From Time to Thyme

Bicentennial Spotlight Shines Brightly on Barker Cabin

We’re about to head into June, which means the Hamilton County Bicentennial spotlight will be shifting from Adams Township to Washington Township.

In recognition of that, the Westfield Washington Historical Society, with a little help from Yankee Trader Fireworks and the Hamilton County Bicentennial Commission, is sponsoring a big celebration this Saturday.

You’ll find the customary music, food trucks, games, vendors etc. at the event, but the star of the show is the grand opening of the Barker family cabin.

And who were the Barkers?

Good question!

I have to confess, I’d never heard of Nicholas Barker until recently. He’s not mentioned in any of the county histories and I found very few references in the old newspapers. Luckily, the WWHS has quite a file on the Barker family, which I was able to tap.

Nicholas Barker, his wife, Frances “Fanny,” and seven of their children (two more were born later) were among Washington Township’s earliest settlers. They were Quakers, originally from Randolph County, North Carolina, who settled here in the mid-1830s after having lived a short time in Paoli, Indiana.

A deed book in the county courthouse shows Nicholas Barker entered 80 acres of land in the east half of the northwest quarter of Section 32 in Washington Township on Dec. 16, 1835.

(For those of you unfamiliar with the Public Land Survey System or PLSS, that would be the area southwest of the intersection of Shady Nook Road and 186th Street.)

An Aug. 7, 1978 Noblesville Daily Ledger article by Georgianne Neal notes that this family was part of a “sizeable colony of Barkers” who moved here from North Carolina in the early 1800s. Like many other members of the Friends Church at that time, they came to Indiana, not because of the cheap land, but because they detested slavery.

Neal’s article describes how, in 1962, the Carl Roudebush family decided to remodel a storage shed on their property and were surprised to discover a completely intact log cabin hidden behind the shed’s wooden siding.

The cabin was in amazing shape for its age. Apparently, the oats and grain that had been stored in the shed for many years protected the cabin’s interior so well that bits of blue paint were still visible on a chair rail and an enclosed stairway to a second story could still be safely climbed. (The article points out that Quaker log cabins tended to be less primitive than those of other settlers.)

A little research determined the cabin had undoubtedly been the Barker family’s original home. (The Roudebushes were actually living in the Barkers’ second dwelling, a Greek Revival farmhouse Nicholas Barker built later, after the family was more settled.)

In the years following the Ledger article, the cabin was largely forgotten.

Fast forward to the present day . . .

Westfield’s rapid growth had the Barker cabin scheduled to be torn down to make way for a development.

One person who hadn’t forgotten the cabin was current WWHS President, Diana Peyton. When she learned of plans to raze the historic structure, she immediately began working to save it. According to Michael Kobrowski, the WWHS museum’s curator and communications officer, Mrs. Peyton literally planted herself in front of a bulldozer that was set to demolish the cabin!)

You can view the result of her efforts this Saturday.

The festivities begin at 10 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the cabin and continue until 7 p.m. that evening. The Barker cabin is located right next to Westfield’s City Hall at 130 Penn Street.

A special thanks to Michael Kobrowski, who took time from his busy schedule to help me research the Barkers and to give me a sneak peek at their cabin.

-Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com