The old log schoolhouse was abandoned about 1853 and Mt. Tabor Church in the cemetery was used for a school for several years. The plot of ground was enclosed by a rail fence which was no deterrent to the play of school children who made the surrounding forest their playground. The arrival of additional settlers in the vicinity of Dunkirk necessitated the building of the town's first church on a picturesque little knoll near a woodland stream on Isaiah Sutton's property. The church, called Mt. Tabor, was a multi-purpose log cabin built in the Spring of 1848. It served the community for social, educational and religious needs for several years. The church yard also became the first burial ground and it is here that William and Eliza Jane Fulkerson would eventually be laid to rest, along with several of their adult children.
It was also in 1848, in September, that William's sister, Delilah, and her husband, Preston Shields, relocated from Greene County, Ohio, to Dunkirk. They settled on a 400-acre tract of land a mile north and two miles east of Dunkirk, where they lived until their deaths. Preston had gotten out of the distillery business and sold his teams of horses. Preston bought his land in Dunkirk with money he received for selling 21 of his 26 horses. He was very proud of these horses and parted with them reluctantly. The Shields family would become and remain prominent citizens of Dunkirk, Indiana, for generations. The Benjamin Franklin Shields Post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Dunkirk is named for their grandson.
Transportation during this pioneer period was by horseback, walking or jolting along in a rude cart or wagon. Walking was the most common method of travel, and it was not unusual for men of the vicinity to hike the entire distance to Cincinnati, over 100 miles, often driving herds of horses or droves of turkeys.
Emergence of the area from its pioneer origins began with the construction of better housing and the establishment of the first businesses. Wiliam Shrack, one of the two original settlers of the Dunkirk area, replaced his 15-year-old log cabin with a good two-story brick house in 1852, and Isaiah Sutton built a brick house near his log dwellings the following year. The original log cabin was later rented to James Wilson for the establishment of the community's first store was becoming a popular meeting place for the region.
The first rural mail route through the area was established in 1849 or 1850. A post office was set up in the cabin home of John Buckles to accommodate the weekly mail. The Buckles family was prominent in the Millgrove area of Blackford County where the Fulkersons had settled.
