Hopewell Cemetery

Flat Rock, TX

Alabama-born George Stevens came to Wise County in 1855 and made his name as a defender of frontier settlers, active in resisting Indian raids and serving as a guiding officer in local home-guard units. He also wore the badge of county sheriff across the 1860s and 1870s, keeping order in a raw and often violent region.

Decatur, TX

Flat Rock was settled in the 1850s by Moses Ball and other pioneers, its name drawn from flat stones that formed a local landmark. Tradition holds the first burial in its cemetery was an American Indian and the second a small girl who died as her family migrated through; the oldest legible stones date to 1878, amid many unmarked graves. Ex-Texas Ranger George W. Stevens deeded the ground for the cemetery in 1890, and the community faded after 1914.

Alvord, TX

Thirty-five charter members organized Hopewell Baptist Church in 1874, first gathering a mile south near Hopewell Cemetery before relocating in 1887 beside the landmark called Lone Mound. In its early years circuit-riding preachers led worship just once a month, and members raised a new sanctuary in 1899; by 1950 the congregation met weekly. Standing near the Lone Mound School, the church became a gathering place at the heart of its Wise County community.

Alvord, TX

In 1833 early settler Andrew Jackson Jones set aside four acres for a church and cemetery, and the oldest marked grave dates to that same year. After fire destroyed the first church in 1893, the Mount Zion Baptist congregation met in the nearby Jones School until raising a one-room building in 1909, whose lumber was later reused for the present structure in 1950. Its tradition of mission work and annual brush arbor meetings has carried on for well over a century.