Spiceland: Quakers and Spice Bushes

Spiceland, Indiana, owes its name to the spice bushes that once grew thick across Henry County's rolling terrain. Quakers from North Carolina began settling here in the eighteen twenties, drawn by land that resembled their Piedmont home. A Friends meeting was organized by eighteen twenty-four and the Spiceland Monthly Meeting was formally set off in eighteen thirty-three.

The township itself organized in eighteen forty-two. For most of the nineteenth century Spiceland was a quietly prosperous Quaker community, known for sobriety, plain dress, and strong schools. Today it is a small Indiana town of roughly nine hundred residents, but its Quaker roots still shape the local character.