Beck Prairie is believed to have been named after Tennessee native Absalom Beck, a farmer here in 1850. The name changed to Nesbitt when postal officials misspelled Nisbett, the name of the family whose store became the site of a new post office in 1900. In 1875 the Beck Prairie Missionary Baptist Church was organized by William D. Anderson and B. L. Wright. Its first sanctuary was built on land donated by Jacob and Elizabeth (Crouch) Anderson in 1878. Early interments took place in family cemeteries until A. J. Sharp, Sr., purchased Methodist church property at this site in 1875 and donated it to the community for burial and school purposes. The first recorded burial was that of infant Florence McCrary in 1875. In 1895 Hinnard Lee and Mary Frances (Murphee) Faulk donated 2 acres about 2 miles northeast of here to the Beck Prairie Baptist Church. A sanctuary built at the new location was damaged by storm winds in 1915 and subsequently repaired. The Beck Prairie Baptist Church disbanded in 1956. The church property was transferred to the Nesbitt Cemetery in 1982. The cemetery, maintained by descendants of persons buried here, contains veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I & II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.