Roberts Settlement (Indiana)

Roberts Settlement is one of several African American farm neighborhoods formed in the early 1800s. The community of Roberts was named for the family members who were free-born early pioneers of the Roberts family from Northampton County, NC. They began settling in Indiana in the 1830s, and by the 1870s others had joined them, both free-born and ex-slaves from Kentucky and North Carolina. Those from Kentucky included Jacob Davis, who owned 130 acres in Roberts Settlement, and landowners John Roads and Edmund Hurley. For more see Southern Seed, Northern Soil, by S. A. Vincent; and H. Wiley, "Keeping history alive," The Indianapolis Star [online at Indystar.com], 01/31/1993.