You may know that Clarksville is one of Austin’s oldest neighborhoods. Do you also know that Clarksville is one of the first freedman's communities established west of the Mississippi River?

The area that is now Clarksville was once a part of Woodlawn, the 365-acre plantation owned by former Governor Elisha Marshall Pease and his wife, Lucadia Pease. Prior to emancipation, the area included quarters for some of the men and women who labored at Woodlawn. After emancipation, Pease sold some land to former enslaved people, some of whom continued to work for him as freedmen.

On August 11, 1871, Charles Griffin Clark purchased two acres of land from Nathan Shelley (1825-1898), a Confederate General and former Texas State Senator. Clark was born in Mississippi about 1820. Most likely, Clark was living in Texas by the early 1850’s; the 1870 census indicated that his son, Miller, had been born in Texas about 1851. He purchased the land for the sum of $100 under his enslaved name of Charles Griffin, which he later dropped in favor of the name Charles Clark. Clark built a home on the northside of what is now the 1600 block of West 10th Street, now known as 1616, 1620, 1622 and 1624 West 10th Street.

On November 15, 1872, Clara & Max Maas sold the second tract of land within the Clarksville district to freedman Edward (Edmund) Smith for $200. Smith’s parcel of land is now known as 1706 and 1712 West 11th Street.

Clark sold the rest of his acreage to other freedmen, becoming the nucleus for the neighborhood that bears his name: Clarksville. According to tradition, Clark envisioned a place where former enslaved people could reunite with their families and friends, direct their own lives, and freely practice their religion.

Essex Carrington purchased a parcel of land on Waterston Street on December 9, 1872. He worked for the Washington Hose Company, a private fire department. Later, he was the first known Black hoseman for the Austin Fire Department. Essex Carrington’s son, the Rev. Albert Carringtion, would become one of the first pastors at Sweet Home.

While Clark has been credited with founding the community, not much is known about the man’s life. The 1870 census records show that Clark, listed under the name Charles Griffin, had a wife named Francis, a son named Miller, and worked as a farm laborer. Regrettably, not much about this important man can be discerned from available records.

Clarksville is one of the first freedman's communities established west of the Mississippi River. At the time of its founding, the area was largely undeveloped, and west of Austin’s city limits. Because of its relative isolation, residents grew their own produce, owned a milk cow for dairy products, and hogs & chickens for meat. By around 1890, Clarksville had a population of almost 500, and both a church and a school.

In 1867, after emancipation, Rev. Jacob Fontaine (1808-1898) founded the First (Colored) Baptist Church in Austin. He was a janitor in the old Land Office Building, operated a grocery, laundry, book, and medicine store, and in 1876 established the Gold Dollar, one of the first Black weekly newspapers in the South and the first newspaper under Black ownership in Austin. He also founded five churches in addition to the First (Colored) Baptist Church: Mount Zion (Williamson Creek), 1873; Good Hope (Round Rock), 1874; Sweet Home (Clarksville), 1877; New Hope (Wheatville), 1887; and St. Stephen's (Waters Park), 1887. The Fontaine family lived on the Woodlawn plantation near the Pease’s home. Jacob's wife, Melvina (Viney), was a housekeeper there and had cooked at the Governor's Mansion. From 1875 to 1898, the Fontaines lived in a two-story structure at 24th Street and Orange (San Gabriel), now an Austin landmark. In 1881–82, Fontaine emerged as Austin's leading Black advocate for the establishment of the University of Texas in Austin.

Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church sits on property purchased on July 1, 1882. Prior to that from its founding in 1877, services were held at the Haskell House, and later under a brush arbor at this site before the first church building was constructed. The present building, the third, was built in 1935 by Clarksville resident W.S. Edmerson.

It is no accident that the neighborhood’s church is near the geographic center of the community. Its name, Sweet Home, reflects the early residents’ attitudes toward their religion and their community. Throughout Clarksville’s struggles to survive, Sweet Home has been the heart and soul of the community.

The property at 1703 Waterson, known as Haskell House, was purchased by freedman, Peter Tucker on New Year’s Day, 1875. Tucker bought the property from the Pease family for $100. It is not known when the original house was built. Sometime between 1879 and 1887, Tucker sold the property to Mary and Edwin Smith. Prior to construction of the first Sweet Home church building, the Smiths held religious meetings in this home.

In 1892, the Smiths moved to a new house behind the Haskell House and deeded the property to their daughter, Kate, and her husband, Hezekiah Haskell (in some records referred to as “Haskins”), who at one time boarded with the Smiths.

Among Clarksville’s residents was Elias Mayes, born Feb 15, 1831, who served in the Texas House of Representatives for the 16th Session from January 1879 to January 1881; and again in the 21st Session from January 1889 to January 1891 representing Brazos County. He built his Clarksville home at 1620 West 10th Street on land purchased from Charles Clark in 1884.

His wife, Maggie Mayes, founded the first school in Clarksville. Clarksville Elementary was a community effort, with classes held in the back of Elias & Maggie Mayes’ home. The school first had 47 students and taught grades 1-6. Eventually the school was moved into a more official location in the Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church. The school established breaks during the fall and spring which allowed families to have the extra labor/income during harvest months.

In 1916, the need for a school building was acknowledged by Austin ISD that resulted in building the Clarksville (Colored) School. This was also the first organized sign of white opposition to the Clarksville community. White residents in the growing Enfield neighborhood opposed building the school fearing it would encourage Blacks to remain in Clarksville. They thought it best that the school be built in East Austin, where a majority of Black Austinites lived, and where the Black high school had been built in 1906.

In the years following Reconstruction, Texas reestablished many of the provisions providing for legal discrimination against Blacks in the form of "Jim Crow” laws. And the City of Austin would officially seek to remove freedmen communities and segregate the city with its 1928 Master Plan. More on that in our next segment.

This is the second in a series to acknowledge and recognize Black Austinites who were/are integral to the history of Pease Park and its surroundings.

Sources:

Clarksville Community Development Corporation

Texas State Historical Association

Legislative Reference Library of Texas

Austin History Center

Thesis in Architecture, Jennifer Rita Ross, 2003