Area Information
History: Confusingly, there are three other towns in the state named "Bethel." One is between Edenton and Hertford in the "Finger Counties" region in the Northeast corner of the state, another is in the North-Central part in Caswell County and the third is located in the Mountain Region of North Carolina in Haywood County.
The crossroads once described as "16 miles from everywhere" is Bethel. Later known as Brandon, this village which grew around a church which was formed by 1774. On April 28, 1858, the town finally received a post office with Bethel as the official name for the town. That same year a road was built from Martinsborough (later Greenville) to Halifax, and about the same time another road was built from Tarboro to Williamston.

In late 1882, the Seaboard and Raleigh Railroad reached Bethel. It was the first and for a while the only railroad in Pitt County.  People from Greenville and the surrounding areas had to come to Bethel to catch the train.

In 1884 J. T. Vines and a Mr. Rouse ran a shingle factory in Grindle Creek Swamp about three miles from Bethel.  They built a tram road two miles to the Albermarle and Raleigh Railroad, whereon they shipped 100,000 shingles a week to Baltimore, Md. 
Resources: Compilation

Other sites you may be interested in:
Thumbnail Collection of USA Water Towers
Canadian Water Towers and Standpipes
Magnetic Hills in the United States of America
The History of the Christian Fish Symbol