The Boxley Cabin is shown here as it looked in 2000, before being listed on the National Register of Historic Places and before its renovation by the Sheridan Historical Society.

Nestled on a knoll, the Boxley Cabin was originally built in 1828 by George Boxley, the first white settler in Adams Township, Hamilton County, Indiana.  George's story, however, has a deeper context beyond being one of the first pioneers in Indiana.  George was a wanted man with a $1000 bounty on his head, accused of planning an African American insurrection in 1816 in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

This cabin was home to George, his wife, Hannah, and their eleven children. The existing outbuildings on the site show that the property was a functioning farm, growing crops and raising livestock well into the twentieth century, but local history records the possibility that one cabin, one of three originally built by Boxley on the property, was used to harbor Blacks in 1865 as a station of the Underground Railroad.  An African American, Nancy Revels, was hired as a housekeeper by George's son, Caswell, in the 1870s and lived on the property in a small gabled structure hidden among the crumbling outbuildings. Caswell built a large Italianate house, affectionately called "The Mansion," that burned down in the 1990s.  At that time the Town of Sheridan, Indiana, purchased the property to preserve and protect the remaining heritage of the site.                                                       

IUPUI will be investigating this site with all three historical interests in mind - Pioneer archaeology, researching rural activities at a time of great change in Indiana's history and scientifically documenting the occupation of the land by George Boxley and his family; African American archaeology, looking into the home of Nancy Revels; and investigating a suspected station of the Underground Railroad.  The project is also engaging the local community by accepting volunteers on site and partnering them with students enrolled in the field school Monday through Friday, May 7 through June 18.  Weekend excavations will also be held on Saturday, May 17, Armed Forces Day; Monday, May 26, Memorial Day; and Saturday, June 14, Flag Day.