Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of unbroken hardwood forest over the hills around the Lick Creek trailhead in the Hoosier National Forest

Farm and ranch town

Lick Creek

Free Black families from North Carolina farmed these hills from 1831, and their settlement held more than 1,500 acres by 1855. The last landowner sold out in 1902. The land is national forest now, and a family cemetery on the Lick Creek Trail is the one thing left standing.

38°29′30″N 86°24′38″W · ≈840 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).

Overview

Free farmers in the Orange County hills

Lick Creek was a rural settlement of free Black farmers in the hills south of Paoli. Its first families came north from North Carolina with Quakers, who had settled in Orange County from 1811 and who opposed slavery. North Carolina was tightening its laws against free Black people, and Indiana, though far from welcoming, did not allow slavery. In 1831 Mathew Thomas bought 80 acres near Chambersburg, and in 1832 Benjamin Roberts, Peter Lindley and Elias Roberts bought 40 acres each in the hills to the south. The settlement took its name from the creek.

It grew for three decades. By 1855 Black families owned 1,557 acres there. They farmed, and the 1850 census also lists saddlers, shoemakers, peddlers and wagon makers. They built a Methodist meeting house in 1837 and an African Methodist Episcopal church in 1843. White neighbors owned land beside them and signed as witnesses when Indiana made Black residents register with the county in 1853. By 1860, the Forest Service says, the community was racially integrated.

Then it came apart. In September 1862 seven Black farmers sold 559 acres within a month, one at a heavy loss. Nobody knows exactly why: the Civil War draft, the growth of city jobs and threats from Southern sympathizers are all named. The population kept falling, and in 1902 William Thomas, the last Black landowner, sold out. White farmers who bought the land lost much of it for taxes in the 1930s, and in 1935 the Forest Service bought it to replant eroded hillsides.

Video

New Year's Day at the family cemetery

A hiker sets out on the Lick Creek Trail on January 1, 2017, the date he gives, past the trailhead map and history sign and along old road and single track through bare winter woods, where a hunter's nearby shot sends him to the ground. He takes the short side path to the family cemetery: broken and weathered stones half buried in leaves, a few small crosses and a handful of stones he can still read. He gives the loop as 7.7 miles; the Forest Service figure we use is 7.1. The video predates the 2024 cemetery restoration.

Play “Return to Lick Creek Trail in the Hoosier National Forest” from YouTube
“Return to Lick Creek Trail in the Hoosier National Forest”, by That Hiking Guy on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

1831 to 1902

  1. Quaker Jonathan Lindley settles in Orange County, bringing eleven Black families from North Carolina, before the county or the state exists.
  2. The census counts 96 Black residents in Orange County.
  3. Mathew Thomas, a freeborn Black farmer, buys 80 acres northeast of Chambersburg: the first Black-owned land at Lick Creek.
  4. Benjamin Roberts, Peter Lindley and Elias Roberts each buy 40 acres of government land in the hills south of Chambersburg. With Thomas and David Dugged they form the Lick Creek settlement.
  5. A Methodist Union Meeting House is built on Ishmael Roberts's land.
  6. Thomas and Matilda Roberts sell one acre to five trustees for an African Methodist Episcopal church. It serves until 1869.
  7. Black landholdings at Lick Creek reach their largest size, 1,557 acres.
  8. The first known burial in the Thomas and Roberts family cemetery.
  9. Orange County has 260 Black residents, almost a third of them in Southeast Township at Lick Creek, then a racially integrated community.
  10. Seven Black farmers sell 559 acres in a single month, one at a heavy loss. Why is unknown; the draft and rising violence by Southern sympathizers are among the explanations.
  11. Black landholding in the county is down to 604 acres.
  12. Simon Locust, a veteran of the 13th U.S. Colored Infantry, is the last person buried in the family cemetery.
  13. William Thomas, the last Black landowner, sells his land.
  14. The Forest Service buys the land for what becomes the Hoosier National Forest. The remaining houses are probably torn down.
  15. Archaeological study of the settlement begins and continues.
  16. Descendants of the settlers work with volunteers to restore the family cemetery.

What's left

The family cemetery

No building survives. Wikipedia says the Forest Service probably pulled down the last houses after it bought the land, to keep out squatters. What remains, in the Forest Service's words, is "a family cemetery and the traces of home sites." The cemetery is the Thomas and Roberts family cemetery, also called the Little Africa cemetery. It has at least 14 marked headstones, with burials from 1856 to 1891. The professionally cut stones, the Forest Service notes, show the families were well off. The last burial was Simon Locust in 1891, who had served in Company E of the 13th U.S. Colored Infantry. Wikipedia places the cemetery about 1.5 miles south of Chambersburg.

