Epworth

In 1839, Thomas Jefferson Davis purchased 320 acres of land at the corner of what’s now County Road 100-South and County Road 500-West. Along with his sons, Davis built a house there. One son, named Doctor Ball Davis, built a larger house around the original cabin in 1877. At some point, a one-room, brick schoolhouse was built on the southeastern corner of the intersection, just west of a tile factory that D.B. Davis erected and operated (Dr. B., 1973).

In 1880, Franklin Blazer owned the land the schoolhouse sat on (Kingman, 1880). Eventually, the younger Davis built and maintained a Methodist church known as Epworth, and the schoolhouse and crossroads became known as Epworth Corner (Dr. B.).

The present structure -a large district school housing grades 1-4 and 5-8 in separate rooms (Career, 1969)- was built in 1916 (Jackson, 2020). 

The District 6: Epworth school closed prior to 1942, when Stony Creek Township was listed as operating a single consolidated schoolhouse at Lapel (Rural, 1942).

Today, the building is a home.

References

Dr. B. Davis, Pioneer Settled Epworth Corner (1973, September 21). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 50.

Jackson, S.T. (2020, June 22). Stony Creek was last of county’s 14 townships to organize. The Anderson Herald Bulletin. Retrieved December 21, 2021 from https://www.heraldbulletin.com/opinion/stephen-t-jackson-column-stony-creek-was-last-of-countys-14-townships-to-organize/article_11600860-ac15-11ea-94f0-539fdc0f4a2e.html

Career That Started Here Is Still Going Strong! (1969, March 21). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 4.

Rural Pupils Are Enrolled For New Term (1942, September 11). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1.