06/01/2026
Just a little history about your favorite park🌺
Jacob Whetzel is known as the man who blazed a 60 mile trail through Indiana wilderness from Laurel, Indiana, to what is now known as Old Town Waverly Park. He is also credited as the person responsible for the settlement of what was the town of Waverly.
However, a short read of history about the area and time you will quickly conclude that his son Cyrus Whetzel was actually more involved with the settlement and infrastructure of what would become the town of Waverly and later Waverly Park.
Jacob himself had planned to settle on the Wabash river, but as he and his followers blazed the trail and came up on the Bluffs on White River, just north of Waverly in Port Royal he fell in love with the area and decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life there. He left his 18-year-old son Cyrus there alone to start clearing a place to plant corn and to cut wood for a cabin while he and the other men went back to Laurel to get their families, but would not return until the following spring.
Cyrus, a young man left alone in the wilderness with the wildlife and what native Americans were still here didn’t complain. He worked all winter and waited for his father and family to meet him.
Upon the arrival of his family in 1819 Jacob homesteaded a spot north along the river, in the area known as Port Royal. Cyrus settled the area that would become Waverly.
Cyrus was instrumental in starting a school and trade at the river and also started the first ferry so locals could take their corn, hogs and other items to market in Mooresville.
Cyrus was the first representative to be elected from the area and lived out his life in his beloved community.
Both He and his father are buried just up the road from the Park.
To learn more about the history of Waverly, join us the fourth weekend of September every year at our annual festival which is always rich with history of the area.
