River Mile: 562

Population: 3,743

U.S. Census Profile

Farmer George Logan, on an 1801 trading trip by barge on the Ohio River, was reportedly the first European to explore the immediate Hanover area, climbing to a hilltop known as Logan’s Point to this day. “The Point” in Hanover is the only spot to view three bends of the Ohio River at once, and the town also has the tallest waterfall in the state, Fremont Falls. Kentuckian Judge Williamson Dunn bought the land from the federal government in 1808, settling his family in “Dunn’s Settlement.” Settlers, many of them Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, followed. Presbyterian minister Thomas C. Searle founded Hanover Presbyterian Church in 1820, naming it in honor of his wife’s hometown of Hanover, New Hampshire. The town soon also took the name.

Minister and abolitionist John Finlay Crowe was invited to serve at the church, and soon after joining encouraged members to found a seminary. This opened in 1827, and would evolve into the four-year liberal arts Hanover College, with the seminary moving first to New Albany, IN, and then to Chicago. Hanover is Indiana’s oldest private college. Hanover also is home to St. Stephen’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, which belongs to the first independent Black denomination founded in the U.S.