Our History

The Beulah Cemetery is accessible at the east end of Cemetery Road, just west of Lake Beulah beneath stately sprawling oaks. One of the earliest headstones belongs to Andrew Jackson Dunaway, a Confederate States Army soldier who was buried in 1866. Beulah Baptist Church has long been the custodian of the cemetery, which is a free resting place for members of the Beulah community or church or for immediate family members of those buried there.

The Reaves family started the cemetery on private land and later donated it to the Beulah church. The Central Florida Genealogical Society surveyed the cemetery in 1997 and discovered the names of many West Orange County pioneers: Johns, Patrick, Dann, Tanner, Roper, Reaves (Reeves) and Reams (Reames). Newton, Winter Garden’s first mayor and merchant, is buried there, as well.

In recent years, the Florida Public Archaeology Network has sponsored the Orange County Historic Cemetery Recording Project, which produces data that can be beneficial to researchers and archaeologists. Volunteers visit local cemeteries to record marker data, such as type, inscription, material, designs and condition. The Beulah Cemetery is ranked high on the list because it is still in use, is well-maintained by the church and is still associated with the founding community.

Beulah Baptist is one of the oldest churches in Orange County. It has been written that the church was given its name by a member of the Reaves family who was fascinated by the name Beulah, a Hebrew word that means “married” and in the Bible is a name symbolic of the heavenly Zion. The community later adopted the name after the church.

Prior to becoming a Baptist church, it was a community congregational church, founded in 1861 on property on Reaves Road. It served as the only public school in the area, too, for many years. R.L. Reaves, who was a preacher, offered sermons on the open land. Eventually, a 12-foot by 12-foot building was constructed of split logs because there was no lumber; the local sawmill had burned down in a fire in 1867.

According to the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation, Beulah Congregational Church became the Beulah Methodist Church in 1892. When the Methodist church moved to Winter Garden in 1909, the community felt a Baptist church was needed, as it was becoming inconvenient to travel to Winter Garden’s Baptist church, so the church’s denomination switched in 1913. Two years later, the Reaves family deeded the property to the church.

The first full-time pastor, the Rev. Mark A. Dobbs, was called in 1942, and the following year, a building fund was begun. A groundbreaking for the new sanctuary took place on Thanksgiving Day 1944. The new church building, with its steeple and modern design, was completed in 1946. This now historical building is still being used today by worshippers each week to glorify God.

In the late 1940s, a parsonage was built using timbers from the old Beulah School, which closed in 1945. A daycare center opened on the campus in 1973 and operated until 1992. In 1976, five additional acres were purchased adjacent to the church for expansion.

West Orange County’s pioneer children had to travel to Beulah for their education, as the Beulah School, established in 1860, was the only formal educational facility in the area for decades, and students attended until the Orange County School Board closed it in 1946. A log building matching the original Beulah church was built as a school for the surrounding areas.

Classrooms were divided into older and younger classes, and both had combined grade levels. One teacher in the early 1900s would on occasion take her little boy to class with her, according to one Orange County history account. The child, Elmer Badger, who played and crawled around his mother’s desk as she taught, grew up to be a dedicated schoolteacher in West Orange County.

The schoolhouse at Beulah served as the center of the settlement’s social activities, before there was an Oakland, Ocoee or Gotha. When the school was closed, the school board sold the school buildings to the Baptist church for $1, and the church used the timbers from the old school to build the parsonage.

Lake Beulah is located just east of the Beulah Cemetery and at one time, supplied water for agriculture.