Bethel A.M.E. Church Cemetery in Freehold Township, New Jersey

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Get directions 60 Ilene Way
Freehold Township, New Jersey 07728 United States

Coordinates: 40.27150, -74.29817
Cemetery ID:

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Excerpt from: 'New Jersey Graveyard and Gravestone Inscriptions Locators - MONMOUTH COUNTY', Copyright 2002, Genealogical Society of New Jersey, by Edward J. Raser

"On 20 October 1851 a committee of the A.M.E. Church 'to be erected in Freehold' (NJ) purchased this one-acre tract in a black neighborhood that came to be known as Squirrel Town (Deeds, S5:195, 197). A trustees' certificate for the congregation is dated 5 February 1853 (Misc., D:251). Subsequently, and possibly as a result of expense incurred in building an edifice on this property, the congregation defaulted on a debt owed to the Freehold firm of Bowne & Combs. The property was put up for sheriff's sale on 16 July 1855, and Bowne & Combs was the highest bidder; the company was deeded the land on 23 July 1855 (Deeds, M6:405).

On 17 September 1856 the congregation incorporated as the African Methodist Episcopal Church Bethel (Inc's., A:32). It seems most likely that the church had continued to use this property during the ownership by Bowne & Combs; in any event it repurchased the tract from Bowne & Combs on 21 December 1867 (Deeds, 203:121). In 1871 the church bought a lot in Freehold village and built a new church there, but retained their burial ground at this site. The cemetery is mentioned in Ellis, 508."