Read time: 6 min.

It’s hard to visit a sizeable burial ground without coming across at least one mausoleum, but not all of them leave the same impression. Muncie’s Beech Grove Cemetery boasts some of the most striking and well-preserved examples in Delaware County, and that’s why the abandoned structure at Jones Cemetery has stuck with me for so long. Weathered, silent, and completely empty, it feels like a mystery waiting to be solved! Why would a memorial meant to stand for eternity be left behind? Years after I first saw it, I’m still scratching my head.

If you’re one of the thousands who take State Road 332 into Muncie, you’ve surely seen Jones Cemetery watching over the north side of the highway. The Delaware County landmark traces its roots back to 1842, when two young brothers -Isaac and Alvin Jones- were buried on their parents’ farm within a month of each other¹. No official records were kept for the next forty years until the Jones Cemetery Association was formed in 1883². 

Experts are unsure how many souls lie beneath the grass and stone at Jones Cemetery, but the recognized count stands at more than 3,400³. There are certainly more burials lost to time, but some graves, like the Neeley family obelisk, are truly remarkable! Thompson Neeley was a man of means. When he died in 1936, Neeley’s wife filed suit against his estate, which had bequeathed $200,000 to Purdue University⁴. Perhaps that’s why much of the Neeley family was buried elsewhere, and why his wife’s final resting place is fifty miles away in Kokomo⁵.

Then there’s that maddening mausoleum. I’ve tried researching it, but I’m ready to call in reinforcements: Trixie Belden, Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown, the Boxcar Children, and maybe even Laurel and Hardy for good measure! Here’s what I’ve managed to piece together on my own: the stone mausoleum dates back to 1930, as marked on the block above its entrance. It carries a certain presence, but it also looks like it’s coming apart at the seams, with mortar and stone crumbling apart. These days, it’s being used for storage, which is far from the solemn purpose I assume the building was originally meant to serve.

The only real clue to the mausoleum’s provenance is a single name, A. Felton, etched into the structure. There aren’t any birth or death dates, there isn’t a first name, and there’s no inscription explaining who A. Felton was or why a mausoleum might have been built in his name, then left unused.  

Luckily, I’m not on my own in looking into the burial ground. Among the Feltons buried at Jones Cemetery, Find a Grave helpfully highlights Adam Felton, who was born in 1878 and passed at age seventy-five in 1954⁶. Felton was a contractor and a gold card member of the Brickmasons’ Union under the American Federation of Labor⁷. One of his most notable projects, as far as I can tell, was the brickwork for a comfort station built beneath Muncie’s courthouse square- a job he was awarded in 1940⁸. Designed for public use, comfort stations were pretty much just restroom facilities tucked beneath the courthouse lawn⁹.

That’s about all I’ve been able to uncover about Adam Felton. Strangely enough, his grave lies just across the driveway from the mausoleum that appears to bear his name and was built twenty-four years before his death. So why wasn’t he interred in it? I’ve heard a few stories. The most compelling one came from someone in a local history Facebook group I’m part of. According to the story, the mausoleum wasn’t built for Adam Felton at all! Rather, it was constructed by stonemason Henry Byford Scott and his wife, Docia, after the heartbreaking loss of their only child.

Grief-stricken, the Scotts commissioned the mausoleum as a lasting tribute to their son Corwin. Unfortunately, water began to seep into the structure not long after it was built. The damage was beyond repair. Corwin’s remains were eventually relocated to a different mausoleum just to the south, where, in time, Henry and Docia were also laid to rest. The original mausoleum, once meant to hold their son, was quietly abandoned. It’s been empty ever since¹⁰.

I’ve been to the Scott mausoleum and verified Corwin’s untimely death, but I’m not sure how it lines up with Adam Felton’s involvement. Maybe he was brought in to do repair work on the failed mausoleum. Maybe he took over ownership after the Scotts gave up on it! As a brickmason, Felton might have been intrigued by the challenge of fixing what others considered a lost cause. There are hundreds of possibilities, but when Felton’s time came in 1954, he was buried under a modest stone marker instead of a monument.  

Whatever the truth is, the empty mausoleum at Jones Cemetery remains a puzzle with just enough breadcrumbs to keep me searching. A cracked vault, a chiseled name, and a tangle of overlapping histories lead to the kind of local mystery that burrows into my brain and won’t let go! 

Honestly, that’s part of what draws me to places like Jones Cemetery. Burial grounds aren’t just resting places; they’re archives in stone, full of whispers and contradictions and half-forgotten legacies. Every grave, every monument, and every empty mausoleum tells a story. Some are easy to read. Others, like this one, keep me coming back. Unfortunately, the truth about the empty mausoleum at Jones -whatever it is- still feels just out of reach.

Sources Cited
1 Harris, B. (1987, May 23). Book traces history of Jones Cemetery. The Muncie Evening Press. p. 3. 
2 (See footnote 1). 
3 Jones Cemetery Also Known as Pleasant Run Cemetery (n.d.). Find a Grave. Web. Retriebed April 11, 2025. 
4 Anderson Woman Sues for $350,000 Estate. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 12.
5 Mahala Jane “Nellie” Ray Kellar Neeley (n.d.). Find a Grave. Web. Retrieved April 11, 2025. 
6 Adam Felton (n.d.). Find a Grave. Web. Retrieved April 11, 2025. 
7 Adam Felton Dies; Retired Contract (1954, July 20). The Muncie Star. p. 2. 
8 Comfort Station Contracts Are Let (1940, October 28). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 2. 
9 Rail Company’s Offer is Revived (1940, March 5). The Muncie Star. p. 3. 
10 Dawson, M. Yorktown Indiana Historical Alliance(2024, October 7). Here’s the actual story as told to me since I was a child. My great-great uncle, Byford Scott, was  [Comment]. Facebook.