Little Hope

LITTLE HOPE, TEXAS . Little Hope is at the intersection of Farm roads 154 and 312, ten miles east of Quitman in eastern Wood County. The old Little Hope church and cemetery are about 1½ miles north of the community, which is sometimes referred to as the "new" Little Hope. The area was settled as early as the 1850s, and by 1857 a school, taught by fifteen-year-old Emily Smith, served both the Little Hope area and the Holly Springs community. In 1881 the Little Hope Missionary Baptist Church was organized; it was said to have taken its name from the fact that there was little hope that the church would survive more than a year. The first meeting of the church was held at a brush arbor near a place called the Murphy graveyard, but eventually a two-story building was constructed; the second story was used for meetings of the local Woodmen of the World lodge. Baptisms for the church were originally conducted at J. A. Stinson's millpond near the Speer community. Shortly after its establishment the Little Hope church helped organize a Missionary Baptist church at the nearby community of East Point.