Director

Organized in 1900, the hamlet of Troy City at one time had a general store and a corporate office. Two churches and two couple schoolhouses were located within a mile. The town was an oil town, run by the Troy Oil Company. As the Troy Oil Co. building was torn down, a counterfeiting machine was discovered, alongside an undersized half dollar. No counterfeit coins were found in the community, leading people to believe the oil men took the coins out of town on trips. The machine was later confiscated by “government men”. Another notable event took place in this small town in 1905, when a local man was tragically killed by his friend after a night of heavy drinking. Thomas Souers was charged with manslaughter and convicted. Prior to the town’s creation, a church was formed in 1886 one mile east. It was the result of two revival meetings, and was called Plummer’s Chapel after the man on whose land it was built. Though the church would be destroyed in a windstorm in 1911, the congregation would quickly rebuild, as well as make several additions. The last public service was held in 1968. Reverend Alfred Clough wished to revive the church, but he was unable to do so, due to the members having moved on to different churches. The building was sold in 1969 and used for storage until it was torn down. The parsonage still stands as a single family home.

Troy City was organized in 1900, located around 450 W and Indiana 218, Warren, Huntington County, Indiana. High hopes attended its founding as a company city. A plat map was prepared (although apparently never submitted), and plans were made for a post office (also never followed up on). Though controversy repeatedly rocked this small town, from murder to counterfeit coins, the church would go on to be one of the longest-standing buildings in the community. Now, all that remains of Troy City is a single house.

Troy City (named place)

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

In 1918, the Warren Free Public Library was housed over Fran Young’s jewelry store with a total of 100 books. Discussions were made regarding where a new library could be built. Land was secured along with a $10,000 grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, which went towards the cost of the building. In 1917, Samuel Craig of Huntington submitted his application to the Board and was selected as supervising architect. He drew up the plans and work began in 1918. Because of WW1 and the shortage of supplies, completion of the project was delayed. The current library opened in 1920. The library opened with 1,534 books on the shelves. Over the years changes to the building have taken place, including updates to restrooms, remodeling of the basement for a children’s department, new paint and carpet, increased shelving (to hold the over 20,000 physical materials the library now circulates) and a lift to assist in accessibility.

A Warren Public Library Board was organized in June 1916 after a public fundraising campaign to buy books and periodicals. In 1917, a grant of $10,000 from the Carnegie Corporation was confirmed to support construction of a free public library. Library Board selected Samuel Craig as supervising architect 1917. Building is Neoclassical in design.

Warren’s Carnegie Library

In 1879, the Delphos, Bluffton, and Frankfort Narrow Gauge Railroad was built and ran through an area of Huntington County 3 ½ miles east of the city of Warren. This area became a railroad station and town called Buckeye. The plats for the land were filed with the County Recorder’s office on October 2, 1879 and people began to settle there. John Foust was encouraged to move his general store from Salem, 1 ½ miles to the south, up to the new town of Buckeye. The store was set up on the north side of the railroad tracks for easy access to both townspeople and travelers passing through. The general store passed hands through the generations but in some capacity or another, it existed in Buckeye until about 1932. In 1933, a new general store was opened by Carl Hunnicutt who operated the store with his wife Mary until they sold it in 1953 to Buford and Kate Ruse. Mr. and Mrs. Ruse operated the general store until it burned down in 1957.The railroad run through town in 1879 was a narrow gauge of about three feet instead of the standard gauge of around four feet. As the railroads grew and merged, railroad officials began to favor Buckeye as a railroad station over other railroad towns in the area, such as its neighbor to the east, Boehmer. Eventually, a decision was made to widen the tracks to the standard gauge to make them more efficient. On Sunday June 26, 1887, at a pay rate of $2.50 a day, a total crew of around 2,000 men widened the rails as citizens of Buckeye gathered around to watch. At the end of the day, the men had moved an entirety of about 206 miles of track, setting a world record for most miles of rail laid in one day. Those tracks still exist today as a part of a small spur railroad called the Wabash Central.Another feature of Buckeye was its post office. John Foust was named the postmaster on April 8, 1879 and ran the post office out of his general store. In 1895, Simon Foust took over the position on the 15 of August. The post office continued to operate in the town until it was discontinued in June of 1920, making it the longest lasting post office in Salamonie Township. Afterwards, all the town’s mail was sent to Warren.Buckeye could be spotted on maps as early as 1895, when it first appeared on the Huntington County map. It can still be found on maps to this day even though all that is left in the area is a few houses and a couple businesses. The area where the town used to exist can be easily found as it is marked on Google Maps.

