Going back to a time before school districts were officially laid out, a predecessor of Mount Pleasant Township’s District 3 schoolhouse was the Mt. Pleasant schoolhouse, built on land donated by James M. Van Matre in 1843¹. The deed to the plot of land Van Matre donated mentioned “School District 3²,” but it was more than four miles south of District 3 when it was officially laid out in 1854. Later, the site of Van Matre’s school became home to the Mount Pleasant Church and cemetery.

The Shepherd school -another predecessor to the extant District 3 structure- was constructed in the early 1840s³. A history of the Mt. Pleasant Township school system narrows the year of completion to 1844⁴.

In 1866, Benjamin D. Snodgrass granted the Mt. Pleasant Township Trustee half an acre of his land to establish a new schoolhouse⁵. Due to the recent assassination of the president, it’s likely that the school’s common name changed from Shepherd to Lincoln. 

Probably a frame structure, the school stood at its present location in the 1870s⁶ and was replaced by a brick building in 1886⁷. The Lincoln school served students from grades 1-8 and was the last one-room building in Mount Pleasant Township to close. It was shuttered in 1924. George Lambert was the final teacher⁸. 

Six years after the school’s closure, Athel Watson converted the building to a home. A 1980 restoration framed in a front porch using bannisters from the demolished Daleville High School⁹. Despite many additions, the original portion of the schoolhouse, facing west, is easily identifiable as the original structure.

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 Delaware County, Indiana. (1843, April 7). Deed Book 7. p. 386.
3 Kemper, G. W. H. (1908). Education in Delaware County. In A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1. book, Lewis Publishing Company.
4 History of the Mount Pleasant Township School System. (1956). Delaware County Historical Alliance. p. 1.
5 Delaware County, Indiana. (1866, June 15). Deed Book 31. p. 343.
6 Kingman, A.L. (1874). Map of Delaware County, Indiana : from recent & original surveys, made expressly for this map, drawn, compiled and published by A.L. Kingman and assistants. map, Chicago, IL; A.L. Kingman.
7 Delaware County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 1005300002000. Delaware County, Indiana Assessor. map, Muncie, IN. 
8 Delaware County Public Schools. (1923). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1923-1924. Muncie, IN. 
9 Winters, R. (1982, September 5). A Little Brick Schoolhouse Becomes a Home. The Muncie Star, p. B1.