City Of Versailles Indiana

On January 7, 1818, by an act of the General Assembly, John DePauw from
Washington County, Charles Beggs of Franklin County, and W. H. Eades of
Jennings County, were appointed to select a site for the new Ripley
county seat. Earning three dollars a day for this task, the first three
commissioners settled on a hundred acre tract donated by John Paul of
Madison, a land speculator and founder of the town of Madison and
Xenia, Ohio. The county seat was named Versailles in honor of DePauw's
native city in France, and was laid out as a town of 186 lots by John
Ritchie.
   
The Versailles courtyard was the scene of a dramatic episode in Ripley
County history in early June, 1863, when General John Hunt Morgan of
the Confederate Army led approximately 2,000 cavalry troops into
southern Indiana in an attempt to draw Union forces north of the Ohio
River. As he neared Versailles, a militia confronted the Confederate
force as it came into the town from the southwest. General Morgan aimed
a cannon at the newly built courthouse and threatened to fire if his
troops were met with armed resistance. Guns were confiscated and broken
over a corner of the courthouse. The county treasury, Mason jewels,
food, possessions and livestock were confiscated by Morgan's raiding
cavalry.  When Morgan discovered that his men had taken the Mason
jewels, he ordered them returned because he was a Mason himself.  These
can still be seen at the Lodge Hall.