The Quaker village of Harveysburg was founded in 1829 on land originally part of Colonel Abraham Buford's Revolutionary War Land Grant. Levi Lukens, a Virginia Quaker, purchased the 1000-acre survey in 1812 and sold a portion to Rhoden Ham in 1815. Ham then sold part of his holdings to William Harvey, a Quaker from North Carolina, who developed 47 lots for a village that thrived from its beginnings. Early businesses included grist mills, a tin shop, hardware store, blacksmith shop, a large pork packing plant, a bank, and a dry goods store owned by William Harvey. Its first post office opened in 1839, and Harveysburg was incorporated in 1844. The village received its name after a Cincinnati merchant told William Harvey to add burg to his name and call the place Harveysburg. In the village's early years, Elizabeth Harvey, wife of Dr. Jesse Harvey, recognized the need to educate African American and Native American children in the area. The Harveys built the Harveysburg School in 1831, and it was one of the first schools for such minority children in Ohio and the Northwest Territory. It was supported by the Harveys and members of the Grove Monthly Meeting of Friends. Stephen Wall, a wealthy North Carolina plantation owner, provided funding to relocate eight slave children and their families to Harveysburg for their education at this school. Orindatus S.B. Wall, Stephen's oldest son, later became the first regular commissioned African American captain in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. The school closed in 1909 when classes became too small to continue. In 1976 the Harveysburg Bicentennial Committee purchased the building, restored it, and opened it to the public as a symbol of freedom through education.