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The founding and developing of Cedar Grove Missionary Baptist church was interwoven with that of the town of Pocahontas, Hinds County, Mississippi. Pocahontas, so named because of two nearby Indian mounds, was founded on some land that was donated by J. E. Cane in 1884 for the railroad right of way. Section houses, a depot, a number of residential houses and some businesses were built. A cotton gin and a railroad station were built sometime later. The economy was agricultural with cotton being the major crop. Eight years later in 1892, Cedar Grove was founded by Reverend Lincoln Hopkins and a few dissatisfied former members of Pleasant Grove M. B. Church. Cedar Grove was founded under a brush harbor at the southwest corner of Robinson Springs Road on what is now called old Highway 49. This was about one mile north of the town of Pocahontas, Mississippi in Madison County. Still showing the mental and physical scars of slavery and moving unwittingly into the painful economic jaws of sharecropping, Cedar Grove's membership grew rapidly. This was the first generation after slavery. Robert McKinley, Author of Cedar Grove's Comprehensive History |