Buckeye was a small town that popped up in Salamonie Township once a railroad was run through the area. The land was originally plotted by Samuel Swaim in 1875 on a commission by Samuel T Jones and Loren B Minn, but was not officially recorded until 1879. It was in this small Huntington County Town that a world record was once set in 1887 for the most miles of rail laid in one day. Currently, all that remains of the town is three homes and a branch of Ceres Solutions, an agricultural cooperative company.

Buckeye (Ghost Town)

Boehmer and Buckeye were both established along what was then the Delphos, Bluffton, and Frankfort narrow gauge railway. (Later, the rail line became the Cloverleaf, then the Nickel Plate R.R., a nickname for the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad. Later it became part of the Norfolk &amp; Western Railroad. Now it is a small spur railroad – the Wabash Central.) Boehmer was on the county line at about what is now 945 S., and Buckeye was only a mile away at 950S. Boehmer received its post office one month before Buckeye, but Buckeye's lasted until 1920. Boehmer is only labelled on the 1895 and 1903 county maps. It was platted in 1879 by Jacob Zent and had 14 lots, only four of which were north of the railroad. It had two streets: Front street (now 1000 W or 600 E, Huntington or Wells Co designations respectively), and Back street, one block west and parallel to Front Street.The Boehmer Methodist Protestant Class was organized in March 1886. In June 1887 they obtained a deed to the property a few hundred feet south of the railroad on the Wells County side of the street. The building was complete by the summer of 1888. Around 1908, the belfry was struck by lightning. When repairs were made, stained glass windows were also installed.Although it never had its own school, at its peak it had a general store/ rail depot/ post office, a blacksmith, an elevator and scale yard for grain. In 1904 the Marion, Bluffton, and Eastern Interurban built a depot about ½ mile north and called it Boehmer. By 1927 the more favorable location of Buckey (from a railroad company standpoint) caused Boehmer's demise. The only map on which Boehmer is labelled is the 1903 county map.Besides the church and its pastoral residence, there is only one residence left in this little town, and the latter was built about 2003. However, the plat of the village is still visible on the official land software of Beacon, GIS. Even the Eiler family cemetery somewhere south of the village has disappeared. It never did appear on any maps. It was possibly located along W 400 S (the Wells County side of the intersection south of the church) where several Eiler families had property.

The little hamlet of Boehmer is one of two established along the former Nickel Plate Railroad. It had a post office from March 1879 until Oct 1891. Only a church is left from that time.According to local tradition, the town was named after Joseph Boehmer, a one-time mayor of Delphos and one of the founding members of the railroad.

Boehmer (Ghost Town)

Milo came into existence when then the Delphos, Bluffton, and Frankfort narrow gauge railroad, the predecessor to the Cloverleaf Railroad was built. This is the same railroad that runs through Warren, Buckeye, and Boehmer and is now owned by the Wabash Central Railroad. Milo was never officially platted.At its peak Milo had a post office and general store combination as well as a blacksmith shop, a tile mill, and a Friends Church. The church was on the west side of town and was organized in 1889. By 1917 it was dissolved, the building sold and torn down. Both the railroad and the interurban had stops here on its way between Warren and Marion. Both were gone by the 1930s, more victims of the automotive age. The train continues through town, but it does not stop. Today, there are no businesses, but there are a number of homes within ¼ mile of the intersection of 1200 S and 100 E (the latter being a Wells County road and equivalent to 100W in Huntington County addresses).One of the most productive oil wells in the county was about 1 ½ miles north of Milo and produced 200 barrels/day at its peak. The wells in the township typically ranged from 1,000 to 1,065 feet in depth. Gas was usually struck before the oil was hit. The gas helped operate the well pumps.In 1889 a successful oil well was drilled in southern Wells County. Naturally this started a rush to find oil in southern Huntington County. But, it was not the first time people had drilled hoping to find either gas or oil. Around 1866 speculation based on the rock formations in the area resulted in two wells being drilled. The first, just south of the Little River in what is now the City of Huntington, and the second 2 ½ miles west, near the outlet of Silver Creek into the Wabash River in Dallas Township. Both wells were seeking natural gas. Both failed to find it at depths of a bit over 1000 feet. Although the wells in Jefferson, and to a lesser extent, Wayne townships showed some early promise, there wasn't enough oil at high enough pressure to sustain the industry. By the early 1920s, the drilling stopped. A few of the wells still pump a low amount of oil. According to the Petroleum Database Management System (PDMS) from Indiana University, there have been a total of about 1479 oil and gas wells drilled in the county, 680 of which were in Jefferson Township. Of that number, 31 are still active, and 17 are in Jefferson Township.

Milo had a post office from Mar 1881 to May 1920. It is on the southern county line (with Grant County) in Jefferson Township one mile west of Meridian Road. Except for Mt. Etna which is shared with three other townships, Milo was the biggest settlement and had the longest-lived post office in the township. It first appears on the 1895 county map and is still found using Google Maps and on current plat books.During the oil boom years of the early 20th century, Milo was just 2 miles east of 48 producing wells. And, one of the most productive wells in the county was about 1 ½ miles north.

