The Grave in the Middle of the Road

The grave prior to excavation

FRANKLIN, Ind. – When Johnson County’s famed “Grave in the Middle of the Road” was in need of preservation and repair, officials created a plan to save the unique landmark. For its efforts, the county has been recognized by the Association of Indiana Counties. The organization announced Johnson County as the winner of the 2017 County Achievement Award on Wednesday, September 27, during the association’s annual conference. The award recognized the work done to save the gravesite and honoring the people buried there while making County Road 400 more safe for drivers.

The grave of Nancy Kerlin Barnett is one of the county’s quirkiest features. Before her death at the age of 38, Mrs. Barnett – who married at age 14 and had 11 children – asked to be buried in her favorite spot, a grassy knoll near Sugar Creek in what is now the unincorporated community of Amity, Ind. Over the years, family members and others were buried in the same location and a small cemetery grew around her. The deceased had rested in peace for 80-plus years when, around 1905, the county began making plans to construct a road in the area, necessitating removal of the graves. All family members acquiesced with the exception of Daniel G. Doty, Nancy Barnett’s grandson.

Initially, Doty pled his case before county officials, asking that his grandmother’s grave not be disturbed, but his supplications fell on deaf ears and the county moved forward with its plans. However, when workers arrived to remove the graves, there sat Daniel Doty with a shotgun. According to legend, he told the city that if his grandmother’s remains were moved, it would be over his dead body. Apparently, local citizens admired Doty for taking on the county and supported his position. Elected officials, realizing it wasn’t wise to displease voters, decided it wouldn’t be all that much trouble to build the road around the grave and Nancy Barnett lay undisturbed between the two lanes of County Road 400 for more than a century.

But weather and traffic mishaps took their toll and by late 2015, highway workers noticed bones spilling from the eroded mound. Officials worked with the Johnson County Museum of History to devise a plan to preserve the unique grave, while ensuring the road was safe for drivers. Last year, archaeologists from the University of Indianapolis carefully opened the mound to remove the remains of Mrs. Barnett and were shocked by the number of bones they were finding. “We realized early on that we had at least two people,” said David Pfeiffer, director of the Johnson County Museum of History. “Some of the small bones that were distributed in the gravesite came from a child and some came from an adult. Then halfway through the dig, we hit the intact graves sequentially as time went on.” The group collected the bones and discovered they had the skeletons of six individuals, two women and four children. The bones of an adult male had been previously collected where someone had buried them in a small shovel pit.

While the team referred to the site as Nancy Barnett’s grave, no one was certain which set of the remains was hers. “The truth is, we don’t know if we can positively identify her,” archaeologist Christopher W. Schmidt explained at the time. “We do have an individual who is a female, found near where the headstone was. She’s the right age, but I’d be overstating things to say that yes, we can confirm it’s her.” In fact, either of the adult female skeletons could be that of Mrs. Barnett and researchers have no clue as to the identity of the other woman.

The adult male remains retrieved from the pit are also unknown. William Barnett, Nancy’s husband, is believed to have been lost during a drowning accident at age 69, but the remains are those of a man approximately the same age. “Is it him? We’re working on seeing if he’s a candidate for these remains,” said Schmidt. “We’ll do all we can to see if we can match these people to historical records.”

According to Brian Baird, Johnson County Commissioner, there are little to no records to ascertain the identities of these people. So, the county has allocated $6,000 for DNA testing to determine if the recovered remains match the DNA of two living members of the Barnett family.

The remains have all been returned to the their original resting place and County Road 400 now encircles a cemetery in the middle of the road, though it’s doubtful it will ever be known as anything other than “the grave in the middle of the road.”

Author: Graveyardbride.
Sources: Ryan Trares, The Franklin Daily Journal, October 1, 2017, and July 16, 2016; Vic Ryckaert, The Indianapolis Star, August 29, 2016; Greg Newkirk, Week in Weird, June 16, 2016; and Debra Kelly, Urban Ghosts, July 28, 2015.