Scotland, Indiana

 Hello!   It's been a long time.  I had started several posts and not finished them since I have been doing regular research into the places that I have been, but today, I can bring you a post about the tiny little unincorporated town of Scotland, Indiana.

It is located in Taylor Township, Greene County, GPS Coordinates: 38.913164, -86.904092.  In 2010, the population of the town was 134 people (the Scotland Cemetery has over 1,000 burials).  It is listed about being .6 sq miles with an elevation of 610 feet.  

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We made our way west toward Greene County, Indiana, taking St. Rd. 45 S for about 20 miles, passing through the towns of Stanford and Cincinnati until we came to the intersection where it met up with St. Rd 58.  It's at this point that we encountered Crane Navel Base, a place that is very busy and highly secure.  Turning right onto St. Rd 58/45 W we continued on our adventure passing through Doans and finally to a left hand turn onto West Gate Rd which spills directly into the town of Scotland.

I was rather unimpressed with the town as we were under the assumption from photos that we had seen that there would be more to do and to look at.  In reality, it has very little going for it other than a music stage, a lawnmower repair shop, a post office, a tiny park, a cafe, a barbershop, a cemetery and the historical society.  It was Sunday, so nothing was open and we couldn't really get an idea of what life was like in this sleepy little town, so we just took pictures and headed for the cemetery.  There will be an entry for the Scotland Cemetery in my other blog, A Walk Through The Tombstones.

Our first stop was at the historic Scotland Hotel, built was built in 1879 for town merchant William Haig.  He used portions of an earlier building thought to date to the mid 1860s.  It has what is known as a hipped roof  (a style of roof built where all sides slope downward toward the walls, with no gables) and has a full front porch.  The style of the construction is called Italianate and was popular in the 19th century (particularly the 1840s-1890s in the US) and models the architectural style of the 16th century Italian Renaissance.

The house was listed in 1993 on the Historic Register of Places (the plaque shown in the image above).  According to the files register with the Department of the Interior, the house has four contributing buildings on the property, the hotel itself, a smokehouse, and two outhouses.  I noticed the smokehouse, which I completely forgot to take a photo of, but it is located just behind the main building, but I didn't see the outhouses.  It is said to have a foundation from locally hewn limestone is sided with wooden clapboard.

It went out of use as a hotel sometime in the 1960s and at some point became the Scotland Historical Society.  I hope to be able to go back at some point and take a look inside.  

According to the description of the interior, the main floor has five rooms including a gathering room, a parlor, dining room, kitchen and the "drummer's room", a room for salesmen to display their goods.  A drummer was a salesman that would travel to Bloomfield by rail then hire a driver at a livery stable to take them to Scotland.  They were stay at the hotel and display their wares in this drummer's room.  Local merchants would peruse the wares then purchase them to resell in their own shops.  

The second floor are all bedrooms and it has an unfinished attic. There is no plumbing in the building, but electricity was added in the 1930s, however there is no furnace or other heat source.  Originally, the heat was probably provided by stoves.  I didn't notice an chimneys on the outside of the house, so I assume that there are no fireplaces.  It seems odd since most all Victorian homes had some sort of fireplace or at least a flue for a wood stove.

This building was very important in the history of the small town as Scotland was considered the most significant commercial center of Taylor Township as well as parts of nearby Daviess and Martin Counties.  Many families used the hotel as a place to board their children while attending the local high school.  During the 1940s, this building also housed the Taylor Township trustee, Lewis Waggoner, in the sewing room and then during World War II the building housed workers for nearby Crane Naval Base, known then as the Crane Navel Ammunition Depot. 

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The first settlers in Taylor Township were Daniel Wallace, George Anderson, Robert Anderson, Abel Westfall, Thomas Barker and his son Obediah T. Barker, John Summerville, James, Nathaniel, William and Henry Cochran.  It is said that David Wallace and the two Anderson brothers, George and Robert, all natives of Scotland, were the first to enter land in this area.  The first marriage in the area was in September of 1821 between William Richey and Nelly Rumsers.  Not long after was the birth of the first child.

1879 Map of Scotland, Indiana

The town was founded in 1834/35 by Scottish settlers coming from Ohio, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolinas, Tennessee and Kentucky to find their fortune in the newly discovered coal veins.  Mining bolstered the economy of the town, as well as neighboring towns.   In fact, one newspaper stated that there was enough coal in the ground that would make every citizen as rich as a Vanderbilt.  The first store in town was opened by Obediah T. Barker, which led to him and his brother, Thomas, to plat the town in August of 1835.  The post office was established in 1837 with Obediah as postmaster.  The first grist mill was built in 1845 by Andrew Allen and in 1885 there were three hardware stores, three drug stores (John Morrison, William Woods are listed as two druggists), three general stores, a restaurant, a blacksmith, a livery, two doctors (one was Doctor R.S.J. Benefield for a while, another was Thomas Dagley), a building and loan association, a cotton carding mill, a pottery shop, a tannery (owned and operated by John Harrell), a broom maker's shop (run by James J. Langton), a tavern (run at one time by William Woods, the druggist) and a barrell-head maker's shop, in addition to the hotel.  The town was booming in this time period with the discovery of coal.    There is also mention of a wagon shop run by Stephen Isengole and a Temperance Hall which was used as a schoolhouse.  I do not know if this is the same schoolhouse that Obediah Barker taught in or not, but I don't think it was.  There were several small log buildings that were used as school houses and all had a variety of teachers.

