Downtown Butler Historic District

The township of Wilmington lies in the east central portion of the county, and is bounded as follows : On the north by Franklin township, on the east by Stafford, on the south by Concord, and on the west by Grant and Union. S. B. Ward, a pioneer minister, thus described the township: "It is a second rate township in quality of soil, taking it together, yet it has some first rate land in it, especially along 'Big Run,' a considerable stream running across the north side of the township. For fine oak timber, there is no township in the county that surpasses it." The timber, except the second growth, is largely cleared away now, and the land has developed into very fair agricultural ground. The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Vandalia of the Pennsylvania system, and the Wabash railroads all cross the township, meeting at Butler, in the northeast corner.

Passage source: History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914.

In 1856 the township was "boomed" considerably by the construction of the air line of the Michigan Southern railroad, and the consequent growth of Butler, at first called Norristown. A market was opened for surplus agricultural products, prices went up, and there was a consequent improvement of the lands and equipment of the farmers. The construction of the second railroad in 1872, and the Wabash in 1892, gave a clinch to the prosperity, and this progressive township has continued to grow ever since.

Passage source: History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Wilmington Township - 2,634 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.