I’m a pretty observant person, I think, but it must have taken a hundred trips up and down Wheeling Pike north of Muncie before I spied an intriguing boulder. It probably took another hundred before I was able to nab a clear photo with my DSLR! The enormous rock commemorates a pioneer family that settled straddling the Hamilton/Harrison Township line! This boulder waits patiently, letting us speed by on the old highway, until someone curious enough figures out how to slow down, whip out a camera, and start asking questions.
It’s not easy to make out from the road, but here’s exactly what the stone says, with the original line breaks and formatting preserved:
1855
IN MEMORY OF
MARTIN & HANNAH LANGSDON
WM. E & EMMA LANGSDON
ARLIE G & MABLE C MCRAE
THEIR SON JOHN F MCRAE
STONE ERECTED SEPT 17 1983
At first glance, the boulder reads like a tombstone. That’s a little misleading, though, since no one is buried there, and there’s no pioneer cemetery tucked away in the weeds nearby. Still, the marker carries weight: set along what was long known as the Martin Langsdon farm, the stone serves as a kind of roadside memory that anchors a family’s story to the land they called home.
Just like the big rock states, Martin Langsdon came to Delaware County from Warren County, Ohio, in 18551. Pretty rapidly, he acquired some land and started a farm along Wheeling Pike and what’s now County Road, 682-North, once known as Langsdon Road2. By 1874, Langsdon had acquired 100 acres3. There was even a “Lungdon” schoolhouse nearby4!
Martin Langsdon lived a long life and died in 1906 at eighty-five. His wife, Hannah, followed him in 19175. Together, they raised four children -Mary, William, John, and Effie- but it was William who stayed on to take over the operation of the family farm.
William and his wife raised four children of their own- Earl, Martin, Fred, and Mabel. Fred Langsdon became one of nearby Gaston’s most recognizable figures, earning a reputation as a local doctor who renovated the town’s old schoolhouse and turned it into both his home and medical practice. Life on the farm changed abruptly in 1920, though, when William died of a sudden heart attack6. Emma passed away in 1932.
After her father’s death, Mabel and her husband, Arlie McRae, carried on the work of farming the Langsdon estate. By 1938, it consisted of 150 acres that included corn, wheat, oats, and soybeans, along with a fifty-acre pasture and twenty-five head of Shorthorn cattle7. That year, Mable recalled traveling Wheeling Pike -a corduroy road when she was a child- seven miles to Muncie and passing through a toll gate at the hamlet of Anthony8.
Arlie McRae passed away in 1983 at the age of ninety-three9. Mabel Langsdon McRae followed two years later at eighty-eight10. With one exception, those are the lives the boulder at the corner of Wheeling Pike and Langsdon Road was meant to commemorate. The final name etched into the stone belongs to little John McRae, who died as an infant in 1923.
Although the Langsdon and McRae memorial sits inconspicuously along a rural stretch of old highway, none of the people it names are buried there. Every Langsdon and McRae commemorated on the boulder rests instead in nearby Beech Grove Cemetery. Still, the stone stands watch over land the family once farmed and shaped. While the cemetery marks where their bodies rest, the 1983 marker tells a different story about where the Langstons lived, worked, and put down roots long before Wheeling Pike became just another road people hurry along without a second thought.
Sources Cited
1 Delaware County, Indiana. (1855, January 18). Deed Book 16. p. 174.
2 (A New, 1907). A New County Road (1907, November 15). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 2.
3 Kingman, A.L. (1874). Map of Delaware County, Indiana : from recent & original surveys, made expressly for this map, drawn, compiled and published by A.L. Kingman and assistants. map, Chicago, IL; A.L. Kingman.
4 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.
5 Well Known Woman Dies (1917, January 16). The Muncie Star. p. 12.
6 Prominent Farmer Is Called Suddenly (1920, February 15). The Muncie Star. p. 13.
7 Shafer, C. (1938, March 10). Farm News. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 12.
8 (See footnote 7).
9 Arlie G. McRae, 93 (1983, February 23). The Muncie Star. p. 17.
10 Mable Langsdon McRae (1985, October 30). The Muncie Star. p. 19.
