Village of Olivet
In the Southern Part of the Township

Account from Robert Walker Smith's History of South Bend
Published in 1883

The settlement of the lower or southern part of the township occurred much later than that of the northern part. Robert Townsend remembers that at and around the pleasant hamlet of Olivet, on the Robert Lettis Hooper tract, there were but few settlers in 1833. It had then the appearance of a wilderness rather than of a settled region. He remembers that a primitive log schoolhouse was there in 1834, which had the appearance of having been erected a few years.

The only wagon in the neighborhood in 1833 belonged to John Smith. The nearest gristmill was that at South Bend. The people packed their grists to mill on horseback. There were no wagon-roads except the one from Saltsburg. The state road was not opened until 1843. A year or two before then emigrants from Washington county, the Ewings and others, settled here.

In the earlier settlement of the southern part of the township there was an ancient schoolhouse about 200 rods southwest of Olivet, on the present farm of Joseph Coulter, and another about a mile and a half a little west of north from Olivet, on the present farm of David Finley. The first schoolhouse at Olivet was built in or about 1820, on the present site of G. W. Steer's blacksmith shop, and was known as the "Big Run schoolhouse," which continued to be used until 1834-5.

About a mile distant from Olivet, across the Indiana county line, is Elder's Ridge Academy, whose beneficent influence in promoting educational interests in this region has for many years been effective.

Monument on Left Marks Former Location of Presbyterian Church

Cemetery is to the Right of Former Church Location

Memorial to Olivet U.P. Church Associate Reformed ~ 1840 - 1858
Later Joined U.P. Church of N.A. Until 1935
Formed Olivet U.P. Church of USA in 1938
Merged with Elders Ridge U.P. Church in 1958