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Photograph of Levi Coffin House
Photograph by Nyttend, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Levi Coffin House

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

From the record

“The Coffin House is a National Historic Landmark located in the present-day town of Fountain City in Wayne County, Indiana. The two-story, eight room, brick home was constructed circa 1838-39 in the Federal style.”

Wikipedia article Levi Coffin House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 40 National Register listings published here for Wayne County · listed in 1966 · category: Building · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Listed as. Coffin, Levi, House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
  • Address. 115 N. Main St., Fountain City, 47341
  • When was it listed? October 1966
  • Category. building
  • Township. New Garden township
  • Architectural style. Federal architecture
  • National Register reference number. 66000009 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

18,780 words

The chapter on New Garden Township in History of Wayne County, Indiana : Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Towns, published 1884 names Fountain City. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

About the same time, from 1811 to 1816, the southeast part of the township was settled by Abraham Hampton, Jacob Hampton, Frank Swin, Hampton Brown, James Massey, and others whose names we cannot give. South of Newport, now Fountain City, about the same time the following persons located : Obadiah Harris, Cader Woodard, Francis Tliomas, Benjamin Thomas, Sr., and Josiah Woodard.

Passage source: History of Wayne County, Indiana : Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Towns, published 1884.

This township has a great deal of very excellent land, and its farmers are mainly industrious and enterprising. The only stream of water in tbe township is Nolan's Fork, and this stream runs from a northeast to a southwest direction, and passes Fountain City on tbe east. Fountain wells are common in Fountain City, and doubtless in the change of name this controlled and directed tbe new name of tbe town.

Passage source: History of Wayne County, Indiana : Together with Sketches of Its Cities, Villages and Towns, published 1884.

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 New Garden Township - 18,780 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Levi Coffin House: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Fountain CitySand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Hutchens Gravel CompanySand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Wayne County

Storms near this property

18 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Fountain City, the town this property stands in, in 18 storm reports between 2000 and 2026: 7 thunderstorm wind, 6 flood, 3 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
December 2015Tornado (EF0)Fountain City$150,000A storm survey was conducted in northeast Wayne County Indiana, in coordination with the Wayne County Emergency Management Agency. Damage began near a property along East Fountain City Pike east of Fountain City, in which several outbuildings were destroyed. Some of the damage followed a southwest to northeast path, although there was evidence of rotation within the debris pattern, which would coincide with a weak tornado. The damage continued in a northeast path and crossed Elliott Road and continued northeast to Bethel. Additional outbuilding damage was surveyed at 2 properties along Elliott Road, in which small outbuildings were destroyed and there was additional damage to larger barns. The path continued northeast to Bethel, where a chimney collapse and roof damage occurred at a church in Bethel.
May 2011Thunderstorm WindFountain City$20,000Trees were reported down due to damaging thunderstorm winds. Siding, window, and garage damage occurred to a house as well due to the winds.
September 2024Thunderstorm WindFountain City$8,000A few trees and wires were downed.
July 2022Thunderstorm WindFountain City$5,000Several trees were downed across northern Wayne County.
August 2002Thunderstorm WindFountain City$3,000Trees were downed in and around the village.
April 2026Thunderstorm WindFountain City$1,000A tree was downed in Fountain City.
July 2015Thunderstorm WindFountain City$1,000A couple of trees were downed.
June 2000Thunderstorm WindFountain City$1,000Several trees were blown down.
March 2023FloodFountain City-High water was reported near Boundary Road between Hinshaw and Overman Roads.
March 2023FloodFountain City-High water was reported along Bockhofer Road between Boundary and Middle Roads.
February 2019FloodFountain City-Several roads were still closed due to high water.
September 2018FloodFountain City-High water was over roadways near the intersection of Wallace Road and Arba Pike.
June 2017FloodFountain City-Several roads in the northern part of the county remained closed due to high water.
April 2014FloodFountain City-Two roads were closed in the county due to high water caused by heavy rainfall.
May 2004Flash FloodFountain City-Boundry Road was flooded and closed.
May 2019HailFountain City-no account filed
May 2004HailFountain City-no account filed
May 2004HailFountain City-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Wayne County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

4 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Fountain City Historic District0.1 miles2018
King-Dennis Farm6.8 miles2000
Abram Gaar House and Farm7.9 miles1975
Eliason Farm8.0 miles2019

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 66000009 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Wayne CountyAll 40 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.