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Roanoke Station does not appear as a place in any of the Huntington County history books. The station was probably established in response to Mahon’s station to provide something slightly closer that didn’t aid Mr. Mahon’s business. (There was a fierce rivalry for a time.)The 1937 Map of Huntington County says that there were 32 people in 7 buildings, and 3 businesses in Roanoke Station as enumerated in the 1930 census.

References to Roanoke Station appear in the newspapers as early as the 1870s, but it wasn’t a named place on maps until the 1930s. The station was as close to the village of Roanoke as the main Wabash RR came.

Roanoke Station (Ghost Town)

Explore the places and locations of ghost towns (at one time had a post office) and named places (never had a post office) in the Huntington County's northeastern area. 

Ghost Towns and Named Places of Eastern Clear Creek and Jackson Townships

Huntington County has had libraries almost since its founding. One of the earliest was established by the “Working Men’s Institute” and founded in 1855. The HCTPL traces its roots to this library which, in turn, provided the foundational materials to a subscription library founded in 1874 called the Public School Library. In 1889 the library was reorganized under state law to become a “free” library supported by a tax levy. The new name was “City Free Library.” From 1889 until a building completed with funds from Andrew Carnegie opened in 1903, the library was housed in the city high school.The library changed names in 1971 to the Huntington Public Library when it separated from the school library. It changed again in 1975 when the service area was expanded to include Huntington Township. Since then, it has been the Huntington City-Township Public Library even though in 2003 the service area expanded with the merger of the Markle Library.The 1903 Carnegie Library building still stands at 44 E. Park and is now the location of TCB Games. The current building opened in 1987 and was expanded twice: in 1996 and 2010. A major remodeling was completed in 2019. The main length of the building was designed to resemble a canal boat with the prow rising above the entrance. The entrance even sits on top of the former route of the Wabash &amp; Erie Canal.

The Huntington City-Township Public Library (HCTPL) serves the people of both the city and township of Huntington as well as the town of Markle. Teachers and students in the county schools, another primary/secondary school with a presence in the service area, or Huntington University are also eligible for library cards. It has a large room dedicated as the B. Joan Keefer Genealogy and Local History Center in the main branch, and a small History Room in the Markle branch.

Huntington City-Township Public Library

Isaiah Souers (1840 – 1927) had this to say about the school in 1926 when he was interviewed by F. S. Bash:“In our rambling chat I learned from Mr. Souers that the first school he attended in the Poplar Grove neighborhood was held in a cabin which stood on the Peter Keefer farm. After a building was put up at the cross roads at Poplar Grove proper, Lawrence Schoonover was one of Isaiah’s teachers. In referring to him Isaiah said: ‘Lawrence was a fine teacher but did not make a specialty of any one branch as did Henry Zent. Henry put a good deal of time on geography. The walls were nearly covered with maps. In addition to the regular day school, Henry taught a select school at night for instruction in geography. It was supported by private subscription. He made us sing the states, capitals and rivers. He’d point on the map and we’d sing ‘New York – Albany on the Hudson river; Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna,’ etc. Now I tell you when that whole school sang together it made music and we didn’t forget the lesson either. John G. Price also taught at Poplar Grove in the earliest days of that school which disappeared many years ago as did the Dan Christian saw-mill and tile mill.”

At this crossroads, there was a school probably built in a grove of poplar trees. The school became known as Poplar Grove, and a small community grew up. There was a saw mill about ¼ mile down the street to the west. And, there may have been a general store at some point.

Poplar Grove (named place)

According to his obituary, Thomas Jackson bought the 80 acres on the northwest corner of this intersection in 1846. The next year, he brought his family from Stark County, Ohio to come live in the two-room log cabin he had constructed. He also had to cut the road. As a very early settler of some prominence, the corner of his property came to be known by his name for a number of years. It was never incorporated. In the 1866 map of the county, the southwest corner of the intersection shows the home of J. Myers and his Blacksmith shop. T. Jackson’s house is a little west of the northwest corner, and H. Dinius is just east of the northeast corner.Because of his prominence, one of the early improved roads ran from here to Roanoke and was called the Roanoke – Jackson Gravel Road. Now it is 1000 North.

According to online newspapers, for at least 40 years this corner was referred to as “Jackson’s Corners” after Thomas Jackson who owned the property on the northwest corner (in Clear Creek Township).

