made cotton production very profitable. John Callaway at his death in 1821 bequeathed by will title to twenty-five negro slaves to his children. Enoch Callaway at his death in 1859 bequeathed title to seventeen negroes by terms of his will. There was burying ground for such of the negroes as died, located one hundred yards north west of the Callaway family cemetery. The bodies of many negores were buried here after the the Civil War, but by 1910 it has been abandoned as a Negro burial ground. When Lucy B. Howard, of Oglethorpe Co., GA, was sought in marriage by B. M. Callaway in 1859, she was told by relatives that Enoch Callaway plantation was an "unhealthy place to live, as it had a negro graveyard with sixty graves on it". If they were all from the Callaway plantation from 1783 to 1859 this would have been a large number of deaths. It is likely that the bodies of negroes from other nearby farms were also buried there. Anyway negroes were too valuable for this to have been the case from any neglect or careless management. There is no other suggestion in tradition that it was anything but a healthy community.

The Callaway Family Cemetery
from: An Account of The John Callaway Family and Home in Wilkes Co., GA by Brantly Mercer Callaway, II (Columbus, GA: Callaway Family Association, 1983), p. 48:

The burial ground was begun for the burial of those members of the family who died after coming to Georgia in 1783, and was located on hundred fifty yards N.E. of the first log house built and occupied by John Callaway nine miles west of Washington, Georgia. It was customary to have the family cemetery on land owned by some member thereof, and near the family seat. The earlier graves are unmarked save by rude unlettered head and foot stones. The granite boulder monument commemorating John and Bethany Arnold Callaway, near which are their graves, was erected to their memory by the family of Rev. B. M. Callaway in 1904. Representatives of six generations of his descendants had been buried in this cemetery by 1939. The bodies of many neighbors are also interred here.