This property in Boone Township, Madison County, Indiana, was in my family from 1844 until 1966.

In 1844, Joshua Vinson (1791-1872) moved from Sussex County, Delaware to Van Buren Township, Madison County, Indiana and purchased property. He also bought 120 acres at $.28 an acre in nearby Boone Township on what is now 3729 County Road 1550 North, Summitville, Indiana. The property was originally considered to be in the Forrestville district and was on what was known as The Miami Indian Trace, an area set aside for the Miami Indians’ hunting grounds. For many years, stones with metal poles indicated the Miami Indians’ main hunting trail. 

Joshua also bought two to three more farms of 80 acres each in Boone Township, and had several properties in Van Buren Township to the east. The family also originated what is now The Old Vinson Cemetery with a newer addition of Vinson Memorial Park or New Vinson Cemetery just south of Summitville.

A log cabin was built on the property by Joshua Vinson’s son, William Vinson (1820-1883). The farmhouse was eventually built in 1871 with the log cabin serving as a connected kitchen, and later as a summer kitchen. The log cabin structure was razed in 1915. 

William Vinson built the wood frame house for his daughter. Mary Maria Vinson (1853-1934) when she became engaged to John Henry Jones (1849-1883) who was born and raised just south of the Van Buren Township line in Monroe Township. 

John Henry Jones and Mary Vinson Jones moved into the home between 1870 and 1871. They had two sons, Joel Monroe Jones (1871-1949) and William Elias Jones (1877-1902). 

After John Henry Jones’ premature death, Mary Vinson Jones remarried a Robert Carter and that union lasted less than ten years before his death. Mary became known to subsequent generations as “Grandma Carter,” and was generously adored by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

By 1895, Joel Monroe Jones and his wife, Anna Greenlee, the daughter of neighbors Andrew Taylor Greenlee and Prudence Ball Greenlee, moved into the house and took up farming for the next 40 years.

The Jones family remained at the old Vinson farm until 1935 when they moved to a grand home on the southern curve of Lincoln Avenue in Alexandria, Indiana. Their daughter, Mary Belle Jones Clary, and her husband, John William “Garrett” Clary, and their three children, Ronald Monroe Clary, Donna Mae Clary Barmes, and Joyce Ann Clary Riser moved to the farm. 

Garrett and Belle Clary retired from farming in 1966, and after selling the property to Russell Pattison they moved to North 9th Street in Elwood, Indiana. 

The Vinson-Jones-Clary farm today: