Shelbyville Road Farm History, part I

Today, we bring you one of Sylvia Henricks' "Remembrances." You can read more of Sylvia's columns weekly in The Franklin Township Informer, or in her book From The Ash Grove (available directly from the FTHS, and via the web site).

“You can see three counties from the top of that hill,” I remember a neighbor telling me about a nearby farm. An elderly widowed farm-wife lived in the small brick house, surrounded by an assortment of aging barns and outbuildings. I live near the site, but well below the hill, and had taken a photo of the hilltop scene from the end of the lane on Shelbyville Road. It has been one of my favorite photographs.

Now, 30 years later, all is changed. The farm has been gone for a long time, and the fields around it turned into Franklin Parke Estates, with its streets winding across the one-time fields. The hilltop remains, but is now the site of two handsome homes.

The new owner of one of the houses, Scott Verbarg, having seen my photograph of “The Klasing Farm,” asked me if the Township Historical Society had any information on what is now his property. I said I’d see what I could find.

I have been able to find a few items of interest. In the Society’s publication Historic Treasures of Franklin Township (1978 ) is a paragraph on page72 by an unsigned contributor, “Klasing History.” “Christian Klasing and his wife, Sophie (Kirkoff), came to the U.S. from Germany as children near the middle of the 1800’s.

“They were married in Indianapolis and in 1884 bought their 140 acre farm located at 7245 Shelbyville Road, presently owned by Mr. and Mrs. Allen Cary. The farm was purchased for approximately $8000 from Fred (Butch) Miller who had cleared all except forty acres of the  land and built all the buildings that now stand on the farm.

“William Klasing (92) is the only living survivor of five boys and three girls in the Christian Klasing family. William owns seventy acres of the land which his mother and father bought, located at 7448 E. Southport Road.” Property lines and acreage can be seen in Section 13 on the 1889 Franklin Township map, one of the Society’s publications.

(To be continued in a future "Remembrances")

Ice Cream Social at Meeting House

Today, we bring you one of Sylvia Henricks' "Remembrances." You can read more of Sylvia's columns weekly in The Franklin Township Informer, or in her book From The Ash Grove (available directly from the FTHS, and via the web site).


The Franklin Township Historical Society celebrated the cooler weather at its Open Hours on  Sunday, August 19 with an Ice-cream Social on the grounds, and recognizing new members to the Society. The names of 27 new members and those renewing their first year memberships, were placed in an old-fashioned glass churn base, with a name to be drawn later in the afternoon. That person would receive one of the Society’s woven coverlets showing historic buildings in Franklin Township.

Twenty or so membes and guests enjoyed the frozen-yoghurt “ice-cream” with a variety of toppings, and cookies, served in the shade of the building by Program Chair, Diana Hipple and her committee. Other members and guests in the Meeting House looked at a genealogy chart for Sue Winton, including many generations, and several recent gifts to the Society. One of these was a large wooden wheel upon which the bell to the original New Bethel Baptist Church had been attached, the gift of Oren Schilling.

At the close of the afternoon the name of the lucky winner of the coverlet was drawn, new member Mary L. Lovell.

Those present were reminded of the Open Hours on Sunday, September 16, when Dana Crapo will give a Big Run Cemetery Tour. That afternoon will also include at its conclusion, a book signing session for the Societiy’s new publication, “Humble but Historic, the Surviving WPA Outhouses in Franklin Township, Marion County, Indiana”, by Sylvia. The owners of these structures, and those who helped with information will be recognized and presented with a book. The publication will then be “officially” on sale for $7.00. (Open Hours at the Meeting House are held on the first Saturday and the third Sunday of March through October, from 1 to 4 p.m.)

 Members enjoying frozen yoghurt.

Winner of drawing for the woven coverlet, Mary L. Lovell, center. On left Diana Hipple, on

right, society president John Kanouse.

From The Ash Grove: Interurban

Today, we bring you one of Sylvia Henricks' "Remembrances." You can read more of Sylvia's columns weekly in The Franklin Township Informer, or in her book From The Ash Grove (available directly from the FTHS, and via the web site).


Written for my June 20, 1985, column for the Informer, “From the Ash Grove,” this glimpse of the past reminds us again of that wonderful transportation innovation, the Interurban.

Cousin Mary who lives in Acton has asked you, one of her city relations, out for the day. “Get an early car,” she said.

So you consult your Indianapolis and Cincinnati Traction Company Vest Pocket Time Table, and find you can get an interurban car at the traction terminal on Market Street at 7:30, 9:30 or 10:30 a.m. No.24, which leaves at 8:35 won’t do, for it is the Greensburg Express and stops only at Shelbyville and Greensburg.

