Hopkinsville Community, A Colony of Freedmen

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Way back in 1854, members of the Hopkins family came to De Witt County. They came as slaves, property of a man named Judge Henry Clay Pleasants.

For a time they worked on a plantation over in Gonzales County, and then the Civil War came and went, and everything changed. The Hopkins family returned to this area, this time as freedmen. Free people.

That matters. That is the whole weight of the story. Then, in 1872, a man named Henry Hopkins bought forty-two acres of land, right about a mile west of where you're riding now, and he established a community.

They called it Hopkinsville. The very next year, 1873, the residents of that settlement organized the Antioch Baptist Church. A community planting its roots, building something that would last.

About ten years after that, they started a school. A school for their children, on their land, in their community. The school ran for decades before it finally closed in 1956.

But here is the thing about Hopkinsville, here is what the marker wants you to know before you drive on. The school is gone. Judge Henry Clay Pleasants is gone, passed in 1899.

But the members of the Antioch Baptist Church, they continue to worship near Hopkinsville to this day. Some things, once built by people who had every reason not to be able to build them, just don't quit.

What the marker says

Members of the Hopkins family came to De Witt County in 1854 as slaves of Judge Henry Clay Pleasants (d. 1899). They worked for a time on a Gonzales County plantation and returned to this area after the Civil War as freedmen. In 1872 Henry Hopkins bought 42 acres of land and established the Hopkinsville community (1 mile west). Residents of the settlement organized the Antioch Baptist Church in 1873 and began a school about ten years later. Although the school closed in 1956, members of the Antioch Baptist Church continue to worship near Hopkinsville.