Late in the 1830s, a Methodist group was formed and in the 1840s the first church was built from log.  But at some point the church and everything disappeared.  I am not sure that if it meant that the entire congregation disappeared or what.  A Christian Church came along just after the Methodist church disappeared.  Another Methodist Church came along, built in the early 1880s, followed close behind by a Baptist Church.  This church, however, burnt down.  We did notice a small, white framed Methodist Church in town as we were driving around.  I don't know what the relation of this current church is to the one built in the 1880s is.  We didn't notice any other churches in town.

In 1843, a contract was entered between the county and Obediah T. Barker that he would take the "permanent paupers of the county" into his home and take care of them.  For this action, he would be paid for his trouble as well as for all of the necessary expenses.  It was listed that the first ones in his care were Abner Hunter, Thomas Roach and Martha Roach.  In 1846, there must have been more paupers listed in the county, as it is noted that Mr. Barker "agreed to provide all necessaries for the county paupers, old and young, and keep them at his 'Asylum' in Scotland, for $1 each per week".  He didn't stay in the position of taking care of the poor for long after, as in 1847, Nancy Hatfield took over and just a few months later, the county board decided to create a poor farm.  I did notice not too far away was a sign called Minks Poor Farm, but I don't know if this is the same place or not. 

According to the Greene County Historical Society, the first school was built just before the Civil War and was used until 1870.  This sign, in particular, refers to the first high school which was built in 1912, though it is shown to have been integrated into the Bloomfield School District in 1955.  The grade schools were gone by 1942.

In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, war meetings were held in Scotland as well as in many other towns nearby.  They managed to gather up enough men, 82 in total, to march to Bloomington to meet up with the rest of the Twenty-First Regiment.  They made up Company C and marched together on to Indianapolis.  Later in 1861, another group was formed as part of the Fifty-Ninth Regiment and in 1862 they moved on to New Albany.

In 1875 it was stated that Scotland was "the voting precinct and main trading point in Taylor township" and "is quite a flourishing little village" containing "several good business, homes, schools, churches, etc.  The population is about three hundred inhabitants".  

Brick Star Studio,
Scotland, Indiana

Unfortunately, the prosperity only lasted until the around the 1920s when the coal resources had diminished.  Farming was not as productive due to the land being unsuitable for it.  So much of the town started to fade away and in fact, not much of the original commercial center remains, aside from a brick Italianate building, located just next door to the hotel. 

This building is now being used as a studio called the Brick Star Studio, which is like a community meeting spot as well as a photography studio.  They offer a variety of family activities and also coffee and snacks.  Unfortunately, their website no longer exists, however they have a face book page.

The town became rather stagnant during the Great Depression.  By this time, the coal had more or less run its course and farming was nearly non-existent.  But, at the end of the 1930s, the town started to look up again when Federal Agents purchased thousands of acres of land in nearby Martin County (only three miles away).  This was proposed to be a state park, locally known as the White River Land Utilization Project (the White River is only a few miles from Scotland).  It was dedicated in 1939, but in the later part of 1940, the US Navy seized land, as well more land next to it, and established Crane Naval Ammunition Depot.  With the construction of the navel base and the village of Crane that popped up with it, came thousands of workers and a boom for the town of Scotland.

The Scotland hotel became the Scotland Historical society in 1971 when it was formed to save the building.  It was listed in 1993 on the National Historic Register of Places.

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Local histories state that there was a cave near Scotland that was called The Alum Cave due to the discovery of pure alum.  The cave was not a large one, but was large enough for bear.  The Hatfields of the town chase at least one there and killed it at some point early on.

Snake Hollow is called such due to the large number of snakes found there during the springtime.  

Apparently, bear were killed regularly in the area and one particular story involves Cornelius Bogard who was out deer hunting with his dogs when he found bear tracks in the snow.  His dogs caught the scent and chased the bear from the part of Daviess County where he was hunting into the area where Scotland is located.  The dogs chased the bear up a tree where Bogard was able to shoot and kill it.  He also was very successful in hunting deer.  On Spring Creek, Old man Doan killed a panther on his return from a hunt.  

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For such a small town, there is a lot of history here.  This is just a bit of what I read about the town and the township in general.  Refer to the resources below for more information.

Resources:

National Register of Historic Places 

Scotland, Indiana Wikipedia Page

Scotland Hotel Wikipedia Page

History of Greene and Sullivan Counties, State of Indiana, From the Earliest Time to the Present, Together with Interesting Biographical Sketches, Reminiscences, Notes, Etc.

Greene County, Indiana Historical Society.

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Thanks for joining us on our road trip to Scotland, Indiana.