"BARRENS CEMETERY" (properly known as St. John's Lutheran Cemetery)   Morgan Township   Harrison County, Indiana

BEFORE:  September 2001	AFTER:  March 2002
BEFORE:  September 2001	AFTER:  March 2002
All photos courtesy of Jack Briles

In September 2001, Larry Stuart < lstuartdsn@aol.com > contacted Bill Spurlock of www.SavingGraves.com with an Endangered Cemetery report concerning Barrens Cemetery (a/k/a St. John's Lutheran Cemetery) in Harrison Co., IN.

Mr. Stuart's concern was that the site is being intentionally allowed to revert to its "natural" state.  In the process, the cemetery is in jeopardy of being lost altogether.

While many of us have seen cemeteries in far worse condition, we find it particularly disturbing that some governmental entity was intentionally allowing this cemetery to revert to its wild state, which will resulted in making the cemetery completely inaccessible to human visitors.

We were also disturbed by the damage to the stones that could result from intentional burning of the cemetery grounds.
  In September 2001, this cemetery had a sign which indicates it has been allowed to return to its "natural" state of grasses and overgrowth as a so-called memorial to the pioneers, early settlers and native Americans who settled the area.  It is completely overgrown, making it almost impossible to locate the gravesites and headstones within.  It is approximately 3/4 acre of deliberately unmaintained burial grounds.

Many of us believed that, if action was not taken to reverse what we believed to be intentional neglect, the gravesites would be completely overgrown and lost.

Jack Briles <Jb502000@aol.com>, the INPCRP's County Coordinator for Floyd County, responded immediately to this report as he had direct family ties to Harrison County and to this particular area of Morgan Township.  Jack provides the following report:

Barrens Cemetery is located 1.5 miles North from Hwy. 64, and 0.4 tenths from Hwy. 135 on Cemetery Road East.  The Cemetery's GPS UTM Cooridinates are as follows:  16  578981 E  4243570 N.  The Lattitude is 38.3386;  the Longitude is -86.0963.  Click here for a topographical map of Barrens Cemetery, courtesy of www.topozone.com.

This places the cemetery in the SW 1/4 of the SW1/4 of the SW/1/4 of the NE 1/4 of Section 17 in Morgan Township, Harrison Co., Indiana.

I found a circa 1930s WPA plat map of the cemetery at the Corydon Library.  Click here to see that Depression-era cemetery drawing in Adobe Acrobat PDF format {free Adobe Acrobat Reader required; downloadable at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html}. The WPA plat for Barrens Cemetery indicates there may be as many as 190 graves here.

I found out from a State Policeman who lives nearby that the Indiana DNR "manages" this cemetery.
 

The DNR's sign posted at the cemetery states: "Barrens Cemetery -- This part of Harrison County was once a grassland known as a barrens.  This site contains many of the plants of the original barrens.  It is maintained as a memorial to the settlers and Indians to whom these grasses and flowers were once familiar."

Jack's September 2001 report continued:

All I can say is the DNR must be the only ones who appreciate the blooming weeds that I saw. I'm not a Naturalist, I'm a Cemetery Preservationist. Why in God's name did they choose a cemetery to have a Memorial to the Settlers and Indians. The neighbors aren't too happy with it.  Also they supposedly burn it off EVERY year. That is why we in the Ohio Valley are raising Hell about the Smog we are getting from the West in Counties like Harrison. We can't burn anything in Floyd Co. at all, even wild flowers in a cemetery. The EPA would fine the H--- out of us. If they do burn it, what does the heat do to the stones???  I don't understand since there was a burial here as recently as 1924, but this site has somehow become a "Memorial" to the early Settlers.

My family is German Lutheran, many of them buried at Bradford Cemetery in Morgan Twp., less than 2 miles away.  This kind of intentional neglect most certainly was NOT their custom or practice.  And yet the DNR says we must respect the wishes of those buried there and their customs.

Mr. Stuart is right that you can just barely see the stones. And the whole area is full of what I call Stick-Tights.  Much of the cemetery is completely inaccessible because of the dense weeds.  It took me 45 minutes to get all the Stick-Tights off my clothes. Some "Save-the-Wildflowers" person obviously went down and said "Let's save these weeds and wild flowers.  To heck with the cemetery and the people that might want to visit their ancestors' graves."

