Lancaster is an unincorporated community in Lancaster Township, Jefferson County, Indiana.Lancaster was platted on Oct. 5, 1815 by David Hillis and William McFarland. The plat established 128 lots, reserving some for the construction of a courthouse, market house and place of public worship. They probably wanted to get the county seat moved from Madison. McFarland was a county judge and Hillis, a popular local politician, later became lieutenant government of Indiana.The Lancaster Post Office operated from March 16, 1830 through August 30, 1839. Service went to Dupont, then to Republican and Franklin Mills, before returning to Lancaster on August 19, 1841. It closed on March 15, 1907.Before the Civil War, the area was a center of anti-slavery activity. The Neal's Creek Anti-Slavery Baptist Church, founded in 1846, moved to Lancaster in 1847. It later became known as the College Hill Baptist Church and disappeared by 1879. The Eleutherian College, founded in 1848, was the second co-educational, integrated college to open in the United States. It accepted black and white students until the Civil War when it stopped accepting blacks. It closed and in 1874 then reopened as a private high school and normal school that same year. It operated until 1888 when it was purchased by Lancaster Township and the stone college building was used as an elementary school until 1937.Lancaster was shown with 119 occupants in the 1880 census, but was not separately enumerated in any other census.An 1889 publication gave this description: "LANCASTER, Lancaster township, is in section thirty-three, town V north, range IX east. Post office, several stores, one church, a fine merchant mill and school-house. Situated at the confluence of Big Creek and Middle Fork, on the north side of Big Creek. COLLEGE HILL is just across Big Creek from Lancaster."
