Reeve Township was organized on May 12, 1817, at the first meeting of the Daviess County Commissioners. It was named for its earliest resident, South Carolina native Joshua Reeve, who had settled in the township in 1808. As the first settler in the area, Reeve lived in an isolated cabin in the forest; in order to obtain needed supplies, he was forced to travel to Vincennes. Desiring to simplify his travels, Reeve blazed a trail through the woods from his home to Vincennes; in later years, the route became a road, and by the early twentieth century it had become one of the county's leading highways.
Passages that mention Reeve Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Knox and Daviess County, Indiana1886 · page 669Read the page →
Read the text
the spring of 1864, a large number of veterans and new recruits left for the field. During the summer of 1864 the county was comparatively quiet. In April, 1864, a small squad of disloyal men in Reeve Township burned a schoolhouse, hurrahed for Jeff Davis while riding at full speed along the roads, brandishing weapons. One was arrested but the others escaped. In the autumn of 1864 the assassination of Capt. McCarty occurred in the county, a full description of which atrocious affair . appears
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Reeve Township, 1893 to 1956
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Reeve Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1956Alfordsville sheet · 1:24,000
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Reeve Township.
On the National Register
1 historic place in Reeve Township
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
