Events

This year, we lost two valued members of our Board whose dedication and leadership made a lasting impact on our organization and community. Meagan Bahlke brought passion and a deep belief in our purpose. Her love for history carried through to the HEC as she spent a decade researching…

This summer, we are introducing the Ohio Valley Folkways Symposium Sessions. From 1-4 p.m. on various Sunday’s, joins us for a powerful afternoon of storytelling, history, art, and poetry, hosted on the grounds of Historic Eleutherian College. Let the stories of the Ohio Valley move you — from riverbanks…

Historic Eleutherian College will host its annual Fall Gathering on October 18 from 10 AM to 4 PM. Join us for tours, historic programming, art and music! Stay tuned for programming updates!..

Abraham Walton Sr. was born in 1777 in Amherst, New Hampshire, then still a colony, to William and Hannah Littlehale Walton. He married Mary “Polly” Hutchinson, born in Amherst in 1778 to Ebenezer and Hannah Littlefield Hutchinson, in Oxford County, Maine, in 1799.  The couple’s first six children were…

186 years ago on January 5, a meeting was held in a public schoolhouse on Neil’s Creek in Jefferson County, Indiana. The purpose of the meeting was to form “an anti-slavery society,” according to Benjamin  Hoyt, one of the founders of the Neil’s Creek Anti-Slavery Society and its first secretary.  The…

Jan Vetrhus, president of Historic Eleutherian’s board of directors and board member Roland Newman welcomed WISH TV’s Adam Pinsker to the college to learn more about its history.    ..

We were happy to host Hanover College students from Dr. Lake Lambert’s class on the theology and life of Martin Luther King, Jr. that was offered this spring. The class included a crash course on African American history. During their visit, the students enjoyed a tour of the college…

Eleutherian College likely would not have existed if not for the perseverance of a Baptist minister from Oxford, Ohio. Elder Thomas Craven, born 19 March 1792 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, to the Rev. Thomas Lindsey Craven and the former Eleanor Adams, was described as an adult of average height ––…

As part of its 2023 celebration of Juneteenth, Madison-Jefferson County Public Library in Madison, Indiana, will host a presentation about a formerly enslaved black family from Mississippi that moved to Jefferson County in the early 1850s. Phyllis Codling McLaughlin will present “Robert Jefferson: A Case of Black and White”…

Join the Madison community for a weekend of celebration marking the 158th anniversary of the day enslaved people in Texas found out that they had been freed. This year also marks the 160th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued on January 1, 1863…