Editing Adams County, Indiana (section)

==History==
The statute that mandated the creation of this county was passed on February 7, 1835, and the organization itself was authorized on March 1, 1836. Its name honors the sixth [[President of the United States]], [[John Quincy Adams]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Indiana Place Names|last1=Baker|first1=Ronald L.|last2=Carmony|first2=Marvin|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1975|location=Bloomington, Indiana|page=1}}</ref> Selection of the county seat was finalized on May 18 of that year.<ref>{{cite book|first1=De Witt Clinton|last1=Goodrich|first2=Charles Richard|last2=Tuttle|publisher=R. S. Peale & Co.|year=1875|location=Indianapolis|title=An Illustrated History of the State of Indiana|url=https://archive.org/stream/illustratedhisto6072good#page/n11/mode/2up|pages=549–550}}</ref>

The first non-Native settlers arrived in what is now Adams County in 1835, encouraged by the new [[Erie Canal]] and by the end of the [[Black Hawk War]]. They consisted entirely of settlers from [[New England]]. These were "[[Yankee]]" settlers, that is to say they were descended from the [[English people|English]] [[Puritans]] who settled [[New England]] in the colonial era. They were primarily members of the [[Congregational church|Congregational Church]] although due to the [[Second Great Awakening]] many of them had converted to [[Methodism]] and some had become [[Baptists]] before coming to what is now Adams County. The [[Congregational church|Congregational Church]] subsequently has gone through many divisions and some factions are now known as the [[Church of Christ]] and the [[United Church of Christ]]. When these settlers arrived they found dense forest and wild prairie.<ref>Standard History of Adams and Wells Counties, Indiana by John Wilson Tyndall and Orlo Ervin Lesh, 1918</ref>

The first [[Amish]] settlers arrived in 1840; most came directly from [[Switzerland]], preserving their [[Bernese German|Bernese German dialect]], not adopting the [[Pennsylvania Dutch language|Pennsylvania Dutch dialect]] of the majority of the Amish.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://amishamerica.com/who-are-the-swiss-amish/|title=Who are the Swiss Amish?|website=amishamerica.com|date=August 23, 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://amishamerica.com/10-oldest-amish-settlements/|title=The 10 Oldest Amish Settlements|website=amishamerica.com|date=April 29, 2013 }}</ref>

The Yankee settlers commissioned the first courthouse in 1839, a two-story frame building. The log-building jail was completed in 1837.<ref>Snow 1907, p. 83.</ref> The present [[Adams County Courthouse (Indiana)|Adams County courthouse]] was built in Decatur in 1872–1873 at a cost of $78,979.{{#tag:ref|A $79,000 capital expense in 1872 would be roughly equivalent to $18,900,000 in 2010.<ref name="Williamson">Williamson, Samuel H. (April 2010).  ''Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1774 to present''. [http://www.measuringworth.com MeasuringWorth]. Calculations made using Nominal GDP Per Capita, a measure of capital intensivity, using "the 'average' per-person output of the economy in the prices of the current year." This is a measure of the amount of capital and volume of labor required to reproduce the work over varying production methods, but assuming that money represents a proportion of the economy.</ref>|group="n"}} The designer was J. C. Johnson, who had been trained as a carpenter and joiner and became a self-taught architect; he won second place in the Indiana State Capitol design competition. The construction was done by Christian Boseker of [[Fort Wayne, Indiana|Fort Wayne]]. It is built of red brick with stone ornamentation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Counts|first=Will|author2=Jon Dilts|title=The 92 Magnificent Indiana Courthouses|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1991|location=Bloomington, Indiana|isbn=978-0-253-33638-5|pages=8–9}}</ref>
[[File:Map of Adams County, Indiana.svg|thumb|right|400px|Map of Adams County]]