New  Palestine

Hancock County
Township 15N,  Range 6E

The  Shelbyville  News
Saturday June 19, 1948
Page 8 column 1
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YOUR  TOWN — NEW  PALESTINE
By Hortense Montgomery
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          Villages usually get their name from some event connected from their founding, from a person, directly interested in their settlements or from a place held in memory or reference by their founders.  Many times the prefix “New” is placed before the name of the place from which the pioneers migrated.  Did those who named this village have in mind a reverence for the ancient Holy Land, and hoping that their new home might hold the promise of the ancient “Promised Land” give it the name New Palestine?  We do not know but we have a feeling that there was some good reason for naming this very attractive village “New Palestine.”
          However it was known as a post office as “Sugar Creek Post Office” and was not called New Palestine until January 16, 1889.  It was laid out as a town in 1838 but was not incorporated until 1871.  It was laid out by Jonathan Evans who became the first merchant and the postmaster.  His place of business was located where the bank and drug store now stand. Other pioneer merchants were  Amos Dickinson,  Andrew McGahey,  Robert King,  S. Johnson,  Joseph Cones  and  Brown Schildmeier.
          A frame business building was erected in 1860 and seemed modern then but this was replaced in more recent years by a three-story brick building and owned by the fraternal order of F. and A.M. As showing growth another business frame building, which was built in the early days was replaced by the brick building bow owned by D.A. Sutherland.
          New Palestine is in Hancock county and is situated on the C.H. and D.R.R. and also on what was for a long time an improved gravel road but which is now a modern paved highway, No. 52.  This is a much traveled highway leading tourists and trade into the capital city of Indianapolis.  The railroad was completed in 1860. Mail was first carried by horseback and before the Civil War there were but two mails a week, one from the west on Tuesday and one from the east on Friday.
          The present bank of New Palestine was organized in 1897 and, in modern improvements, electric lights were installed in 1915.
          Four church faiths have established congregations in the village.  The English Methodist church was organized in 1830 and so preceded the laying out of the town. It built its first church in 1856.  The German Methodist Church was organized in 1851 and its people built the first church in 1852.  A Christian church was organized in 1870 and its church was built in 1871; the German Evangelical Zion was organized in 1887 and the church was built in 1888.  Thus we see that these villagers had their differences in religious faith and sought to have a place for their expression.  Whatever their faith they have been ardent workers and have contributed good citizenship to their community.
          Mr. Ben Fout, one of the older residents of the village, and to whom we are indebted for many of the facts of this brief history, tells that some of the exciting events of the town were an explosion that blew up the saloon in 1881 and another similar in nature which blew up a pool room in 1882.  Could there have been any significance in these explosions?  And again in 1906 an explosion occurred in which the town hall was blown up. But we would fear to call attention to any significance in this.
          The business and social interests of the businessmen of New Palestine find expression in a Lions Club; and the town’s war veterans have a Legion Post No. 182.
          Aside from its groups of women connected with their churches, there is a very active Woman’s Temperance Union of seventy-two members; for a town of its size this is a very large organization.
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          A little to the southeast of New Palestine and about two miles from Fountaintown, in Hancock county, lies the village of Carrollton made famous in history and literature by Riley the Hoosier Poet as “The Little Town of Tailholt.”  Nothing in the way of Big Business could give a large city as much luster as this poem has given to this small village.  Hancock county would need nothing else to bring it into prominence as long as it is connected with this beloved poet and its tiny town bears the name which he has given it.
Contributed by Barb Huff

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