There are a lot of stones here. There are signs of visitors having been there earlier this weekend. But it's not worth visiting the site of your ancestors' graves for what it will do to your clothes.  While a Township Trustee could be criminally prosecuted for allowing weeds to grow to this height and density, apparently the DNR doesn't have to worry about that. These wildflowers (more commonly known as weeds) are a fine example of the kind of vegetation that the Township Trustees are statutorily required to control in cemeteries.  The farmers in the rest of Harrison County have spent years trying to eradicate these weeds as an unwanted nusiance.  Why can't the DNR transplant some of these weeds to a piece of property they own that does not contain a Cemetery?

Over the course of the next 6 or 7 months, Jack Briles continued to communicate his concerns about the condition of the cemetery to the State Department of Natural Resources, the Township Trustee and anybody else who would listen.

In March 6, 2002, Jack met at the cemetery with Fred Uhl, the Morgan Township Trustee (Harrison Co.), Brian Abrell (DNR's Nature Preserves division from Winslow, Indiana) and Allen Pursell (a local representative of The Nature Conservancy from Laconia, Indiana).  The following is Jack's report on the compromise they were able to reach:

I spent from 9:00 to 10:20 with The Trustee for Morgan Township, a representatives from DNR's Nature Preserves division and a representative of The Nature Conservancy to discussion my strenuous objections as a concerned citizen and as a descendant of one or more people buried at St. Johns Cemetery.

In September 2001, the weeds and grass in the cemetery were from 2 to 5 ft. high. Visitors could not go in to the cemetery because of what we call "Stick Tites".  DNR has been burning this cemetery since 1984, when the former township trustee handed it over to them, and they have been "managing" it since then.

Last fall, in response to my strenuous objections, Jeannie Regan-Dinius at the DNR was able to get a Moratorium in place to stop the burning.  DNR's control of this site was the result of a nearly 20-year-old oral agreement between the former township trustee and a representative of DNR.  The current trustee felt he couldn't do anything until he got something in writing from the DNR. I made it clear this is the Burial Ground of my first ancestor to Indiana (who arrived here around 1810), and that I felt it was wrong to burn the cemetery.  I also felt the State could not prove the stones were not being damaged by the burning of 2- to 5-foot-tall weeds.

At our meeting at the cemetery, we talked about the condition of the site (i.e., crooked stones, broken stones and dark gray stains on the stones).  The Trustee asked if he could mow the cemetery, perhaps after the end of the growing season (late fall).  At first they refused, but it was eventually agreed to mow it at a height of 6 inches.  I was asked if I could agree to burning the grass at 6 inches.  I told them "absolutely not" at 2- to 5-feet, but I felt I could at only 6 inches.

The Trustee asked if he could mow the cemetery this Spring, so people could get into it.  They agreed to let him do so.  But first someone had to find all fallen pieces of stone and move them. I agreed to volunteer to do that.

I have photographed the stones, measuring from the nearest stone, marking the ground with orange fluorescent paint, marking the stones with a stake in the ground, and copying all information before moving any stones, then replacing them after the mowing. I asked about the crooked (leaning) stones.  They have had no one who knew anything about doing stone repairs. I agreed to Level some when I can, using Pea Gravel with a little sand to level them. They agreed to that.  (Naturally!)  A few days later, the cemetery was mowed down to 6 inches and no burning is planned for now.  It will be mowed again around the first of November. (See "after" pictures above.)  This should give visitors access from November 1 until probably mid-May before the grass and weeks gets a little high. Before you couldn't enter at any time of the year because of the weeds and "Stick Tites".

I realized this is a compromise between people with very differing opinions on land management.  I don't feel that I won a great victory, but I honestly believe I did the best I could at this time. Burning 6-inch high grass is vastly different than 3- to 5-foot high grass and weeds, and now it will be burned only every 4 to 5 years.  Also, The big wooden sign is coming down and it will be replaced with a small white one identifying the site as "St. Johns Lutheran Cemetery".

I know many will think this was a very small victory. But what would it have been if I had kept quiet?  You be the judge!! I'm sure my Ancestor George Briles would agree this was the best possible compromise.

Jack Briles <Jb502000@aol.com>

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