Beard Cemetery (also known as Oak Grove Cemetery) is located in Baker County, GA on property owned by Willow Nook Farms. It is near Christ Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in a rural area, sixteen miles west of Newton, Georgia. The land in a heavily wooded area, was given to the black residents by a white planter. Christ C.M.E. Church, before the War Between The States, was a place of worship for both whites and blacks who held membership in a hand-hewn log structure with board window shutters, a short distance from where the present church was known as Christ Methodist Church. Here, the white planters and their families along with their black slaves met to worship God. At the close of the war, the blacks were freed. They established their own church some five miles to the east of old Christ Methodist Church and thus came the name Christ C.M.E. Church. The membership built a brush arbor, which served as a place of worship until a permanent building could be erected. This first structure, built after the Civil War, was destroyed by fire along with the earlier records. The church was rebuilt, remaining in that location until the early 1940's. The present church is a continuation of old Christ C.M.E. Church. In the 1940's, the membership purchased two acres of land and rebuilt the church on a highway about 0ne-tenth of a mile west of the original Christ Colored Methodist Episcopal Church.
SOURCE: Abstracted By: Evangelist Carolyn Malaika Foster-Brooks
According to some sources, Beard Cemetery is also known as Oak Grove Cemetery. Beard Cemetery (Oak Grove Cemetery) sits beside where Oak Grove Baptist Church once sat. A new Oak Grove church has been built in another town and is now a Free Will Baptist church.
NOTE: Beard Cemetery is on private property owned by Willow Nook. The cemetery can only be accessed by dirt roads and is situated in the middle of a large farm/crop field.