Jackson Corners (named place)

Goblesville had its own post office from 1883 until 1905. Although it was never platted, it does/did? have its own water system and a single fire hydrant. It had a general store until 1969.The 1866 map of the county shows a school (District #8) and a saw mill. By 1879, the school had been moved across the street to the northwest corner and renumbered District #2. The same map shows the presence of a U. B. [United Brethren] in the northeast corner. The District 2 School was most likely a frame structure. The existing building has dates to 1891. Classes actually ceased being held in the building after the 1925-26 school year when the 5 remaining district schools were all closed and all education in Clear Creek Township was moved to the new consolidated school building at the intersection of 900 N and 300W (2 miles south of Goblesville).The exact date of the founding of the church is not recorded in existing histories, but it was undoubtedly between 1866 and 1879 since it appears on the latter map, but not the former. Through a succession of mergers, the name has changed until today it is called “Faith Chapel United Methodist.”Goblesville is located at the intersection of four sections in the township (3, 4, 9, and 10). By looking in the 1879 Combined Atlas for these sections, we can surmise that at least the following businesses were located in what was soon to be called Goblesville at that time:<ol><li class="ql-indent-1">A Threshing Machine &amp; Patent Well Auger business owned by Isaac Goble.</li><li class="ql-indent-1">A Saw Mill owned by John H. Goble.</li></ol>The 1914 county history has this to say about Goblesville:“It is the outgrowth of a settlement that grew up about the sawmill started by John Goble some years ago. No regular plat of the village was ever filed in the recorder’s office, and, like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it “just growed.” Besides the sawmill, the business activities of Goblesville have been a Blacksmith shop and two or three general stores. Mail is supplied to the inhabitants by rural delivery from Huntington. Being situated in the midst of a rich agricultural district, it is a trading center of local importance, and according to Rand &amp; McNally it had a population of 60 in 1910.”For at least four years, between 1891 and 1895, Goblesville even had its own band.Note: A hamlet is a rural, unincorporated, community with a small population (typically under 150) and no separate governance.

This is one of many places in the county that at one time had a small, independent, community, but have lost all but a few, scattered buildings and a mention on maps and signage. Named after Peter Goble, an early settler (ca. 1855) and the person who donated the land for the church, Goblesville is the major named “hamlet” in Creek Creek. It was first mentioned by name in an 1880 newspaper.



Goblesville (Ghost Town)

Like most of the hamlets in Huntington County, Cuba developed as a gathering of area farmers who needed a place to worship and do daily business in the time before automobiles. One room “district” school houses were also a common feature of these places, including Cuba. Jackson Township District School #3, most frequently called Simon or Simons School, was located just south of the intersection on the west side of 100 E according to the 1866, 1879 and 1903 maps of the county. The Simons School was one of the last two district schools to close in Jackson Township. Its last class left the building after the 1925-26 school year. After that, all Jackson Township students went to the consolidated school in Roanoke.The invention of the automobile and the creation of the Rural Free Delivery postal routes in the 1890s made good roads a county mandate. With good roads came easy travel and school and post office consolidation. As a result, most of the hamlets disappeared as identifiable communities. Today, many of the hamlets are completely gone. Sometimes, as here, a church continues to exist. That, its cemetery, and a few homes are all that remain of Cuba today.

The Pleasant Chapel church and the area surrounding the intersection of 1100 N and 100 E used to be a thriving hamlet. In area newspapers, the hamlet was variously called Cuba, Smoke Town/ Smoketown, and Donald. As Donald it even had a post office for a few years from 1898 to 1901.

Cuba (Ghost Town)

