Read time: 2 min.

If I had to guess, I’d wager that the Jay County hamlet of Zoar was named after an Ohio village of the same name. From 1817 to 1898, the settlement in Tuscarawas County acted as a utopian Christian Community under the auspices of radical Pietists¹. 

Situated just north of County Roads 600-South and 100-West in rural Pike Township, Jay County’s Zoar never achieved the same prominence of its Ohio counterpart. At its peak, the community seems to have consisted of a handful of houses, a Methodist Episcopal Church, and a cemetery². 

From at least 1900 on, Pike Township’s District 4 schoolhouse also stood in the community³. The extant building seems to have been built in 1916 if Zillow records from the Jay County assessor’s office are to be believed. In 1924, fifteen students from Pike Township’s District 9 schoolhouse resumed classes at the Zoar school after a fire destroyed their building⁴.

The Zoar school remained open at least through the 1934-35 school term⁵ and possibly as late as 1937⁶. Pike Township never appeared to host a consolidated school of its own.

Today, the building is a home. 

Sources Cited
1 Frizzell, R.W. (2020). Zoar: The Story of an Intentional Community. Frizzell on Fednandz. H-TGS. Michigan State University [East Lansing’. Web. Retrieved September 9, 2024. 
2 Hardesty, H. (1881). Historical hand-atlas, illustrated: containing twelve farm maps…and History of Jay County, Indiana. H.H. Hardesty [Chicago]. Map. 
3 Jay Co., Ind. (1900). Jay County, Indiana plat map. Map. 
4 Will Go to Zoar School (1924, March 18). The Muncie Star. 
5 To Distribute $1,339 In Taxes (1935, April 18). The Muncie Star. p. 4. 
6 Mrs. Mary Premier, 90, Dies (1937, May 7). The Muncie Star. p. 3.