Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

The first recorded white man to come to Posey County was Tom Jones in 1794. Posey County was named in honor of Thomas Posey Governor of the Indiana Territory at the time it was created on Sept. 7,1814. After several changes the present boundary lines were fixed in 1823.

The first horse-powered mill was built in 1810 by James Black. The first county seat was Blackford in Jan. 1815, and the first court was held in Blackford in Oct. 1816. The County seat was moved to Mt. Vernon in 1825. The seal of Posey County, adopted in 1835, was in honor of William Henry Harrison.

The Plank Road with toll gates was built between New Harmony and Mt. Vernon in 1851. The first woman's club in the United States was the Minerva Society, organized in New Harmony in 1859. The first railroad line through Posey County was the St. Louis and Southern in 1869.

The present court house was built in 1867 at a cost of $95,000. The first judge of Posey County Circuit Court was Isaac Blackford, The County Clerk and Recorder was William E. Stewart, the Treasurer was Samuel Jones, the Auditor was Thomas F. Prosser, and the Sheriff was John Carson.

Posey County's most famous town, New harmony, was the site of two experiments in communal living; first under Father Rapp, The Harmony Society from 1814 to 1824, and then under Robert Owen from 1825 to 1860.

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