I lived over 30 years of my life in Johnson County, before moving to Southern Indiana. But it was only recently, that I visited its most infamous landmark: The grave in the middle of the road! For decades I thought this was just folklore, but this place actually exists, and has an amazing backstory about how it came to be. Only in Indiana! Easily reached from US 31, south of the town of Franklin, by taking County Road 400 S about a mile east.
I was born in Johnson County, and I went to school there too. Go Trojans! I remember watching “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” at the Art Craft Theater with my brother and our friends, getting pizza at the Willard, and yes, everyone says it’s haunted. We used to cruise around the Johnson County Courthouse for no reason at all. It’s there that I even got my marriage license. But in all my years, I had never seen the most infamous thing in Johnson County: what looks like a simple median in the middle of the road, but it’s not. This is the infamous grave in the middle of the road, and it has an amazing backstory.
Officially called Barnett Cemetery, it was created back when this was open country, and no roads existed. Nancy Kerlin Barnett had moved here with her husband, William. One of her favorite pastimes was sitting along Sugar Creek, and she asked that someday, at the end of her mortal life, she would be buried next to it. It was a pleasant little hill overlooking the creek, and when she died at only 38 years old, William honored her wish.
All was fine for over 70 years until the county decided to put a road right through her grave. As the story goes, a family member met the construction crew with a shotgun, and they decided to compromise and build the road around the grave. Nancy’s final resting place is passed by countless vehicles each day, and some pay their respects by placing change at her grave.
By 2016, the site had been accidentally hit by trucks so many times that it needed a remodel. Archaeologists found not one, but seven bodies under the road. The bodies were re-interred, new concrete was poured, and now Nancy and six other people can rest easy again.
Johnson County’s grave in the middle of the road: just one more unusual and interesting landmark, only in Indiana.