November 5 2003:

I Found Bethuel Hitchcocks Grave site today. Recently while studying geneology about my great great great grandfather Bethuel Hitchcock I learned he had died and was buried in Van Buren Arkansas. Van Buren is only about 10 minutes from where I work in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Today was my day off so Sheila, her Brother Terry, Stephen, Rebekah and I drove to Van Buren in search of Bethuel's Grave site. There were five Cemetery's in Van Buren. The first Cemetery we found (One I could see from the Freeway) turned out to be the wrong cemetery but the manager there made some phone calls. One of his contacts had a book of historical grave stones in Arkansas which listed Bethuel as being buried in the Gill Cemetary located off of Kibler Rd. In Van Buren. The good news was I now had the location of the correct cemetery, The bad news was we found out that the records of plots and grave site locations for Gill Cemetery had been destroyed in a fire 25 years ago. Cemetaries can be big places looking for a tomb stone from 1892 among probably thousands of other stones. As we began our search at the Gill cemetery rain began to pour and thunder roll, and we decided to go get some lunch and hope for a break in the weather. As we ate it absolutely poured rain. By the time we got back out to Gill Cemetery the heaviest rain had passed. We headed back out to where we had seen the oldest stones and began our search. I gave up once again do to a more heavy rain shower that moved in then as it passed began searching again. After about five rows of stones I found Bethuels Head Stone.

It read

B Hitchcock
Born
October 19 1822
Died
April 28 1892

Photograph of Stephen Michael Schneider next to the grave site of his great great grandfather Bethuel Hitchcock

Revisted my gggrandfather's grave site about a week ago. Took this photo. Tried to enhance it a bit to see the writing..