The Hodgeman Colony, located in Hodgeman County, southwestern Kansas, was formed in 1877 by African Americans from the area surrounding Lexington and Harrodsburg, Kentucky. This was one of several colonies of Exodusters, or African Americans wishing to find better opportunities after the end of Reconstruction.

The individuals involved formed the Morton Town Company, named after Indiana Republican Party founder Oliver P. Morton, and colonists began arriving at the site in 1878. A second party joined the first in 1879. The colonists struggled to find the supplies and money needed to begin their subsistence farms. At the same time, the families arrived during a severe drought, after the very wet 1877 planting season.

Several individuals went to Dodge City, Jetmore, Larned, Kinsley, and other towns in western Kansas to seek employment. Kinsley in Edwards County, about 30 miles east of the colony's site and being the initial jumping off point for most of the colonists, became the town that many individuals returned to in order to find employment. The Morton town company did not last, but several African American families remained in the area, including the Moores, Robert Johnson, Taylor Jackson, and William Thomas, among others.

[Information retrieved from "Hodgeman County Colony, Kansas," National Park Serivce, https://www.nps.gov/places/hodgeman-county-colony-kansas.htm and Haywood, C. Robert, "The Hodgeman County Colony," Kansas History vol 12 no. 4 (1989): 210-221, available online at https://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1989winter_haywood.pdf.]