Clinton County, Indiana - Chapter 17: Center Township, 1913

Center township was originally included in Jackson township, and so remained until 1872, so that most of its early history will be found in that connection, excepting what it found in connection with Frankfort, which is its one city. After it was made a separate township, it included what is now Union township until 1889. As it now stands, Center township is three miles north and south, and seven miles east and west, or twenty-one square miles in extent. Its surface is generally level, the principal drainage being by Prairie branch, a tributary of the south fork of Wildcat. It is the geographical center of the county, and also the railroad center, with the county seat, which is much larger than any other town or city of the county, within its borders. For these reasons it is also the manufacturing center of the county.

The first settlements within the present township were in the northwestern corner. The first settler was George Michaels, on Sec. 5, in 1827, and three others followed in 1828, John Douglass locating on Sec. 4, Matthew Bunnell on Sec. 5 and Noah Bunnell on Sec. 8. In 1829 came John Pence, who located on Sec. 10, now included in Frankfort. He had entered this land in 1827. In the same year came John Furgesen, who located on Sec. 4; J. R. Kelly, who located on Sec. 14; Peter Fudge, who

3 ; Eli Armantrout, who located on Sec. 2 ; Samuel Holliday, who located on land now included in Frankfort; Matthias Young, who located on Sec. 9; James Allen, who located on Sec. 12; Andrew Kenney, who located on Sec. 1 1 ; Henry Fudge, who made his home with William Pence ; and Samuel D. Maxwell.

in a cabin on the Bunnell farm in 1829. Jacob L. Harley being the first teacher. The first schoolhouse was built on the same farm in 1830, and J. N. Bowles first taught school there. This pioneer teacher died in the same year - the first death in the township - and was buried in the Bunnell graveyard. In the act of the legislature for the organization of the county, the house of Matthew Bunnell was designated as the first meeting place for the county commissioners. The house of John Douglass, on the adjoining section, was the first meeting place for the Methodists of the vicinity, for whom Revs. Huffaker and Tarkington were the first preachers.

The persistent struggle of Frankfort for railroads have given the township a much larger supply of this means of transportation than any other township. The Monon and Vandaiia come from the north to Frankfort, and then diverge, the former traversing the township to the southeast, and the latter to the southwest. The Toledo. St. Louis and Western crosses the entire township, east and west. The Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction line crosses the township from, northwest to southeast; and the Kokomo traction line from Frankfort northeast, so that there is not a section in the township that is not within a mile of a railroad.

Owing to the location of Frankfort within it. Center township has the smallest acreage in farms of the fourteen townships of the county, the total being onlv 10.390 acres: but none of this is reported as waste land. Of it, 1.260 acres is pasture land, 630 timber land, and 150 in orchards. In 1912 there were 1,636 acres in wheat, with a product of 33.588 bushels; 3.316 in corn, with a product of 162.160 bushels: 2.284 in oats, with a product of 155.065 bushels; 807 in timothy hay. with a product of 1.044 tons; and 388 in clover hay, with a product of 643 tons. It was second of townships in the production of tomatoes, reporting twenty acres, with a crop of 51 tons; and was the only township reporting berries, of which it had ten acres, with a crop of 350 bushels.