JACKSON, Mo. — Three Revolutionary Patriots who fought the British to bring freedom to the United States of America later became members of what is now Old Bethel Baptist Church and are buried in the church’s cemetery.
The log church, founded as Bethel Baptist Church, was the first Protestant church founded west of the Mississippi River.
Connecticut native Ithamar Hubbel was born in 1762 and at age 17 joined the New York militia to fight for independence. He later contracted smallpox, which put him out of commission until 1780. He re-enlisted and fought with General Phillip Schuyler’s private guards. In 1797 Hubbel moved to Cape Girardeau County. He built a water mill on a creek named after him, and from this the Gordonville community grew.
Enos Randol was born in 1744 in New Jersey and also came to the southeast Missouri in 1797 after serving in the New Jersey Militia. He received land and built a grist mill, one of the earliest in the area. The waterway was also named after him.
Robert Wicker was born in 1747 in either Virginia or South Carolina. In 1806, he and his family moved to the Cape Girardeau County by wagon train from South Carolina. Wicker was in one of the hottest contested battles in 1781 of Eutaw Springs, serving with the South Carolina Militia.
The three were active in Cape Girardeau County, and all joined Bethel Baptist Church, south of Jackson, Missouri. Randol was received as a member of Bethel Baptist Church on Aug. 13, 1808, following a previous decision by his wife and daughter. It’s not immediately known when Wicker or Hubbel joined the church.
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory, and two years later Kentucky Baptist preacher David Greene came to southeast Missouri and, in 1806, founded the church with 15 charter members. Other Baptist churches were established too.
After the New Madrid earthquakes in 1811-1812, attendance flourished at Old Bethel. In 1816, Bethel Baptist Association—the first such association in Missouri—was formed with seven churches.
In the church history of Bethel, by the time the Civil War started in 1862, it is recorded that the church was not in favor of the war and excluded a member for joining the army. The church itself closed its doors in August of 1867.
Randol died in 1811; Wicker died in 1821; and Hubbel died in 1840.
Over the years, after the death of the three Revolutionary patriots, their original gravestones were lost.
On Nov. 1, 2006, The Allen Laws Oliver sons of the American Revolution marked the graves. On August 30, 2008, the John Guild Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution saw to it that the three had new gravestones.
Dennis Hahn, a member of the Missouri Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, said there are several members of MSSAR who are descendants of Randol and Wickers, who were at the 2006 dedication of the tombstones.
Molly McNabb, an employee of Lynwood Christian Academy in Cape Girardeau, has taken students to clean the tombstones. She said her grandfather was part of the group that helped reconstruct the tombstones.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Information on the history of the Old Bethel Baptist church is condensed from an account by Bev Nelson, which can be found on the baptistparchments.org website. The battle information came from a March 9, 2021, podcast by the late Frank Nickell, a retired history professor. Information also came from Missouri Baptist Historical Commission members Dennis Hahn and Molly McNabb. Some details on Randol are based on a narrative found at findagrave.com.
