Please feel free to peruse the entire blog

 The 200 years that were covered inside of 12 months was more fun than finding money. I have learned a lot more about Fairfield since that time and I will endeavor to share some of that on these newer entries. 

Much of what we have covered here and elsewhere relates to a form of history that doesn't exist many places -- it's personal experience combined with a shared sense of curiosity. Recognizing the trends was easy. the peculiarities are something else.

The town of Fairfield was not unlike a million other villages. It's uniqueness to your search is that Fairfield was in the wrong place. One can assume that happened to the town that sat under Vesuvius back in the day. It took a very long time to dig up all that history and nobody was talking.

We have photos as well. I will share a lot of them here. Remember, this blog is upside-down. The oldest entries at at the bottom. Please take a minute to get a grasp of that. There is a lot here that will make you want to learn more, maybe about your own town.

I most likely won't be able to help you with a lot of that. I hope I am wrong.

Here is a somewhat pastoral view of our downtown area, taken by Luanna Himelick in 1968 after most residents had fled the onrushing high water. The town square has its own built-in legend. 

BLOG ITEM HERE ON THAT.

 

 

More church photos and related topics

 Most Fairfielders were either baptized or they were sent off to bale hay in the summer.

Stella Buckley played the organ. Stella's (McMahon) family was one of the oldest in the valley. 

Often when Stella did not play, Hazel Klein played the piano. 

We had it all at FFM.

Methodist Church, overview and photos

 Fairfield Methodist Church was built in the late 1860s and served the community until the end. At its zenith in the 1880s, Fairfield ME had one of the largest congregations in Franklin County. It merged with Old Franklin EUB in the late 1960s. 

Photos capture some of the flavor of the church, although we don't have many photos of the interior. At the end, I will provide links from this blog that cover church life in the Whitewater Valley. Feel free to snoop around with the search option for more.

Capacity was about 250. The building was taken apart and sold to a private group. The bell was removed and we never learned where it went.

8th Grade graduation, May 1958 (Bob Mode is the Principal on the right)

Church parsonage on the south end of town. The house fronts a smaller shed that was the birthplace of Indiana author James M. Thompson. (another photo below)






CHURCH LIFE BLOG ITEM FROM THIS WEBSITE

   

Photographic evidence

The original Fairfield website was constructed from a series of peculiar events, essentially from my somewhat fortunate acquisition of a lot of pictures that I didn't know existed. The story is strange, but not unlike the whole of this endeavor. I found the photos in 2003 and built a website based on my memories of the town and what the photos had inspired. 

Along the way, it changed, became more familial and finally it just was what it was -- a part of the history of the town. Others conspired to make the story better. Thus, a lot of the original content on fairfieldindiana dot com was linked to personal memories. 

Not much of that will matter in a few short years because the narrator won't be there to respond. So I will post a photo here and there and describe it and why it might matter. There is no other point to that.

This was the old buggy factory, the largest building in Fairfield.
It was originally built by George Loper, who ran a buggy and harness business in town in the 1880s.
Toward the end, apartments. Lots of brick in that building.  The photos were taken in the late 1960s after everyone had departed, leaving the rest for scavengers.


A FAIRFIELD 200 BLOG LINK TO LOPER

This blog: An explainer

Fairfield as it exists today, from the shores of Brookville Lake. Somewhere out there lives the ghost of a community that was founded in 1815 and lives on according to our imagination.

***

The people who go looking for Fairfield now are certain it's still at the bottom of Brookville Lake and that you can find precious gold lockets if you go diving. As we have often reiterated, we were not that stupid or slow. 

It took years to build the dam and we had plenty of chances to gather up our gold lockets ahead of the rush of floodwater that started rising in 1964 and finally leveled off 9 years later.

We even moved our graveyards, despite a few bikers' claims that "I know for a fact that wasn't true." I am going to rescue as much content from the Fairfield website and post it here and there. I have a bit of time left to accomplish this. For the moment, I will add a couple of photos, just to make it saucy.

We did saucy things back in the day.

I am not sure where all this will end up or what will be lost or saved. Much of our content is located in other places. I will provide links when possible for you to seek it out on your own. We never wanted to lose our history and we were successful in that venture.  

This is where old Saltwell Road went down toward the river on the west side of the lake just off Causeway Road. Saltwell was one of three small township schools in the early days. If you are interested in that topic, contact the Brookville library genealogy department. A book about Fairfield schools can answer your queries. A BIT MORE ABOUT FAIRFIELD SCHOOLS FROM THIS BLOG ITEM

This was our iconic covered bridge, built in the 1870s. It survived all the floods that inevitably led to the flooding of the one town that never suffered that horror. The bridge was 300 feet long and one of two to meet its demise during reservoir construction. This one, like another at Dunlapsville (also shown), fell prey to arsonists in the early 70s as it was being dismantled by people who were trying to save it.

MORE ABOUT BRIDGES FROM THIS BLOG -- 2015

Links and why the internet needs a spanking

 When I manufactured this blog a few years ago, I found abundant resources to support my claims, all of which were designed to give the consumer the right to go searching for the facts. I just baited the trap.

As time has gone on, some or many of the links are either no longer online or are hidden behind a gravelly warning about security. I could fix all that, or I could let you do your own research and make it easy for me.

I don't plan to be around forever and after a fashion, this blog likely won't be either.

The truth is, the history of Fairfield, the Whitewater valley, the state, region, nation, world ... all that it included, is out there for everyone. We need to send a generation of people in search of the questions as well as the methods for learning how to tell the difference between wrong/right/optional and variable.

Nothing is linear. Nothing is absolute.

Well, a couple of things are close-to-absolute.

Like this ad from 1908.

It's just sort of absolute.

Glorious 2020 is nearly over

 Just updating our history after it was published and effectively stored where it belongs. 

It's been 5 years since I finished this and it's likely more will be added, though I have learned more about the town, the valley, the region, the state and the world since then.

It came down to 2020 and beyond and we know where we are, not that it will help us get to the next place on our journey.

But by all means, peruse this blog and its pieces. Feel free to share it, discuss it and evaluate it. The contact information is in place and I am, so far, dealing with the forces of nature that are relentless.

I have plans for the future. Please be a part of that.

And as this refresher lands during the holiday season, it's important to me if it's important to you. 

(Photo is from the state Historical Society, which didn't do anything at all to help me promote this blog, so I am stealing their photo of a scene from Brookville.)

-- John