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Fountain County lies in the western part of the U.S. state of Indiana on the east side of the Wabash River. The county was officially established in 1826 and was the 53rd in Indiana. The county seat is Covington. According to the 2000 United States Census, its population was 17,954; the 2010 population was 17,240. The county has two incorporated cities and six incorporated towns with a total population of about 9,700, as well as many small unincorporated communities. It is divided into eleven townships which provide local services. An interstate highway, two U.S. Routes and five Indiana state roads cross the county, as does a major railroad line.
[edit] History
Indiana was granted statehood near the end of 1816. The first non-indigenous settler in the future Fountain County is thought to have been a Mr. Forbes, who arrived in early 1823 and was soon followed by others. The legislative act creating Fountain County was passed on December 30, 1825, setting an effective date of April 1, 1826. The county's boundaries have remained unchanged since that time. It was named for Major James Fontaine of Kentucky who was killed at Harmar's Defeat (near modern Fort Wayne, Indiana) on October 22, 1790, during the Northwest Indian War.
Digging on the Wabash and Erie Canal began in 1832 and worked southwest; it reached Lafayette by 1842. In 1846 it reached Covington, and by 1847 traffic was moving through the county via the canal. Completion of the county's first railroad line in the 1850s heralded an end to the canal's usefulness, and in 1875 the last canal boat passed through Covington. The first railway line through the county was the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway (later the Wabash Railroad) which was built from the east across the northern part of the county and reached Attica in 1856; it continued west through Warren County and reached the Illinois state line the following year. The Indianapolis, Crawfordsville and Danville Railroad (later the Indiana, Bloomington and Western Railway), was started in 1855, but the general state of the economy halted construction in 1858. It was completed by another owner in 1870, and traffic started in 1871. It passed through Covington, Veedersburg and Hillsboro. [edit] Timeline
[edit] Population History
[edit] CemeteriesCemeteries of Fountain County, Indiana, United States [edit] Research TipsThe US Genweb page for Fountain County, Indiana includes Biographies, Births, Census, Cemeteries, Deaths, Deeds, Directories, History, Military, Obituaries, and Photos. Some areas have extensive materials; others have transcriptions of just a few families. [edit] External links
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