When I was a kid, someone gave me a couple of those Haunted Indiana books packed with tall tales and creepy folklore. One story was about Batson Cemetery, a lonely plot tucked away in rural Wells County. Aside from the ragged old man who was purported to kill you if you lingered too long, the detail that stuck with me the most was the part about the steps. Supposedly, you’d count thirteen on your way up to the cemetery, but only twelve on your way back down. Armed with nothing but that eerie memory and a full tank of gas, I decided to see Batson Cemetery for myself.
I’ve never been completely sold on the paranormal since my own experience has taught me to be a little more grounded. Take Blood Road near Dunkirk, for instance, which is supposedly stained by a tragic, ghostly past. In reality, it’s just streaks of paint if you can spot them at all. Then there’s Crybaby Bridge. Actually, it’s Crybaby Bridges, plural, because Indiana has about a dozen of them. Closer to home, the infamous Witches Circle is just a sad, old cemetery trashed by teenagers.
I’m not convinced any of these places is actually haunted, but they’re certainly creepy at night. Everywhere is! When it comes to Batson Cemetery, though, think of all the spine-tingling phenomena malevolent entities could throw our way if they really wanted to. Personally, I’d expect nothing less than disembodied voices or shadowy figures. Instead, we’re supposed to be terrified because a step goes missing on our way back to the car? I chalk it up to uneven ground and faulty mental math.
At any rate, I called up my Mom and we hopped in the car to investigate the place for ourselves. I explained everything I’d heard about Batson, which I’ve summarized below:
- “There are unmarked graves, all dating before 1960, before circa1780! [sic]1.”
- “You will count 13 as you make your way in and come up with 12 as you count going back2.”
- “One of the graves is said to glow at night3.”
- “There have been people that reported seeing a ragged old man in the cemetery at night. He is reputed to be the caretaker of a school for the blind that was demolished long ago4.”
All of those bizarre tidbits came from a single source- a guy on an Indiana ghost hunter forum seventeen years ago. They didn’t strike me as reliable, but the sum was enough to spark our curiosity. Mom and I drove about forty-five minutes north, turned off State Road 3 at Willow Road, and followed the river. Just southeast, Batson Cemetery sits perched on a bluff high above the Salamonie.
Our first order of business was to check out the thirteen so-called “unmarked graves.” I had a hunch they weren’t graves at all, but rather uneven rows of convex stone laid out in a rough corduroy pattern leading up to the cemetery proper. Apparently, they were installed to keep horse-drawn hearses in place as they parked on the hill5. Mom took the lead and counted twelve. I followed behind, paced it out, and came up with thirteen. The mystery deepened- either someone miscounted, or the stones were playing tricks on us.
From there, we wandered through the rest of the cemetery. Signs mounted to the fence claimed the burial ground was established in 1855, but that didn’t quite line up with what we found. The oldest stone I spotted belonged to four-month-old Andrew Jackson Batson, who died in 1840. The most recent was for William Andrew Sills, who passed away in 1957 at eighty-two. All four hundred or so burials rest on land that once belonged to Henry Batson. In the early 1920s, his daughter donated the riverside property to a newly formed cemetery association6. Thanks to her, the site remains more than just a patch of overgrown ground.
It had only taken three minutes of exploration to cast serious doubt on the claim that Batson Cemetery predated the Revolutionary War. In fact, the oldest cemetery in Indiana -Greenlawn in Vincennes- was founded in 17887. I can’t imagine a remote cemetery two hundred miles north being established any earlier!
I couldn’t put the glowing grave rumors to rest since daylight tends to ruin those reveals, but I could take a swing at debunking the existence of a mysterious “school for the blind.” As Mom and I wandered the grounds, we noticed several low brick and stone outlines scattered throughout the cemetery. Most looked like they framed family plots, but one stood out: a faint foundation with a stone pad and what looked like the remnants of an entryway. It was intriguing, but far too small to have ever been a schoolhouse. Whatever it was, its story seems to have been lost to time.
Of course, the absence of a schoolhouse inside the cemetery doesn’t mean there weren’t any nearby. Old maps from 1881, 1901, and 1905 indicate that Jackson Township’s District 1 and 5 schools once stood relatively close8! Still, neither was located within the cemetery’s bounds or immediately adjacent to it. If anyone remembers an old schoolhouse near Batson Cemetery, they’re not completely off base. Unfortunately, it wasn’t tucked among the tombstones.
After our entry steps kerfuffle, Mom and I kept poking around, letting our eyes land on whatever caught our interest. The most striking grave we found belonged to William Henry and Mary Foust Wolfgang, who passed away in 1901 and 1912. Their tombstone, towering at five or six feet tall, looked like a cairn built from stacked logs. It wasn’t quite a classic Woodmen of the World marker, but maybe it was a local variation or an offshoot. Either way, it stood out from its neighbors.
The saddest grave we came across was a slender metal marker tucked just behind an enormous old tree. It belonged to “Infant Daughter Leonard.” The inscription on the White Bronze monument was heartbreaking: “Dearest Babe, thou hast left us, here thy loss we deeply feel. But it is God that hath taught us. He can our sorrows heal.” The tiny monument stopped me in my tracks. It was small, broken, and heavy with the ache of grief that still lingers.
Once it was time to leave, Mom and I had to settle the mystery of the haunted steps once and for all. Mom went first again, counting slowly and carefully, and found fourteen. I followed right behind and came up with twelve. We tried again. Then again. At one point, we walked them side by side, counting aloud in sync! Still, we had no agreement. Every time, we got a different number!
Eventually, we settled on a shaky consensus: thirteen steps led into Batson Cemetery, but heading out was a different story. The number shifted with every pass, like the steps themselves refused to be pinned down. Whether it was an optical illusion, uneven spacing, or something stranger, the steps weren’t giving up their secrets. If all it takes to call a cemetery haunted is a few miscounted stones, then this one’s earned its ghost story.
Haunted or not, Batson Cemetery still casts a spell- just not the kind born of ghosts or glowing gravestones. Its quiet bluff, fading markers, and disappearing steps offer a window into a past that’s far more compelling than any phantom caretaker. Still, I wish the biggest threats to places like this were just tall tales. Vandals have done more damage than any spirit ever could, knocking over stones, defacing markers, and stealing peace from families long at rest. If anything haunts Batson Cemetery, it’s the way we sometimes treat the history we’ve been handed. That, more than any disappearing step or stone, is the part that lingers.
Sources Cited
1 User: IN Ghostdude (2008, April 7). Location Name: Batson Cemetery/Thirteen Graves/ Indiana Ghost Hunters. Web. Retrieved June 14, 2025.
2 (See footnote 1).
3 (See footnote 1).
4 (See footnote 1).
5 User: Local Lady (2024, September 28). Location Name: Batson Cemetery/Thirteen Graves/ Indiana Ghost Hunters. Web. Retrieved June 14, 2025.
6 Batson Cemetery, Wells County, Indiana (n.d.). The Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. Web. Retrieved June 14, 2025.
7 Vincennes City Cemetery (n.d.) Knox County Public Library [Vincennes]. Web. Retriebed June 14, 2025.
8 Kibele, C. (1890). Evening News and Chronicle, map of Wells County, Indiana [Bluffton]. Map.
That’s wild about the steps!
I thought that one would be easy to debunk. Nope!