Milo (Ghost Town)

On the 14th of May 1877, Jerome S Hale became the postmaster of the Hoboken post office when the mail came in through Grant County instead of Huntington County.  Mr. Hale was also the proprietor of the general store which contained the post office. The post office/general store was only a two room building, one side housed the post office and general store and the other side was the home of Mr. Jerome Hale. On May 24, 1879, Mr. Hale applied for a post office through Huntington County. For some reason, the post master appointments continue to show in Grant County records until the post office is discontinued on November 18, 1884. In November of 1881, Jerome Hale moved to Marion and a Mr. Skinner took over running the general store and post office. Although there was never much mention of Hoboken in Huntington County newspapers, after the post office closed in 1884 mention of Hoboken seems to fade entirely. No one can be certain how long the small town continued on, but the general store no longer shows up on the County Plat Map in 1895. However, people continue living in the area on farms to the present day.

Hoboken was a small town situated at the crossroads of SR 218 and 800 W, one mile north of the Grant County line. The town began around 1877 with a handful of families living in the area. The 1879 Huntington County Atlas has five Hoboken residents listed. In 1879, some of the plats in the area were owned by S. M. Shaw, A. Harlan, E. N. Trowbridge, W. H. Murphy, J. Eversale, J. A. King, and S. E. Hale. The town was never officially marked on any plat maps, and today all that is left in the area are a few houses, farmland, and one business: Harvest Moon Scents and Primitives.

Hoboken (Ghost Town)

According to tradition, Banquo takes its name from the ghost in Shakespeare's play MacBeth. This is possibly due to a nearby ghost story at the time.Before 1866 the place that was to become Banquo had a church and Wayne township district school #3. At first it was a district (one-room) school, but in 1894 or 1895 the township organized a high school with classes held above the grocery store. In 1900 the township built a larger school on the site of the district school, with grades 1 - 12. The high school survived until 1955 when students were transferred to other schools in the county. The grade school closed in 1966 and the building was torn down in 1969. A marker now memorializes the school.In 1911 a separate building was constructed by a group of young men in order to play basketball. The building was 60 by 50 feet with a court 10 feet less in each direction. It had a saw dust floor and coal oil lamps (later changed to gas). The low ceiling, about 2 ½ above the backboards made bank shots off the walls and ceiling common for the local team. Later used for the school gymnasium, it is believed to have been the first purpose-built building for basketball in the state, and perhaps the nation.Banquo first appears as a labelled place on the 1895 county map. It still appears on plat maps and Google Maps. By 1879, the church disappears, but a medical doctor has moved into a home on the south of the hamlet. In 1903 there are two churches, the Rushcreek Baptist church on the south side of town which is long defunct, and the Banquo Christian Church organized in 1900 and still active. When it was platted in 1906, Banquo had 17 lots.An interesting fact is that despite its long history with churches, there is no record of Banquo ever having a cemetery of its own. The closest active cemetery is the Gardens of Memory on IN- 9 at IN-218 (about 2 ½ miles south).A Banquo native, John S. Thomas, was the first recipient of the honorary title "Chief of the Flint Springs Tribe" in 1969. The award is for outstanding service to the community and is given out during Heritage Days.

Banquo may not have been platted until 1906, but even before then it was a thriving hamlet operating under several names. It was the largest settlement in Wayne Township. It had post offices under three different names: Price (1849-1861), Priceville (1871-1874), and Banquo (1887-1903). Since 1903 Banquo has received its mail from the LaFontaine post office in Wabash County. In 1906 it had two general stores, the post office, a blacksmith shop, tile mill, and doctor's office.The school located in the village operated from before 1866 until 1966. The high school portion closed in 1955. Since then, the village has been slowly shrinking. Today there is a church, a farm market, and a number of homes.

Banquo (Ghost Town)