No.4, leaving at 7:30 a.m. arrives at Five Points at 8:02, New Bethel at 8:08, and gets to Acton at 8:17. No.6 repeats that schedule two hours later. No.26, which leaves downtown at 10:30, is a Limited, which shaves seven minutes from the time by stopping on signal only at the stations, and reaches Acton at 11:10. The locals stop on signal at designated points all along their route. (Some interurban stops survive today in the names of our county roads, such as Stop 8, and Stop 11.) For after dark signals the timetable warns, “Use a Light.”

After a pleasant day with Cousin Mary, you can catch the 5:31, the 7:31, the 8:41, the 9:31, or the 11:31 car back to Indianapolis. No.19, the last car, reaches the downtown terminal at 12:10 a.m. Robert Paugh, Maze Road, gave the Historical Society a Xerox copy of the August 6, 1911 timetable, found in an old house by his daughter. A railroader himself, he worked for B.& O. for 36 years as a brakeman and conductor. His interest in railroading continues and he has “locks and keys, and a whole menagerie of stuff,” he says.

He remembers only faintly seeing the big electric cars run through Acton, “down Main Street, we called it,” he says. (It’s now Swails St.) More clearly he remembers workmen taking up the iron rails in the 1930s when the interurbans were going out of business. Five other electric railway companies provided hourly service to “200 other stations in Indiana, including Fort Wayne, South Bend, Warsaw, Winona Lake, Michigan City and Laporte.”

On Jan. 1, 1900, the first interurban line entered Franklin Township along Southeastern Avenue. At Hickory Road it turned south and making a wide turn through the corner of a field, followed the railroad tracks past the Acton Camp Ground, into Acton. Just beyond Acton it again paralleled the railroad tracks on to Brookfield, London, Fairland and Shelbyville. The end of the era came in 1941 when the last car made its final run.

Vandergriff Road

Today, we bring you one of Sylvia Henricks' "Remembrances." You can read more of Sylvia's columns weekly in The Franklin Township Informer, or in her book From The Ash Grove (available directly from the FTHS, and via the web site). 
Here is a final article on old roads in Franklin Township. In the northeast corner of the township is Vandergriff Road, which fits our description of “an early road” by its cross-country pattern. Unnamed, it connects Wanamaker with the east edge of the county as shown on the 1889 map of Franklin Township.

Several years ago a woman called me to ask if “Vandergriff Road,” named on her more recent map, had any connection with Robert Louis Stevenson’s American wife, Fanny Vandergriff. I said, “None that I have ever heard of.” But I did become curious about the name. Recently I looked in the index of Sulgrove’s History of Indianapolis and Marion County (1884) to see if some early landowner was so named. I found several persons by that name, who had held political jobs, and one Civil War soldier, but none seemed to have any connection with Franklin Township.

And then I thought of our Society’s “Franklin Township Area Old Houses” published in 1982 (reprinted in 2003) written by Velma Ruede, and her committee (of which I was the photographer). The book includes more than 300 houses in Franklin Township, and adjoining townships. Velma did extensive research on early landholders, read many abstracts, and provided much genealogical material as well as historical information on the houses.

And there, on page28, was the information I was seeking. 11002 Vandergriff Road was the final entry of seven houses on the road. At that time, the property of Horace A. and Patricia (Cunningham) King, the entry began with “From the U.S.A. to Isaiah Bisbee 1821,” through 13 owners to William J. and Edith Cunningham 1935. At one point in the description of the ownerships, Velma included. “In 1913 the place went to Homer and Lydia Vandergriff, for whom the road was named.”

Thank You, Velma. Velma’s lifelong devotion to community history, her non-stop work ethic, her legacy of histories of Pleasant View, Moral Township, London, Brookfield and Fairland, and her memories of persons and events –all made her an unforgettable person herself. She died December 16, 2007 at 89, and we still miss her.

Marjorie Main at the Artcraft, August 24-25

For the third year in a row, the Historic Artcraft Theatre in Franklin, Indiana will be showing one of the classic Ma & Pa Kettle films starring Acton-born actress Marjorie Main (who also has a connection to Franklin, Indiana, having attended Franklin College) . Visit the Artcraft August 24 & 25 to see Ma & Pa Kettle Back On The Farm.

The Arcraft is a delightful history piece itself; built in 1922, it has operated as a vaudeville house and movie theatre, and is now owned by Franklin Heritage, Inc., an organization that promotes historic preservation. All proceeds from the films shown there fund the restoration of the theatre and adjacent historic properties.