In the outskirts of Bethune in Kershaw County rests the Scotch Cemetery, a testament to the Scottish pioneers who settled here in the eighteenth century. The village was originally called Lynchwood for its position between the Lynches River and the Little Lynches River. The settlement’s burial ground was established here in 1799.
Those first buried in the Scotch Cemetery were agrarians who came directly from the Highlands and Hebrides Island of Scotland. Grave markers for McCaskills, McInneses, and McLeods can be found within the cemetery. These families were associated with Pine Tree Presbyterian Church, no longer extant, near the community of Cassatt. By 1901, the Lynchwood Presbyterians organized their own church, Bethune Presbyterian, which they named for Daniel Bethune (not to be confused with his son, Daniel Murdock Bethune), a leader in Pine Tree Presbyterian.
Bethune’s son, Daniel Murdock Bethune, became the namesake of the present-day town of Bethune when he allowed a railway to pass through his property in 1900. The town of Bethune was incorporated in 1901. Daniel Murdock Bethune is also interred within the Scotch Cemetery, his marker reading:
A truer nobler heart never beat within a human breast.
Please advise PO mailing address for sending maintenance contributions and any scheduled plans to upgrade repair replace.How many burial spaces are left?
Very nice of you to want to help! We would recommend reaching out to the Town of Camden for information on who to contact for this particular cemetery, they have a contact form located here: https://www.classicallycarolina.com/contact. Hope this helps!
Hi, my last name is Bethune and my great grandfather was born in Bethune, SC. I would like to know if I have any relatives or any history of the Bethunes. Please contact me by email. I would love to talk to you.
Hello! I am a direct descendant of Daniel Murdoch Bethune (note the difference in spelling of his middle name; that is how the family spells it). DMB (1845-1915) was my g-g-grandfather. This cemetery is special to my family, and I have visited there several times to photograph the tombstones of my ancestors.
One correction I would make to your excellent website (I am thrilled to have found it) is that, at least among my ancestors (Bethunes, McCaskills, and the like) they were not Scots-Irish, as stated in the first paragraph, but rather Scots, as you state later on in the narrative. The older tombstones actually state that they were born on the Isle of Skye. No stopping by N. Ireland for them; they were not part of the Plantation of Scots to Northern Ireland to "civilize" the Irish during the English Reformation. No Irish blood there!
Of interest to your readers may be the graves of three Yarbrough men, triplets born in 1864: Edward Lee, Findley Forrest, and Calvin Kenneth Yarbrough. The story widely circulated among my family goes that Union troops passing through the area were so taken with the three toddlers that they forgot to "fire" (burn down) the property before the order to move out was given. One of the tombstones of the brothers has a mistake on it, making him a year older (or is it a year younger) than the other two triplets!