The origins of Pleasant Plain date to the founding of a Friends (Quaker) Church in 1870. Originally it was called Nixville after the founder Charles Nix whose wife was a daughter of Benny Satterthwaite, the owner of the land in 1866. Another nickname was Niptight (occasionally spelled Niptite), whose origins are unknown but may arise from the saying: 'he could take a nip [of alcohol] and get tight if he wished."The town was officially founded in 1875 with the filing of the first plat, and the application for a post office. At that time it became Pleasant Plain. It is the only village ever platted in Jefferson Township with the exception of portions of Mt. Etna. The post office operated from April 1875 until Feb 1905.As time passed and the town thrived during the oil boom. At one point there multiple blacksmiths, several general stores, a doctor, a barber, a sawmill, a drugstore, an ice cream shop, and a two-story brick schoolhouse. The latter was an early graded school in the county and part of it became Jefferson Township's first high school in 1894 – 1905. Classes would have been in the second room of the two-room school building. After the closure of the high school in Pleasantville, Jefferson Township remained without a one until 1924 when a K-12 township school was built two miles east at the township's center. Until then, students wishing higher education had to travel to a neighboring township's school. So, most finished schooling after eighth grade. At one time, there was also a “singing school," which in 1892 had over twenty students (this may have been part of the combined church Sunday Schools held at that time). The town also featured 3 churches: The Wesleyan Church, The Friends Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Wesleyan Church sold their parsonage in 1901. The Friends Church was "Laid down" (disbanded) in 1917, and the Methodist Episcopal Church was closed in 1926 when it merged with the Otterbein church and relocated to the center of Jefferson Township. In May 1928 the Beedy family filed a petition in the county's circuit court asking to vacate (abolish) the plat of Pleasant Plain. They owned the land that encompassed all of the former town and had begun farming it. In order to make future sales of that portion of their property easier, they wanted to vacate the plat. This would allow them to sell the land "occupied by streets and alleys" as well as the former lots as a single parcel. Their petition was granted, and the village officially ceased to exist.

Founded in 1875, Pleasant Plain (also called Nixville or Niptight) used to be a booming town with several businesses, churches, and a schoolhouse with both elementary and high school classes. Its post office existed from April 1875 until February 1905. But, like many small towns it fell victim to the automobile. And, Pleasant Plain's demise was hastened by the closure of its high school and the depletion of many of Jefferson Township's oil wells. It was de-platted in 1928, and all that stands today is a small cluster of farms.

Pleasant Plain (Ghost Town)

Belleville was originally named for James Stewart, who was a Scottish immigrant, the local blacksmith, and a bell maker. The town began to form around 1834. In 1849, Gabriel Swihart built a log dam in the river to operate a saw mill. In 1849, James Taylor built a grist mill four stories tall.  The main feature of Belleville was its mill, The mill changed hands many times over the course of its existence. Farmers would often spend nights in the mill, as they waited for their grain to be processed.  The mill had several close calls with fires. A fire destroyed the top two stories of the building in 1930, however the mill continued operation until 1953. Another fire took the rest of the building in 1955. The dam was damaged in the flood of 1913, so it was replaced with a concrete dam close to the same site.Aside from the mill, Belleville also had a grocery store, a blacksmith shop, a school, and a church. Baptisms for the church were performed down by the river, which was said to be a very scenic location. According to local legend, a very sick person named Columbus “Lum” Myers was discovered to have not been baptized, so he was taken out in the middle of December to be baptized before he died. Strangely, the preacher seemed to lose his train of thought while in the middle of the baptism, resulting in onlookers shouting at him. Miraculously, Lum recovered and went on to live for several more years.The spelling of the town's name has been both Belleville and Bellville. The former is used here since it is the way it is spelled on the road sign that leads to its former location.

Belleville was formed around 1834, located at around S Belleville Road and West 700 South. Once a scenic location with a prosperous saw mill, and later a grist mill, Belleville is no more. The four-story grist mill burned down in 1955, and though the dam remains, it is no longer in use. Indiana DNR recommends using caution around any low-head dams like this one as they can have tricky undercurrents that can trap individuals under water.In an article in 2005, it was stated that some logs from the original dam may remain as well as a fish ladder on the end of the dam.  If you pull off to the road and look west (downstream), you should be able to see the rapids formed by the dam.Please do not go closer as you will be trespassing on private property.

Belleville (named place)

In 1843, Bernard Alexander decided to move his saw mill from a dam outside of Warren to six miles downriver and called it Bayou Mill. He operated his mill for many years before handing off operations to his children. In August 1857, John Addington applied for a post office to be set up in Bayou Mills on the south side of the river. The request was granted and John Addington became postmaster on August 12, 1857 and held the position until William Fancher took over on February 26, 1858. Mr. Fancher was the postmaster for the majority of the post office's life, working there until the office was discontinued on September 3, 1861.Nearby on William Purviance's property, then in Section 9, the second school in the township was conducted in 1840. When the free public school system was formed in 1854, a new schools building, titled "District School 2" was constructed on William Purviance's newer property in Section 10. After the post office was closed, a group of people organized a Christian Church in 1868. This was the first church organized in Jefferson Township. The Purviance Chapel was built by them in 1870, next to a cemetery that had been established sometime around 1844. The chapel continued to have occasional services there until after 1914. The last known burial in the cemetery occurred in 1942.

Bayou Mills was a small town that started out as a miller and his family and grew to eventually have a post office, a school and a cemetery.

Ghost Towns and Named Places of Salamonie, Jefferson, and Wayne Townships

Troy City (named place)

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources