Didjano
…….. Eldean was a Hamlet of Troy?
By
Wesley A. Jones
How many of you remember a hamlet called
Eldean? My wife remembers going to school with someone from Eldean and also
remembers a road sign declaring the location of Eldean. I suppose most everyone
knows where the covered bridge is and the Eldean road. So, it’s natural to
assume that Eldean the hamlet is somewhere nearby. The road sign is gone and so
are some of the structures of this little hamlet. While tripping through the
book Troy - The
Nineteenth Century” by Thomas Bemis Wheeler published in 1970, I came across
some interesting facts about Eldean. For example, The Allen & Wheeler Flour
Mill at the canal lock three miles north of Troy with its cluster of houses had always been referred to as the Allen Mill. Some years
after T. B. Wheeler’s younger daughter, Ellen Dean Wheeler, was born in 1882,
her first two names were contracted to form the word “Eldean”, and the mill,
grain elevator, and houses there henceforth became known as “Eldean”
(pg210).
About 1890 an electric railway was built
between Troy and Piqua following the Miami & Erie Canal to Farrington, Eldean and the county fairgrounds.
About 1914 two accommodation trains ran between
with a stop at Farrington and Eldean (pgs 160 & 194).
So where is Eldean? You’ve probably
guessed by now that it was along an area of route 25A (then known as
