A trip past the Ohio River Scenic Byway is a real adventure. The pavement hugs the river from an incredible height as it twists and turns below the southern Indiana foliage. Believe it or not, the ruins of a two-hundred-year-old courthouse stand silently amidst the backdrop of the captivating landscape. They’re four miles south of Leavenworth in the Crawford County community of Fredonia.
There’s little question that Crawford County is one of the most beautiful in Indiana. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the smallest and poorest. Out of 92 counties, Crawford ranks 86th in population density, 90th in per capita income, and 89th in median household income. A single interstate largely ignores the place, stopping once north of Leavenworth and again near the unincorporated community of Sulphur.
Despite the desolation, Crawford County is steeped in rich history. Formed in 1818 from parts of Harrison, Perry, and Orange Counties1, local officials first set up shop in the village of Mount Sterling. In 1818, William Hart and David Miller built a frame courthouse there for $195.502.
Efforts were made to supply the seat with settlers. Unfortunately, they struggled to tap into a safe water supply. Nearby creeks couldn’t be used for fear of impurities3, so officials turned their attention to Fredonia. Perched on a high plateau, the rival community already boasted several productive wells. The die was cast, but relocating the county seat came down to the whims of a county agent.
The county agent’s name has been lost to time, but his job was simple: the seat could move if he found the courthouse in Fredonia to be better than Mount Sterling’s. The brothers who developed the town quickly built a courthouse, a jail, and a road leading up from the river5. The agent liked what he saw, and Fredonia became the county seat in 18216. It’s said that citizens removed crucial county documents from the courthouse in Mount Sterling in meal sacks7.
Another community, Leavenworth, was established around the same time Mount Sterling and Fredonia were. Situated northwest of Fredonia on the same bend in the river, it became a pivotal port for goods shipped to places like Salem, Paoli, Jasper, and Bloomington8. In 1835, boosters built a stagecoach line to connect Leavenworth to Indianapolis.
Zebulon Leavenworth’s prominence grew in tandem with the town he founded, and he fought hard for it to become the next county seat. Things came to a head in 1840 thanks to the disastrous condition of Fredonia’s log jail. It couldn’t hold any prisoners9! The county seat moved for the third time in twenty-five years after after a new jail and courthouse were erected in Leavenworth.
The old courthouse in Fredonia was turned over to the Methodist Church and the town dried up. Leavenworth thrived as much as can be said for a community in Crawford County until the early 1890s, when a group of prosperous citizens further north campaigned to move the county seat yet again10. Their town, English, became the county seat in 189311.
English is still the seat of Crawford County. I ventured there for a picture of the town’s nondescript courthouse in 2016. I had no idea that Fredonia’s still stood until later when a random Google search turned up a wooden sign that pointed to it! I couldn’t find the building in satellite views, but I finally had a chance to drive down in November 2017 and poke around in person.
In 1954, Fredonia was home to six houses, a store, the courthouse/church, and a cemetery12. The abandoned courthouse burned in 197213. Today, social life in the hamlet surrounds around a community center said to replicate the courthouse14. I missed it, but I found the weatherbeaten sign I’d seen on Google. The remains of the courthouse sit about three hundred feet west on a gravel path marked Old Courthouse Road.
Today, all that remains of the old Crawford County Courthouse in Fredonia is its western elevation and a stand of bricks at the northeastern corner. The defining feature of the ruins is its semi-circular apse, which I think may have been added after the building was converted to a church. My grandma wondered if a pulpit once stood inside, and I wonder too. Unfortunately, no less august a source than the Crawford County Historical & Genealogical Society seems to wonder as well15.
It’s hard to see now, but these humble ruins speak to a long-ago era when it served as the hub of an entire county! Two hundred years after it was built, what remains of Fredonia’s old courthouse is slowly fading into the environment, and they remind me of how fleeting our constructs are. A thousand feet east and a hundred feet below, the Ohio River continues to flow with a resilience that will far outlast any manmade structure.
TL;DR
Crawford County (pop. 10,514, 86/92)
Fredonia (pop. 0)
Photographed 11/23/17
Built: 1821
Cost: Unknown
Architect: Thom Brothers
Style: Functional
Courthouse Square: No Square
Height: One story
Current use: Dog playground
Sources Cited
1 Pleasant, H.H. (1926). A History of Crawford County, Indiana. The Arthur H. Clark Company [Glendale]. Book.
2 Enyart, David. “Crawford County” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. Retrieved 10/12/2019.
3 (See footnote 1).
4 (See footnote 1).
5 Simons, R. (1964, September 13). We were fascinated by these towns. The Indianapolis Star. pp. 46-49.
6 (See footnote 1).
7 (See footnote 1).
8 Leavenworth (n.d.). Crawford County, Indiana. Genealogy Trails History Group. Web. Retrieved February 27, 2024.
9 (See footnote 7).
10 Schockley, E.V. (1914, March). Indiana Magazine of History. Volume 10, No. 1. Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. Article.
11 Counts, Will; Jon Dilts (1991). The 92 Magnificent Indiana Courthouses. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. Print.
12 Wood, H. (1954, November 28). Ghost Town on the Ohio. The Indianapolis Star. p. 124.
13 12 Fish fry returns to Fredonia Friday (2011, April 13). The Clarion News [Corydon]. p. 3.
14 Smith, Dr. H.E. (2005, January 12). Remembering the Beginning. The Clarion News [Corydon]. p. 11.
15 Crawford County Historical & Genealogical Society (2023 January 17). INot sure. This was featured on a lot of buildings of this style, but I’m not familiar with building architecture of [Comment]. Facebook.
