There was no District 8 schoolhouse in Salem Township until 1880, when Lambert Moffett deeded the trustee land for one1. Prior to that, interested students probably attended school at Cross Roads about three miles away or at White Oak, two-and-a-half miles north on the Bell Creek Road2.
A brick structure measuring 33 feet by 40 feet wide3, Moffett’s schoolhouse was erected on South Honey Creek Road in 1880. Like many, it served as a polling place and meeting space during the early 1900s4. The closed in 1904, and its students were sent to the District 10 school at Cross Roads5. The graded school at Cross Roads closed in 1920, when all of Salem Township’s students began attending classes at Daleville.
In the century since its closing, the old Moffett school has been retrofitted into a home. It’s visible on Honey Creek Road just south of where the road splits from Old Indiana State Road 67. The curving tree line behind it is an old alignment of Conrail’s Chesterfield-Muncie branch.
Sources Cited
1 Delaware County, Indiana. (1880, July 20). Deed Book 46. p. 546.
2 Kingman Brothers. (1874). Map of Delaware County, Indiana. Chicago, IL.
3 Delaware County Office of Information & GIS Services. (2021). Parcel ID: 1412153016000. Delaware County, Indiana Assessor. map, Muncie, IN.
4 Democrats will select precinct committeemen Thursday Feb. 22. (1906, February 9). The Muncie Daily Herald. p. 8.
5 Kemper, G. W. H. (1908). Education in Delaware County. In A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1 (Vol. 1, p. 252). book, Lewis Publishing Company.