The first “Raccoon Village” was a “reservation” named after a Miami chieftain named White Raccoon who apparently had a small settlement in this area. The Treaty of 1826 reserved “ten sections at the White Raccoon’s village” for the use of the Miami. The 1834 Treaty ceded control over all of this land to the Americans. The 10 sections appear on early maps of Huntington, Whitley, and Allen Counties in Jackson (Huntington), Jefferson (Whitley), and Aboite (Allen) townships. These 10 sections were given the name of “Raccoon’s Reservation” or “Raccoon’s Village Reservation;” the second occurrence of the name. The third place by that name was a small white settlement on the Wabash &amp; Erie Canal (U.S. 24 closely follows the route of the canal in this area) which had a canal landing that was heavily used by local farmers. It is said that when most of the Miami were forcibly relocated to Kansas that many of them were loaded on the canal at this point to begin their journey. (Others would most likely have started at the Forks of the Wabash, or even the village of Huntington. A small remnant of about 1100 individuals were allowed to stay on the “reservations” that had been designated for their families.)Bash’s 1914 history of the county has this to say about Raccoon Village. Note that it omits the Whitley County piece and doesn’t mention either the earlier “reservation” which had the same boundaries or the Miami chieftain.“While the Wabash &amp; Erie Canal was under construction in the early [18]30s, the State of Indiana gave a strip of ground twenty-four rods in width along the northwest side of the canal for a town. It was stipulated that each lot should contain two acres, laid off at right angles to the canal. Seventy-two lots were laid off, half of which were in Allen County and the other half in Huntington, hence that part of the village in the latter county was in the northeast corner of Jackson Township. A number of lots were sold and the purchasers built upon them, but after the canal traffic ceased the town gradually died for want of adequate support. In June, 1897, Thomas Ruggles, then county surveyor of Huntington County, obtained the original plat from the state and reestablished the lines between the lots. Very few people in the county have any recollection of Raccoon Village, which took its name from an Indian village in the vicinity.”The 1907 Whitley County history reports that perhaps 50 Miami still lived in Raccoon Village when they were forced to relocate to Kansas. It also says the canal access point was important enough for Whitley county to build a road running from Columbia City to Raccoon Village. The road was abandoned after railroad access was established to the former. The 1881 history gives this description of the European-American settlement and relates a funny legend.“Raccoon Village is prominently identified with the history of the township, and here deserves more than a passing notice. Its history under the Indian occupation will be found elsewhere, and to the older citizens of that part of the country it is associated with many pleasing memories. It was located in the southeast corner of the township, on the north bank of the Wabash Canal, and originally consisted of a brick house with two rooms and a number of log cabins, all erected by the Government for the occupation of the Indians. The place was named after the chief, Raccoon, who occupied the brick house referred to, and who, it is said, now quietly sleeps on the top of the neighboring hill, over-looking the spot where he once held kingly sway. After the advent of the whites, the land was sold, the brick house passing into the hands of Jesse Vermilyea. By him it was rented to different parties, Thomas McGlaughlin being an occupant in 1843. It was built squarely on the county line, one room being in Whitley and the other in Allen County. A legend, having a mythical flavor, but worthy of note, runs to the effect that once, about forty years ago, a Justice of the Peace, holding a commission in Allen County, commenced a marriage ceremony in the west room. During the progress of the ceremony, it was observed that he had no jurisdiction there, so the party adjourned to the east room, in Allen County, where the matrimonial knot was legally tied. When the canal was built, this place became a landing, to which the farmers hauled their produce for shipment, and spring usually found immense piles of logs and wood here, ready for transportation.”Finally, a news article during the 125th anniversary celebration for Whitley County, gives the same building a secret room used for the Underground Railroad.

The ghost town of Raccoon Village was near this intersection. In fact, there appear to be three historic places referred to as “Raccoon Village.” All were within a mile or two of this intersection. Some were in Huntington, and some on the border of Whitley and Allen Counties.

Racoon Village (named place)

According to Bash's history:“Probably the principal reason for the selection of the town site was a fine spring, the water which was piped to the canal, where a tank was provided for its reception. This was said to be the best water supply between Toledo and Lafayette. ...Roanoke and Mahon were rival towns for some years. … It is said that the detour of the Wabash Railroad around Roanoke was brought about by the influence of Mr. Mahon and the refusal of the Roanoke people to subsidize the road. Mahon was made a railroad station and for several years the people of Jackson Township were compelled to go there for goods shipped or to take passage on the trains. … With the decline of traffic on the canal, Mahon also declined, and when the railroad company established a station for Roanoke the town received the final blow.”Mahon had a post office from 1839 to 1846 (as Port Mahon) and again from 1853 to 1867. The town was officially dissolved after a 1921 lawsuit over the platted land.

Looking at it now, it’s hard to believe that at one point in time Mahon was rivalling Roanoke in Jackson Township. Platted in 1853 by Archibald Mahon, it originally had 94 lots running along the canal. Additions expanded the village past the river and over the railroad tracks. At first it was named Port Mahon, but around 1853 that was shortened to simply Mahon. The village never really lived up to its founder’s vision, and after the initial surge of development, a gradual decline set in.

Ghost Towns and Named Places of Eastern Clear Creek and Jackson Townships

Roanoke Station (Ghost Town)

Introduction

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Backstory and Context

Sources