Plainfield: Plain People on the National Road

Plainfield, Indiana, was laid out in eighteen thirty-two by Levi Jessup and Elias Hadley, Quaker settlers who gave the town a name that reflected their faith. The Friends called themselves plain people, and plain was what they wanted their town to be. The National Road, the young nation's first federally funded highway, ran straight through and made Plainfield a stagecoach stop.

In eighteen forty-two, the road brought an unexpected visitor: former President Martin Van Buren, whose stagecoach was deliberately tipped into the deep mud by an irreverent driver. Van Buren survived the dunking; the story survived much longer. The town's high school teams still call themselves the Quakers.