Descendants of the settlers and volunteers restored the cemetery in 2024, and archaeologists have studied the settlement since 1999. It is in a national forest: leave everything as you find it, and don't dig or collect.

  • The Thomas and Roberts family cemetery, at least 14 marked stones (1856–1891)
  • Traces of home sites in the woods
  • No standing buildings
USGS topographic map of wooded ridges in the Hoosier National Forest, with the Grease Gravy Road trailhead and the Lick Creek Trail running southeast
USGS The National Map, topo. Grease Gravy Road ends at the Lick Creek trailhead at center top, and the Lick Creek Trail heads southeast along the ridge. The main Lick Creek Trailhead is at left.
Aerial view of unbroken forest with a farm clearing and a road at the top
Aerial imagery, same area. Forest has taken back the settlement's farms; a clearing with a farm lies north of the trailhead.

The Valeene sheets in the historic maps below show the ground after the settlement. In 1950 a dirt road runs south along the ridge to a high point marked 863 feet, with a few buildings at its north end and open, unwooded patches among the forest. By 1970 the road is labeled Grease Gravy Road, and a dashed trail runs on along the ridges to the southeast. The 1993 sheet shows the same road and trail.

Historic maps

Lick Creek on USGS maps, 1950–1993

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Lick Creek, 1950
Valeene sheet, 1950, 1:24,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Paoli is the closest town with services. Both routes end at the north trailhead, where Grease Gravy Road ends, on the Lick Creek Trail. Our map point is Wikipedia's infobox point, which sits on the trail just south of that trailhead. The settlement spread over the hills around it: Wikipedia's geography section gives a second point for it, 38.5294, -86.4303, about 2.8 miles north-northwest near Chambersburg, and puts the cemetery about 1.5 miles south of Chambersburg. We have not pinned the cemetery's exact spot, so take the Forest Service trail map. The routes were computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us.

USGS topographic map from Paoli south along U.S. 150 to the Lick Creek trailhead on Grease Gravy Road, with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Paoli6.3 miabout 10 min
  1. From downtown Paoli, head south on South Court Street.0.1 mi
  2. At the roundabout, take East Main Street (U.S. 150 and Ind. 56).0.2 mi
  3. Turn right to stay on U.S. 150 (Southeast Main Street) south.3.6 mi
  4. Turn right on County Road 250 East (Grease Gravy Road) and follow it to its end at the trailhead.2.4 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The Forest Service gives two trailheads. The main one, with horse trailer parking: 5.3 miles south of Paoli on Ind. 37, turn left on County Road 450 South and go one mile. The north one, for a few cars: 4 miles south of Paoli on U.S. 150, turn right on Grease Gravy Road and follow it about 2 miles to its end.
  • A 2021 Visit Indiana account calls the walk to the cemetery "a bit of a hike", found no cell service, and advises bringing water. The Forest Service says there is no water on the trail.
  • Horse riders and mountain bikers 17 and older need a Forest Service trail permit. Motor vehicles are not allowed on the trail.

Photos

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Visitor reports

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Nearby

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Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Indiana index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Wikipedia, "Lick Creek, Indiana", read October 29, 2026: the names, the 1831 and 1832 purchases, the 1855 acreage, 1860 population, the trades, September 1862 sales, 1870 acreage, 1902, the 1935 purchase, the houses likely torn down, archaeology since 1999, the 2024 restoration, the cemetery 1.5 miles south of Chambersburg, the coordinates (infobox and geography section).
  2. USDA Forest Service, Hoosier National Forest, "Lick Creek African American Settlement", August 2012: Jonathan Lindley and the eleven families, 96 residents in 1820, the first purchases, 1,557 acres, 260 in 1860 and the integrated community, the 1837 meeting house and 1843 AME church, the cemetery's 14 stones and 1856–1891 burials, Simon Locust, 1862, William Thomas in 1902, the 1930s tax losses.
  3. USDA Forest Service, "Lick Creek Trail", updated December 17, 2025: 7.1 miles, open year-round, the two trailheads and directions, permits, no water, the cemetery and home sites.
  4. Chris Flook, "Little Africa Cemetery, Buzzard Roost, Rickenbaugh House and the Clover Lick Barrens," Visit Indiana, October 12, 2021: the drive via Grease Gravy Road, the hike, no cell service, water.
  5. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.
  6. That Hiking Guy, "Return to Lick Creek Trail in the Hoosier National Forest", YouTube, posted January 3, 2017: the trail and the family cemetery in January 2017, the date the creator gives (the video on this page); checked against its captions and storyboard frames.

Photo and map credits