Hawkins Chapel

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm going to tell it to you. S. J.

Hawkins was born in 1821, and by the time his parents packed up and came to Texas from Kentucky in 1846, you could say the family had already cast their lot with this land. But S. J. wasn't done moving.

In 1876, he brought his own family out to this frontier area, this corner of Young County that most folks would have looked at and kept right on riding past. He didn't. He stopped.

And before long, his brother F. J. Hawkins and others came out and joined him, because that's what pioneers did.

They followed the ones brave enough to go first. What grew up around this site was a community, a real one, the kind built from scratch and from stubbornness. A school went up in 1879.

Three years later, in 1882, the summer camp meetings began, sheltered under a brush arbor nearby, which if you've never stood under one of those on a hot Texas evening, well, you've missed something. Then in 1884, Hawkins Chapel Methodist Church was erected right here, giving the whole place a name and a permanence it hadn't quite had before. The first burial in the adjacent cemetery came in 1889.

Now, here's the part that settles on you quiet. The school closed in 1910. The church closed in 1916.

S. J. Hawkins himself had passed in 1908, so he didn't see either door shut.

But the cemetery, it never closed. It's still in use today. And every summer, descendants of those early settlers come back to this very site for a reunion.

The school is gone. The church is gone. But the people keep coming back.

Turns out S. J. Hawkins built something that outlasted the buildings.

What the marker says

S. J. Hawkins (1821-1908), whose parents came to Texas from Kentucky in 1846, brought his family to this frontier area in 1876. His brother, F. J. Hawkins, and others soon joined him. Their pioneer community was centered at this site, where a school was built in 1879. A nearby brush arbor sheltered the annual summer camp meeting beginning in 1882. Hawkins Chapel Methodist Church was erected in 1884, and the first burial in the adjacent cemetery was in 1889. The school closed in 1910 and the church in 1916, but the cemetery is still in use. Descendants of early settlers hold a reunion here each summer.