Two weeks ago, I wrote about an intriguing intersection in Henry County with a sign commemorating a long-gone one-room schoolhouse and a granite marker pointing towards a pioneer burial ground. Information about either place initially proved elusive, but that changed! On Sunday, I headed back for another look.
The fascinating crossroads is at the intersection of Buck Creek Pike and County Road 700-North in rural Henry County, about a mile east of the Summit Lake reservoir. The cemetery marker occupies the northwest corner, while the old schoolhouse sign stands across the road at the northeast.
Pioneer cemeteries are interesting, of course, but one-room schools hold a special place in my heart. According to the sign, Kerr Hill School served generations of kids in Stoney Creek Township’s District 5 from 1840 to 1918.
An 1893 plat map of Henry County placed the schoolhouse where the sign is, across the road from property owned by the Kerr family1. It doesn’t take much to infer that its proximity to that land is how the school got its common name.
Shortly after my original post went live, reader gregandwords commented with an update: a 1911 map of rural routes Greg found placed the schoolhouse on the southeast corner- across the street from the sign!
There’s no mistaking what the map shows. Even more compelling are aerial photos from 1950 and 1956 that appear to reveal something buildingesque beside a tree at the very spot the schoolhouse appeared on the map. Modern satellite imagery from Google Maps and Beacon strengthened the case of a schoolhouse having stood there: the canopy is larger now, but part of an old foundation running north to south remains embedded in the earth.
Greg also wondered about a 2025 Google Street View image that showed a crumbling stone placard partially hidden behind a farmer’s fence at the southeastern corner. I’d completely overlooked it during my first visit, and his discovery gave me a compelling reason to return.
I made it to the crossroads around 9:30 Sunday morning, when photography was challenging thanks to the position of the sun. The old marker was still there. As you can see, it’s still missing the large chunk the Google car captured last year. A 2013 pass shows the marker cracked but intact.
I headed east on 700 to see if the old foundation was visible from the road. It was, but I was alarmed by the bray of a donkey and didn’t linger. A couple of cows headed towards me, too. I have an aversion to cattle when they’re not in hamburger form and only hastily snapped this photo. A smidgen of the foundation is visible at the bottom-left under the tall grass.
If Greg was to thank for the additional Kerr Hill School information, my friend Elaine was responsible for what I’ve learned about the nearby graveyard. As of my last visit, all I knew about Westberry Friends Cemetery was based on what its marker said: it was forty rods west, thirty rods north, and associated with a Friends meeting that existed there from 1832 to 1848.
I looked at SHAARD, the Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database, for more information. A 1992 survey of Henry County captured the marker but noted “cemetery not discernible, only perhaps as a spot on hill, center clump of trees to west of marker, local informants say field was hog farm and stones looked up2.”
I’m pretty shy and hate reaching out to people, but Elaine is the complete opposite. Once she read my post, she messaged the Henry County Cemetery Commission about Westberry Friends. The group was only familiar with a different cemetery I’d passed on my way, but said they’d check into things.
Eventually, the commission reached out to Tom Hamm, a Quaker expert and professor of history at Earlham College. He confirmed that a cemetery there featured two aging markers fifty years ago3. A week and a half later, someone at the commission sent Elaine some scans of a pamphlet Hamm compiled called Cemetery Records, Stoney Creek Township, Henry County, Indiana. She sent them to me, and they tell me just about all I know about the place.
In 1979, when the pamphlet was published, Westbury Friends Cemetery sat on land owned by Harold Houser. “Although now surrounded by fields, it is protected by boulders which have been dumped around it over the years,” the booklet said. “Unfortunately it is now in deplorable condition, with the remaining markers having been broken and scattered around the small plot. Only four now remain, although older residents recall at least a dozen graves at the turn of the century4.”
The entry continued. “Westbury Friends Meeting was established as a preparative meeting under Springfield Monthly Meeting of Friends in 1838. In the same year Joseph Stanley and his wife Naomi deeded two acres of land on section three to Luke Wiles, Stephen Potter, and John Marshall as trustees “for the use of the people called Quakers as a burying ground and for meetinghouse purposes.” Westbury Meeting was laid down in 1848, most of the members having moved either to Howard County or to Iowa5.”
The pamphlet went on to say that four markers were legible forty-seven years ago. Six Hodsons appear to have buried there, including Thomas and John. Susannah Mendenhall’s marker was also visible, as was one that memorialized someone only known as “OG6.” Unfortunately, a Quaker book I had, the Sesquicentennial History of Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, didn’t contribute much beyond a mention.
Based on the marker’s directions, I think I found the burial ground (technically a graveyard, since it stood on church property), if only on Google Earth. As for the boulders that mark its bounds, I’ve scoured aerials on various platforms for any evidence but haven’t come up with anything. At any rate, Elaine passed the information we uncovered on to the proper people.
Who knows what might happen once it reaches the right person? It’d be really cool to see the cemetery itself, or at least what’s left of it, but it’d be better to try and save any markers left up on the hill. That said, none of this new rabbit hole would have happened without my Facebook friend Jane, who first brought the intersection to my attention, or Greg and Elaine, whose curiosity and detective work helped uncover more of the corner’s history.
There are still more mysteries to solve, but for now, I’m happy that two places I’d never heard of a few weeks ago have started to give up their secrets. It’s amazing how much history can hide at an ordinary rural intersection, especially when a handful of curious people start asking questions.
Sources Cited1 The county of Henry, Indiana: topography, history, art folio (1893). Rerick Brothers [Richmond]. Atlas.
2 Survey Number 1065-438-00036 (1992). IHSSI (County Survey). SHAARD. Indiana Department of Natural Resources [Indianapolis]. Web. Retrieved October 25, 2026.
3 Williams, E. & Shideler, T. (2026, October 12). Personal communication.
4 Hamm, T. & McFarland, M. (1979). Cemetery Records, Stoney Creek Township, Henry County, Indiana. Henry County Historical Society [New Castle]. Book.
5 (See footnote 4).
6 (See footnote 4).
