Mendon/Menden

The story of the community of Mendon is apparently confusing, at least according to Clarence O. Loy who wrote its history for The Pendleton Times in 1949. Loy advised that the church at Mendon -a settlement west of what’s now Indiana State Road 9 and West County Road 1050-South- was first erected in 1844, though another church, Antioch Methodist Episcopal, was built even years earlier and met in a log cabin that served double-duty as a sanctuary and the area’s first schoolhouse (Cabins, 2018). 

According to Loy, the present Mendon United Brethren Church was built in 1868, along with a brick District 11 schoolhouse the same year.

The community of Mendon was a village, never laid out, and located three miles south of Huntsville. Until recently, the church, the cemetery, the school, and a cluster of houses were all that remained of the community (Jackson, 2018). 

The last brick school at Mendon was built in 1895 according to its decorative lintel. It closed in 1907 when the township entered an agreement to consolidate all but two of its rural schoolhouses into Pendleton (School, 1927).

Unfortunately, the District 11 school was demolished in 2021. As of August 19th, 2021, the building’s lintel was still visible near its footprint.

References

Cabins – and a burial site and small pox (2018, June 14). The Pendleton Times-Post. p. A7.

Hull, M. (2014, May 22). Vanished villages. The Herald Bulletin. Retrieved December 28, 2021 from https://www.heraldbulletin.com/community/vanished-villages/article_41a24f23-9bd2-582b-a53c-04816b9befab.html. 

Jackson, S. T. (2018, April 1). Incident involving Douglass highlights history of Spring Valley. The Herald Bulletin. Retrieved December 25, 2021 from https://www.heraldbulletin.com/community/incident-involving-douglass-highlights-history-of-spring-valley/article_f6935c36-b759-5f9b-90c0-126ffade591b.html.

School Controversy Is In Court After Peaceful Methods Failed (1927, August 18). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1