Capote

Capote (Capoti) was a rural school community on Farm Road 466 about ten miles southeast of Seguin in southeastern Guadalupe County. The community was founded by Reverend Leonard Isley, a White minister who also founded the Capote Baptist Church. Hiram Wilson, a former slave, established a pottery business in Capote in 1869. He also served as the first pastor of the Capote Baptist Church. Wilson died in 1884, but other ex-slaves continued to run the pottery until 1903. Pottery from Capote turned up in many areas of southwestern Texas (see WILSON POTTERIES). In 1904 Capote had three one-teacher schools for forty-four White students, and three schools and four teachers for 137 Black students. There were a few scattered houses and a cemetery in the area in 1946; by the mid-1980s only a church and a cemetery marked the community on county highway maps. Capote Cemetery was still in use in the 2010s.