The Start of Lincoln School
The old Center Presbyterian Church building on the corner of Pike and Washington streets in Crawfordsville, unknown date
The Center Presbyterian Church built a new building in 1880, and due to the overcrowding of students at the Bethel AME Church school, the congregation allowed the Bethel AME Church to use the old building for classes. In this era, many Wabash faculty, staff, and students attended Center Presbyterian Church, which split from the Presbyterian Church of Crawfordsville over the issues of church governance and slavery in 1838. In 1921, the two churches merged back together to form the Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church.
In 1881, the Crawfordsville School Trustees ordered a school building built at the southwest corner of Spring and North Walnut Streets to serve Black children in grades 1-8. This order brought the city into compliance with an 1869 Indiana law requiring school trustees to provide separate tax-funded schools in cities with “a sufficient number” of Black children. The Indiana public school system did not commonly educate children of color prior to 1869
Crawfordsville’s Bethel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, 2018
Founded in 1834, the Bethel AME Church was the first Black congregation known to have organized in Montgomery County. The Church’s first building was built in 1847 and served as a refuge station on the Underground Railroad. The current building was built in 1892 and believed to have incorporated the original building. The Bethel AME Church building is one of the oldest in-operation church buildings in Indiana.
Before the 1881 decision, Black children in Crawfordsville were educated by a church school operated by the Crawfordsville Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Church’s congregation ran the school, and it at one time accommodated over 120 students. Due to the overcrowding of students at the Bethel AME Church school, the Center Presbyterian Church congregation allowed the Bethel AME Church to use their old building for classes.