Lyles Station (A Negro Settlement)

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• Indiana State University, Rare Books and Manuscripts

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Text document on Lyle's Station in Gibson County, an All- African American community in Indiana with its own school and church. Created by Elizabeth Kargacos. Source: Indiana Federal Writers Project Collection. Date circa 1930s. Relation: Part of the Depression-Era Federal Writers Project in Indiana. This information may be contained in a publication that came out of these notes. Language: English. Text: Elizabeth Kargacos District #10 Gibson County File #243-b Folklore Note: (to be used in conjunction with Folklore Map.) handwritten note: "Ethnic Enclave" Lyles Station, a little village about five miles NE of Princeton has the rare distinction of having been settled entirely of colored folks. Previous to the Civil War this was known as the Cherry Grove Vicinity and was a rendezvous for runaway slaves. But a t the end of the war a colored man named Lyles bought a large tract of land in and around the present site of the village and soon others located there. The colored settlement now is about two miles square, and embraces approx. one hundred and fifty people. These are clean, honest colored folks who have tried to make the most of the few advantages given them. They have their owned colored school and also their house of worship where they love to gather and singe the "negro spirituals" in the true "darky" style. The older residents of the community have had few of the advantage of education, and some cannot read and write, but the younger ones are rapidly assimilating the American ideals and customs. Note: a modest stone in the archer cemetery, Princeton, gives the information that a man named merely "Simpson", negro body servant of general George Washington during the Revolutionary War lies buried there having died in 1850.