Mount Pleasant Magazine May/June 2018

50 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.BestOfMP.com feature R ichard Habersham’s family has been a fixture in the Phillips Community for nearly a century- and-a-half, when former slaves who had served their masters on at least three area plantations bought land along what is now Highway 41 and set out to make a life as free men and women. The 64-year-old has always lived on the land his ancestors purchased in the mid-1870s. And he’s concerned that the community that has been his home for his entire life could become a victim of Mount Pleasant’s meteoric growth. Habersham, who has served as president of the Phillips Community Association for the past 19 years, remembers when the area now bounded roughly by Park West, Horlbeck Creek, Joe Rouse Road and the Mount Pleasant Waterworks storage tank was a collection of small farms. Traffic was virtually nonexistent; few motorists could be found passing through on Highway 41. “You could lie out in the middle of the road if you wanted to,” he said. “After 7 or 7:30 at night, you might see one car an hour.” That, of course, hasn’t been the case for quite some time. Residential communities have sprouted along the corridor in recent decades, including sprawling Park By Brian Sherman ‘This Area Fits the People Who Live Here’ Highway 41 and the Phillips Community