Inglefield, Indiana Ingle's | |
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farm, post-office, and railway station | |
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Coordinates: 38°6′29″N87°33′32″W / 38.10806°N 87.55889°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Indiana |
County | Vanderburgh |
Township | Scott |
Inglefield in Scott Township, Vanderburgh County, Indiana; also known as Ingle's and Ingles, and later to be a post-office, a village, and a railway station; began life as the farm of one John Ingle Sr. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Ingle's was the first stop for travellers that was to appear on the road from Evansville to Princeton, back when it wound through woodland, before the state straightened the road. [5]
As a railroad stop on the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad it was known in the middle of the 19th century as Ingles, [3] later to become Inglefield on the later Evansville and Terre Haute Railroad (E&THR) and Chicago and Iowa Railroad. [4] [6] The Inglefield post-office was originally named Sandersville, as was a town that Ingle Sr attempted to found. [7] [8]
Both Ingle Sr and his son John Ingle Jr were born in Somersham in England, the former in 1788 and the latter in 1812. [1] [9] The Ingles came to the United States in 1818, and after short stays in Evansville and Princeton came to the farm in Scott Township. [1] [9] Ingle Sr ran the post-office on his farm for 45 years. [1] [10] He originally named it Sandersville on 1823-11-27 but it changed name to Inglefield on 1869-11-17. [8]
Sandersville was also the town that Ingle Sr platted on 1819-04-26. [6] It comprised 160 acres (65 ha) with a 266 by 255 feet (81 by 78 m) public square. [7] Some houses were erected including, in addition to Ingle's post-office, a store and a blacksmith's; but the town was largely abandoned by 1830 with only the post-office remaining. [6]
Ingle Sr, William Ingle, and others later contributed US$1,800(equivalent to $40,496 in 2024) to the erection in 1867 of a Centenary Methodist Episcopal church nearby ( 38°06′32″N87°32′56″W / 38.109°N 87.549°W ). [7]
William D. Miller, who had been a depot agent and a telegraph operator on the E&THR and a merchant at Inglefield, the only one left by 1889, took up the postmastership of Inglefield in March 1884. [11]
After education in Princeton (Indiana) and Philadelphia, Ingle Jr eventually became a lawyer with a practice in Evansville. [12] [13] He was one of the founders of the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad; and, having initially being a superintendent, was the president of the company for over 20 years. [14] [15] He also ran the John Ingle & Company coal mining business, incorporated in 1866. [14] By the end of the 19th century the business was in the hands of his sons, George and John Ingle, with 200 acres (81 ha) near the local insane asylum and a further 140 acres (57 ha) around Coal Mine Hill at a bend of the Ohio River, where the company had sunk its first shaft. [16] It was producing 50,000 long tons (51,000 Mg) of coal per year. [16]
Other people associated with Inglefield include Dr Thomas Runcie, an immigrant from Ireland, who practiced medicine there from 1849 until his death in 1867. [17] Samuel Scott, after whom Scott Township is named, once lived around 1 mile (1.6 km) south of where Inglefield would be. [18]
In the other direction, roughly 1 mile (1.6 km) north, James Cawson had run the second place to be cleared in the woodland for travellers to rest on the Evansville to Princeton road. [5] It was later to become the Ritchey homestead and the site of the Lockyear blacksmith's, the first smithy in the Township. [5]