Madison County’s Richland Township District 7 schoolhouse stood on the Conner family farm in 1880. It likely got its name from the adjacent property of I.W. Burton, where it may have originally stood¹. It appears as though the extant schoolhouse was built around 1899².

Ruth Gritton taught twenty-seven pupils at District 7 in 1937³. Five years later, the schoolhouse was home to only thirteen students, which made Burton Madison County’s smallest school. Elsewhere in Richland Township, the Moonville school taught 32 pupils and Center school had 35. College Corner and Thornburg taught 41 students each⁴.

That said, the Burton schoolhouse continued to be used for educational purposes until 1950! That year, students were sent to the new, six-room College Corner school three-and-a-half miles southeast, as were the pupils of the old Center and Thornburg schoolhouses, Districts 3 and 5 respectively⁵. All three buildings were sold at auction two years later⁶.

Today, the old District 4 schoolhouse is a dwelling and the road it sits on, North County Road 450-East, is sometimes still referred to as Burton School Road⁷.

Sources Cited
1 Kingman Brothers. (1880). History of Madison County, Indiana with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Chicago, IL.
2 Madison County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 48-07-23-200-001.000-029.
3 Teaching at Burton. (1937, September 8). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 3.
4 Rural School Enrollment is Almost 5,000 (1942, October 2). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 1.
5 Work Is Advanced At College Corner (1958, April 23). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. pp. 1, 6.
6 Notice of Sale of School Property (1952, July 22). The Anderson Herald. p. 14.
7 Sue Moser Wins Diamond Medal (1969, October 1). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 6.