About Us:

Although the official founding of Spiceland occurred with Driver Boone's (1796-1881) 1847 survey and town plat, members of the Religious Society of Friends -- many from North Carolina -- were responsible for settling and naming this community at an early date. Friends settled the area in the early 1820s shortly after the New Purchase treaty went into effect in 1821. They named their meeting after the many spice bushes growing in the area. Their first log meetinghouse was erected in 1828. Before this, Friends worshipped in a log barn and, at least for its first meeting, under the trees in 1824.

Over the years the meeting has gone by various names, although the official name is Spiceland Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or Spiceland Friends Meeting. Today it is often referred to as Spiceland Friends Church. Land once designated in the old deeds as the property of Spiceland Academy or Spiceland Academy and Its Successors has always belonged to the meeting. The meeting owned and operated the academy which closed in 1921 and continues to own the land today.

In 1833, a frame one-story meetinghouse replaced the log structure. In accordance with the Society's strict adherence to custom (such as using "thee" and "thou"), the frame meetinghouse had separate entrances for men and women. Today's Italianate brick meetinghouse was built just north of the frame building in 1874, fifty years after Friends had first worshipped under the trees on the meetinghouse grounds. The new brick meetinghouse, perhaps reflecting a more progressive generation, had no sliding partition to separate men and women. The building's long windows and elaborate brickwork were carried through in the 1969 addition and the west side of the meetinghouse. In 2005-06 the meetinghouse was again enlarged with the addition of a new kitchen, a welcome center, offices, classrooms, and a large multi-purpose room. The many beautiful stained glass windows were all added in 1929. Especially beautiful is the large stained glass window depicting Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The first burial in the Friends' burying ground across the street was in 1829; the last interment was in 1937. Spiceland Friends reserved a portion of the cemetery for hitching racks. Of the 575 graves, 200 are unmarked. Many early Friends made it a practice to not use the traditional gravestone to mark their graves. Wooden markers, sometimes nothing at all, or simple fieldstones were used. In the far northwest corner of this cemetery is located the grave of an Indian. Old-timers say that for many years the spot was marked by a lone pine tree. Spiceland's cholera victims from the 1839 epidemic are buried here. Benjamin and Joseph Hunt, brothers, were two victims with gravestones. Twelve to fifteen others are buried in one long row. This cemetery contains the last resting place of a veteran of the War of 1812, several former slaves, and thirteen Civil War soldiers.