Bethesda and Surroundings Communities by Rick Warwick and Marcia Fraser presents a history told with personal interviews by those who grew up in the southern part of Williamson County. Period photographs, numbering 390, are included to enrich the narratives of those telling their life stories. Histories of schools, churches, country stores, physicians, fraternal organizations, and local postmasters supplement the interviews in more detail. Bethesda, a Hebrew word meaning house of mercy, is the center of the old 12th civil district surrounded by Cross Keys, Ash Hill, Duplex, Harpeth, and Callie. The early families of these communities settled largely on the North Carolina land grant of 4,800 acres belonging to Dr. Joseph Blythe, a Revolutionary War veteran. Today, the historic homes of the Bond, Steele, Alexander, Lee, Hartley, Irvin, Grigsby, and McCall families are still standing revealing a material sense of how these families once lived. A section entitled Faces of the Past offers an insight into the physical appearances of those who once called this area home.
