Over time, the Spring Garden estate was sold off from family hands. While the family cemetery was not purposefully destroyed, it deteriorated over time.  In 1929, the General Samuel Hopkins Chapter was able to “mark” General Hopkins’ grave with a DAR Marker. The ladies continued to maintain this cemetery for years. By 1960, the maintenance work was too difficult for a group of ladies. The chapter members appealed in the local paper for funds to help restore Spring Garden Cemetery. One can only surmise that no help was forthcoming. By 1977, a feature article in the local newspaper was deploring the conditions at the cemetery and stating that the DAR members were afraid “the stones would be plowed under.”  Indeed, by that time, the owners of the cemetery land would not let anyone on the property. It was considered trespassing on private property crop land.

 

In 2001, a civic group led by the Henderson County Historical and Genealogical Society brought a group of citizens and a Hopkins descendant to the site to do cleanup work. The focus was to bring attention of the community and city fathers the need for project management for this cemetery.

 

In July of 2009, the city commissioners decided to spend funds to hire a cemetery preservationist to come to Spring Garden Cemetery and oversee the “clearing out” of the brush, trees, vines, weeds, etc. from the cemetery.  It would be the first step in preservation of the project.

 

Members of our chapter appeared at this meeting; and the regent, Mary Alice Springer, reminded the commission of the history of General Hopkins. This included: the innumerable contributions he made to the initial development of Henderson, and the long lasting legacy his actions had on our community to this day.  Fortunately, the history lesson paid off, and the commission voted unanimously to fund this initial preservation step.

 

Since that time, female trustees from our Henderson County Detention Center have cleared out all the debris, broken tree limbs, and weeds; and male inmates have laid four-brick corner posts.  Our city hired a firm to refurbish and install some old wrought iron fence that once stood near our railroad depot. We then purchased a new set of wrought iron gates to welcome visitors to Hopkins Family Cemetery.

 

A large grant, from the coal severance tax monies, was used to provide the infrastructure to build a covert and paved road over a rock base that create a walking path back to the cemetery from the parking lot of the U.K. Extension Service Office. 

At this time, a city staff member is restoring the actual tombstones. The markers will once again be standing up and grass should be restored in the cemetery.

 

A Boy Scouts of American Life Scout chose to make signage at the cemetery as his Eagle Scout service project.  This is for a sign to be placed at the site of the cemetery to explain: who General Hopkins was, what his many contributions were, to describe the cemetery and its history with a map of known burials, and to provide a key to the map.