Hope Family Plot

The Hope family plot can be seen below, surrounded by a low stone border. Above is a picture of the family name carved into the border at the plot's entrance. Levi Hope, who was born in 1795 in North Carolina, was the patriarch of this Lafayette County family, arriving here before 1840 from Cabarrus County, North Carolina. He was the son of Robert Hope and Catherine Allison and the husband of Jane Malissa Harris. Levi was also a slaveowner with 29 slaves listed on the 1850 Slave Schedule. One of the graves in the slave graveyard has a surname of Hope, and I'm sure that many of the unmarked graves were those of Hope slaves.

The Hope family were of Scotch-Irish origin, originally arriving like most Scotch-Irish immigrants first to Pennsylvania and then moving south into Virginia and the Carolinas. Levi Hope appears to be the only one who migrated to Lafayette County, Mississippi. He apparently was a man of some substance since he served in the North Carolina General Assembly in 1835 as a representative of Cabarrus County.