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Hancock County’s Black Hawk schoolhouse was built at the corner of County Roads 500-North and 300-West in 1882. The school replaced a previous structure¹ that stood in the northeast corner of Section 9², and another that sat a mile west of the present building on land then owned by Dr. Benjamin F. True³. 

I haven’t been able to uncover much about the place, but the schoolhouse served students in Buck Creek Township’s District 1. It seems as though the area around the school grew into a small community known as Black Hawk. In 1909, John Williams began building a ditch that began at the schoolhouse⁴.

Hancock County’s schools began to consolidate in the the late 1890s. Eighteen districts were abandoned by 1903, and nearly half of those that remained were abolished by 1916⁵. A new high school in Mt. Comfort opened two years later, and it’s likely that the District 1 school closed to send its students there.

Today, the old Black Hawk schoolhouse looks to be altered and serves as a home. Some say it’s the only remaining one-room school in Buck Creek Township⁶, but I’ve been to another in Mt. Comfort. 

Sources Cited
1 Skvarenina, J. (2021, September 24). Back in Time. The Greenfield Daily Reporter. p. B2.
2 Richman, G. J. (1916). History of Hancock County, Indiana. William Mitchell Printing Company [Greenfield]. Book. 
3 King, J.K. (1875). Map of Hancock County, Indiana from recent & original surveys. Worley and Bracher [Philadelphia]. Map. 
4 Black Hawk (1909, March 2). The Greenfield Daily Reporter. p. 2.
5 (see footnote 2). 
6 (See footnote 1).