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This day in Henry County history
Darrel Radford, Henry County’s official historian, has been featuring a “This Day In Henry County History” tidbit on the historical society’s Facebook page. We invite you to like our Facebook page and go there daily for some interesting historical events that have happened in our county over the past 200 years or so. Here’s a sampling of recent Facebook posts.
On April 3, 1974, a tornado swept through Kennard, destroying the 100-year-old elementary school. Taught what to do in the event of a tornado just days before, none of the 175 students were seriously injured in the event, calmly going to their assigned positions in the basement and coat hall of the building.
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On April 3, 1841, 109 Henry County women met at Spiceland to form an anti-slavery association.
On April 4, 1967, the Charles A. Beard School Corp. opens its new community high school at Knightstown.
On April 4, 2020, Tim Brown (right) — raised in Knightstown and a 1955 Morton Memorial High School graduate who went on to play football in the NFL and star in the television series, M*A*S*H* — died at the age of 82. He played eight seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles and ended his career with the Baltimore Colts, scoring the last touchdown in the 1968 NFL Championship game, a 34-0 victory over the Cleveland Browns. Two weeks later, Brown played his final NFL game — the historic Super Bowl III game in which the Joe Namath-led New York Jets upset the Colts 16-7.
Following his retirement from the NFL, Brown became a full-time actor, perhaps best known as Dr. Oliver “Spearchucker” Jones on the first season of M*A*S*H. He was one of only four actors who appeared in both the original M*A*S*H* movie and the hit TV series.
On April 7, 2007, an arson fire destroyed the St. Anne Catholic Church in New Castle.
On April 30, 1865, the funeral train carrying the body of slain U.S. President Abraham Lincoln made a stop in Lewisville. The New Castle Courier described the scene this way: ‘The funeral procession of our late loved President exceeded in solemn grandeur anything of the sort ever witnessed in this country or perhaps in the world. Everywhere along the route of over a thousand miles, at every village and hamlet, the people turned out with emblems and decorations of mourning to testify their share in the sorrow, and appreciation of the worth of the illustrious dead.”
