Events

“I learned about Eleutherian College when I was going through documents of my family history that I inherited. My 5th generation grandfather, Abraham Walton, was on the very first board at the college and was instrumental in starting up this college along with many others. Their bravery was unprecedented!…

J. Michael Raley, Hanover College professor of history, will present his latest research on the prominent 19th-century African-American pastor Rev. Moses Broyles during a special Black History Month presentation of the annual Daryl R. Karns Lecture. Raley’s address, “’We Have a Right to Live in this Country’: Rev. Moses…

Looking back, I realize it’s been a long time since we’ve had an official newsletter. The whole world, it seems, shut down in the midst of the COVID pandemic in March 2020. The Historic Eleutherian College (HEC) board cancelled public events and suspended in-person meetings for more than a…

Officials of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society invited Phyllis Codling McLaughlin, a member of the HEC board of directors, to return as one of its speakers for its annual conference to be held online Oct. 12-15, 2022. McLaughlin gave a one-hour talk to AAHGS last year about her…

Board Secretary Phyllis McLaughlin is building a case that Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughters did, in fact, attend Eleutherian College. Her research is based on genetic genealogy. The project will result in the publication of a book about Eleutherian and its legacy.    ..

  If you or your group would like to volunteer, please call (812) 748-2540 or email HistoricEleutherianCollege@gmail.com…

It was a cold, but sunny morning for our first HEC Holiday Brunch, held Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018. Members enjoyed delicious quiche, salads and deserts as we honored Brook Reindollar, Board Member Emeritus, who, after his mother’s sudden death, remained determined to preserve this incredible landmark that Dottie Reindollar…

While the COVID-19 pandemic closed the doors of theHistoric Eleutherian College building in Lancaster, IN, to its summertime open-house tours and fall festival, the HEC Board of Directors has been hard at work to get much-needed funding for preserving the pre-Civil War-era building and telling its story. HEC Board…

When children attended the first day of classes at the new Lancaster Elementary School in 1887, they arrived prepared to learn to read and write and do arithmetic. They would learn about President Grover Cleveland and Indiana Governor Isaac P. Gray – both in office at the time. They…

Today the college building is a National Historic Landmark and maintained by a volunteer board of directors. Our vision is “To raise awareness that education and freedom are the foundations of a flourishing civil society.” The year 2020 has shown that now, as much as in the 1850s, America…