Read time: 4 min.

I’m an obsessive completionist. Whether it’s one-room schoolhouses, county courthouses, artesian wells, or Revolutionary War Patriots, I can’t rest until I’ve tracked down every last one in my corner of Indiana. Unfortunately, there’s one holdout that keeps slipping through my fingers: the old Sycamore School west of Yorktown. I’ve chased every lead I can find, but a single photograph of the entire building still evades me. If you happen to have a picture tucked away, I’m dying to see it. 

The first school in Mt. Pleasant Township was established during the summer of 1831 by David Kilgore, who held classes in an abandoned cabin on Jonathan Bentley’s farm¹. Provisions for new schoolhouses were finalized in 1851, when the state of Indiana ratified a new constitution that provided for the basics of a township-based, common educational system². The School Law of 1852 expanded upon the new constitution³. By 1887, Mt. Pleasant Township was home to nine district schoolhouses! District 4⁴, a two-room building, was called Sycamore⁵. 

Over time, Yorktown established itself as the center of the township’s population. Rural schoolhouses began to consolidate into the school there as early as 1908⁶, but Sycamore held on. Eventually, its distance meant dwindling attendance, so the institution closed after the 1935 school term. Another building in Cammack was shuttered the following year as the last to send its students to Yorktown. 

The old Cammack schoolhouse still stands, and I bet Sycamore looked a lot like it. Unfortunately, it’s long gone. From what I can tell, it was probably razed sometime in the 1950s since later aerial photos show nothing but bare earth where the building once stood. Earlier shots exist, but they’re too grainy to make out any real detail. 

Despite Sycamore’s loss, Mt. Pleasant Township is still home to four old schoolhouses and the remains of a fifth. None have fascinated me more than Sycamore, though! I’ve been to the historical society, the library, Chuck E. Cheese, Ball State’s online archives, and every other resource I can think of, but I still come up blank when it comes to a photo. Nothing has helped. 

If you have a photo of the old Sycamore Schoolhouse in Mt. Pleasant Township just west of Yorktown, please share it with me! Even the smallest snapshot could help fill in a stubborn blank spot in our community’s story. I’ve been anxious to see one for ten or fifteen years! 

Sources Cited
1  Helm, T. B. (1881). Mount Pleasant Township. In History of Delaware County, Indiana: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. book, Kingman Brothers. 
2 Natali, B. L. (2007). The Impact of Caleb Mills on the Hoosier Education Debate: An Edition of Two Unpublished Addresses (thesis). University Graduate School, Indianapolis.
3 Indiana Constitution. (1851), art. 8, sec. 1.
4 Griffing, B. N. (1887). Mt. Pleasant Township. An atlas of Delaware County, Indiana . map, Philadelphia, PA; Griffing, Gordon, & Company. 
5 (see footnote 1). 
6 Delaware County Public Schools. (1907). School directory, Delaware County public schools, Delaware County, Indiana 1907-1908. Muncie, IN.