The land which currently makes up the village changed hands many times during the beginning of the 19th century before being settled. Some families, including the Wallace family, first established permanent homesteads here during the 1820s. For the first half of the 1800s the community consisted primarily of family farms and homes, and residents sustained themselves almost entirely through agricultural means. By the 1830s, the settlement had grown large enough in population to require its own schoolhouse. Shanly continued to grow in population, and by mid-century had established a post office and a Wesleyan-Methodist church. The post office was established on February 1, 1865, with a man named William Clark as the first postmaster.