In 1881, In 1881, Greene Township’s District 6 schoolhouse stood on land owned by Jonas Siders just west of Portland near the Salamonie River1. Sometime before 1887, a replacement was built at the southwest corner of Division Road and County Road 125-South2. The school sat across the road from a Methodist Episcopal church and took the name Willow Chapel.
Greene Township is sparsely populated, but nine schoolhouses were eventually built within its bounds3. Unfortunately, the township was never home to a high school. After only eight students graduated from eighth grade in 1917 and 1918, local efforts to build a consolidated school failed4. If they chose to attend high school classes, pupils from Greene Township had to do so in Mount Pleasant, Portland, or Pennville5.
It didn’t take a modern building to prompt Greene Township’s schoolhouses to begin to close. The Willow Chapel schoolhouse was one of only six remaining in 19226. The school was abandoned in the early 1930s but pressed back into service in 1934 to serve twenty students from the District 1 school after it was destroyed in a fire7.
Willow Chapel was one of four schools left in Greene Township by 19408. Closed soon after and purchased by Ed and Mary McLaughlin, who remodeled the structure. Today, the building appears abandoned.
Sources Cited
1 Historical hand-atlas, illustrated: containing twelve farm maps and History of Jay County, Indiana (1881). H.H. Hardesty [Chicago]. Map.
2 Griffing, B. N. (1887). Greene Township. An atlas of Jay County, Indiana . map, Philadelphia, PA; Griffing, Gordon, & Company.
3 Kelley, J.W. (1901). New atlas of Jay County, Indiana. J. Will Kelley [Portland]. Map.
4 School Plans Are Laid Over (1919, July 3). The Portland Commercial-Review. p. 1.
5 Take Action To Compell [sic] Issue School Bonds (1919, October 24). The Portland Commercial-review. p. 1.
6 Jay, M.T. (1922). History of Jay County, Indiana Volume 1. Historical Publishing Company [Indianapolis]. Book.
7 School Burns Near Portland (1934, February 17). The Muncie Star. p. 8.
8 Shrader, J.M.. (2022, February 23). In reference to a previous post about Jay County school houses: these are pictures of Willow Chapel taken in the [Post on Remembering Portland, Indiana]. Facebook.
