McKinley/Mt. Nebo/Nebo

The precise year of the Mt. Pleasant District 1 schoolhouse’s establishment is unclear. While Helm indicates that its original iteration was erected in 1842, Dick Greene advises that the building was used by the congregation of what later became the Cammack Methodist Church as early as 1839 (Greene, 1961). 

The school was originally known as the “McKinley” schoolhouse, likely due to its proximity to the McKinley family farm (Helm, 1881). In 1874, James R. Williamson granted the Mt. Pleasant Township trustee a fraction of his land for use as a school grounds (Delaware, 1874), and by the 1880s, sources indicate that the new structure was alternatively known as either the “Nebo” schoolhouse or the “Mt. Nebo (Sunday, 1888)” schoolhouse since the building was no longer on McKinley land. The name of the school and church was a biblical allusion to the peak from which Moses was allowed a look at the promised land. As early as 1888, the school was known as “Mt. Nebo (The County, 1881),” though later references call abbreviate the name, simply referring to the structure as the Nebo school. 

In 1907, a pro-consolidation law passed that compelled county trustees to abandon a schoolhouse and send its pupils elsewhere when its average attendance dropped below twelve students. The District 1 school was the second in Mt. Pleasant Township to close, consolidating into the new, two-room Antioch school at Cammack sometime between 1910 and 1912. Webb Gilbert served as the last teacher (Delaware, 1909).

In 1935, the building and surrounding plot were advertised for sale by the Mt. Pleasant Township trustee (Mt. Pleasant, 1935). As of 1939, the schoolhouse was still standing, purposefully excluded from the 50.7 acre Westacres addition tract that surrounded its grounds to the southeast (Added, 1939). In 1956, the school was “still standing along Nebo Road but is in bad condition (History, 1956).” The building’s walls are visible in 1967 aerial photography (Delaware, 1967), but by 1975, the site was nothing more than a pile of old bricks (Greene, 1975), as it remains today.

The foundation and bricks of the Mt. Pleasant Township District 1 school are located at 40.200346, -85.461650, or the east end of Nebo Road at Isanogel Road.

References

Greene, D. (1961, March 10). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star, p. 6.

Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers (pp. 268–269). book, Kingman Brothers.

Delaware County, Indiana. (1874, June 15). Deed Book 38. p. 484.

The County Superintendency. (1881, May 17). The Muncie Daily News, p. 2.

Sunday School Convention to be Held at Mt. Pleasant M.P. Church. (1888, July 5). The Muncie Daily News, p. 2. 

Delaware County Public Schools. (1909). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1909-1910. Muncie, IN. 

Mt. Pleasant Township Trustee. (1935, October 24). Notice of Sale of Abandoned School Property. The Muncie Morning Star. p. 13.

Added Tracts Being Platted. (1939, April 12). The Muncie Morning Star, p. 11.

History of the Mount Pleasant Township School System. (1956). Delaware County Historical Alliance. p. 1.

Delaware County Indiana Historic Aerial Plats. (1967). photograph, Muncie. 

Greene, D. (1975, May 2). Seen and Heard in Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star, p. 4.