Centerville is a town in Center Township, Wayne County, in the U.S. state of Indiana.

Centerville was platted in 1814 on land bought from the Miami Indians at the Twelve Mile Purchase.

Centre Monthly Meeting in Delaware is part of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, whose Indian relations office first sent a delegation of Quakers to Indiana Territory at the request of Chief Little Turtle of the Miami Indians, who visited them in Baltimore.

Friends from Delaware lived for a time in Guilford County, North Carolina before permanently moving to Indiana Territory when it opened for settlement.

[8] By 1870, Richmond (Wayne Township) had surpassed Centerville in business, population, and tax revenue.

These factors led the population of Wayne Township to demand the county seat be moved to Richmond.

The dispute was played out in the newspapers, courts, and petitions, with Richmond the eventual winner.

Centerville residents twice stopped Richmond's officials’ efforts to move the records, first with guarded locked gates, then by firing on their own courthouse with a three-pound cannon nicknamed “Black Betty.” The cannon was used when Richmond guards were brought in to protect the records.

When they refused, the cannon was fired, the door blown off its hinges, and the guards were forced to beat a hasty retreat.

The holes from the cannon shot are still visible over the door of the old courthouse, now the Center Township Library.

[10] In 1828 the National Road, which ran along Centerville's Main Street, was surveyed.

[11] The five arches in Centerville are the Backenstoes, Dill, Shortridge, Lantz, and Malone Archways, all built between 1823 and 1836.