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Hello and welcome to the
Genealogy Trails website for Orange
County Indiana. Our goal is to
help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical
and historical data and placing it online for the free use of all
researchers.
This
is a continuation of our original, and highly successful, Genealogy
Trails Illinois History and Genealogy Project and we are excited about
this opportunity to expand into other states. We welcome your feedback
and comments, and of course, your data contributions. If you have data
that you would like to have posted on this website, please contact me.
We're
looking for folks who share our dedication to putting data online and
are interested in helping this project be as successful as our Illinois
websites are.
If
you think you might be interested in joining our group, view our Volunteer
Page for further information and instructions on signing up..
If
you would like to be kept informed of our state and county website
updates, subscribe to our mailing lists
You
are welcome to browse the information on these pages and at the many
links provided to garner the data needed to continue your research into
your family history. However, Please remember that this information, in
many cases, represents years of painstaking research on the part of
myself, or the many generous volunteers who have donated their
information to this site. You can show your respect for these efforts
by not taking things to use on other websites and/or to claim as your
own. I thank you in advance for your consideration.
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HISTORY
Orange
County was formed from parts of Knox, Gibson and Washington Counties in
1816. The County Seat is at Paoli, which may have been name in
rememberance
of the Paoli Massacre during the Revolutionary War. The early
settlers were for the most part, Quakers. A group of Quakers from
North Carolina, led by Jonathan Lindley, came to the area in
1811. These Quakers built the first religious structure called
The Lick Creek Meeting House in 1813. This group is responsible
for the name Orange County.
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From: "A History Of The
State Of Indiana" by DeWitt C. Goodrich and Charles R.
Tuttle 1876
This
county was named after a county of North Carolina. in which many of the
early settlers had previously resided. The south part of the county is
hilly, and abounds with fine springs of water; the north is undulating.
About one-fifth of the county is bottom land, with a rich, fertile
soil, and an equal amount of openings; the balance is uplands, and was
originally heavily timbered with oak, hickory, poplar, ash, walnut,
cherry, sugar and beech, and the soil well adapted to wheat. corn,
oats, etc.
There are many sinks in the
county. These, for the most part, have limestone for a base, where many
of the streams and springs fall into the earth, and there find
subterraneous passages, until they unite with larger streams or
reappear with larger and stronger currents. Paoli, the county seat, is
located in the centre of the county. it is a small town and is
improving in population and wealth rapidly, with the country around it
the schools are improving.
The population in 1860 was
12,076 and in 1870 was 13,497
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