NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Center Township School Land Sold (1929)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, March 14, 1929 – page 1, columns 4-5:

JORDAN SCHOOL PASSES AFTER MANY YEARS OF DUTY
With the publication of a notice in last week’s and this week’s edition, concerning the sale of the land comprising what is known as the “Jordan” school district, members of bygone days, back as far as 1825 have been recalled. An investigation of court records, and records of the Downard & Taylor Abstracting Co., brings forth many interesting facts and names of leading men of the community at that time.

In the notice the same description of the land is used that is found in the original deeding of the land to the trustees of Center township, which deed was recorded on April 5, 1856. It showed that John D. Burks and his wife, Mary, conveyed the one acre of land contained in the tract now offered for sale, to the trustees of Center township, who were at that time, Enion Singer, Abraham Estes and Abraham Bland. Another name appearing on the record which is familiar to every one in Hendricks county, is that of P.S. Kennedy, justice of the peace at that time.

The land as recorded in the original deed, is in Deed Record No. 19, Page 451, and the description of the land in the notice read as follows:

“A part of the west half of the south-east quarter of section 1, township 15 north, range 1 west, bounded and described as follows, to-wit: Beginning at a point in the plank road where the lands of William Blanton, John D. Burks, Dan D. Hambleton and Moses Guynn corners, then running south on the line of said Hambleton’s lands, 20 rods; thence east on a line parallel with the plank road, 8 rods; thence north on a line parallel with Hambleton’s east line, 20 roads to the road; thence west along the center of said plank road, 8 roads to the place of beginning, estimated to contain one acre, more or less.”

Mention of the old plank road will bring to the minds of some few citizens of the county, the first road between Indianapolis and Danville, which was called the plank road because of its construction, made necessary by the bottomless condition of the roads during the spring and fall. More recent developments in the case of the old plank road, occurred when some of the old planks were dug up by workmen, repairing the gravel road which had replaced the plank road as the country became more populated. The present concrete road, of course, was a modern development of the last few years.

An inquiry into the first deed record, found the land originally belonging to one Basil Tout, who entered the west half of the southeast quarter in his name. This was recorded on May 10, 1831.

Basil Tout conveyed 80 acres to Geo. Burks on Aug. 30, 1834, while Geo. Burks, presumably the father of John D. Burks, conveyed the land to the latter named Burks on March 28, 1851. The tract of one acre of the 80 contained in the deed to John D. Burks was granted to Center township for school purposes on April 5, 1856. The land has remained in the hands of the trustees of Center township to the present time, when it will be sold to the highest bidder by Walter P. Hendrix, trustee, on March 28, just 78 years from the day it was conveyed to John Burks, the grantor of the land to the township. And thus passes, because of the trend of events, another rural school. Some well known men and women have taught at Jordan. Miss Jennie Craven, later Mrs. Samuel M. Ralston, taught one winter there in the brick building which burned a few years ago. She walked from Danville to the school and back each day. School wagons had not then been “invented.”