The town of Granville was platted by John Gregory in 1836, five years after he purchased the surrounding land¹. The first schoolhouse there was a log structure that was also home to meetings of the Granville Christian Church from 1835 to 1842. By 1852, the Granville school was one of ten in Niles Township².

In 1881, classes at the District 8 schoolhouse were taught by Isaiah Dudeston³. The present schoolhouse was erected four years later⁴ and sits adjacent to the site of the 1870 Granville Christian Church, which is no longer standing. By 1887, Granville was home to eight named streets, the school, a fraternal lodge, and two hotels⁵. It also featured two additions to the original plat⁶. However, railroads eventually bypassed the place in favor of Eaton, Albany, and Desoto, so Granville declined.

The school soldiered on until the 1916-17 year, when it -along with the rest of Niles Township’s schoolhouses- closed in order to send their students to consolidated schools in Eaton, Albany, and Dunkirk. Ralph W. Milligan of Shideler was the last teacher at Granville⁷.

Unlike every other township in Delaware County, Niles never had a consolidated school of its own. After its closure, the abandoned schoolhouse was converted to a dwelling sometime prior to World War II⁸. Today, it’s still a house, outlasting nearly all indications of Granville’s heyday.

Sources Cited
1 Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. book, Kingman Brothers
2 (See footnote 1).
3 (See footnote 1).
4 Delaware County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 0431231001000. Delaware County, Indiana Assessor. map, Muncie, IN.
5 Spurgeon, B. (1994, December 12). Our Neighborhood. The Muncie Star. p. 4.
6 Griffing, B. N. (1887). Mt. Pleasant Township. An atlas of Delaware County, Indiana . map, Philadelphia, PA; Griffing, Gordon, & Company.
7 Delaware County Public Schools. (1916). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1916-1917. Muncie, IN. 
8 McBride, M. (2006, August 17) Town now home to few. The Muncie Star Press. p. 5C.