Mount Hope was near Russell’s Creek, two miles north of present-day Chester. At Mount Hope, the road from El Orcoquisac to Nacogdoches intersected the old beef trail to the Trinity River. Early settler James Barnes, who is buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery, moved to Texas in 1836. A post office operated in Mount Hope from 1851-67 by Hamilton W. Carter, also proprietor of a general store. After 1883, when the railroad went through Chester and bypassed Mount Hope, the community died. Most residents relocated to Chester. Mount Hope Methodist Church was most likely the First Methodist Church in Tyler County. According to local tradition, a traveling English Methodist missionary stopped at Barnes’ home and conducted an arbor meeting not long after they settled. From this meeting grew the Mount Hope Methodist Church. Early meetings were said to have either been held in a house near the present church or in a log cabin across Hardy Branch from Mount Hope Cemetery. The first preacher was County Judge William P. Sansom. In 1852 Hamilton W. Carter conveyed one acre to the trustees of the Mount Hope Chapel. The deed stated that the land be used for a church, school house, and masonic lodge. The first building most likely contained a school/church on the first floor and a masonic lodge on the second, typical of early East Texas communities at the time. The current church building was dedicated in 1910. The original pews, purchased from Baker’s Mill on Wolf Creek in eastern Tyler County, are still used in the church. The Mount Hope Methodist Church is a reminder of a community that came into being during the advent of Texas Independence and ceased to exist when bypassed by the railroad.