Some flowing wells sit right out in the open, bubbling away on public easements and practically begging to be noticed. Others keep to themselves, tucked deep off the road and known to a lucky few. One of those hidden gems lies along the banks of Brandywine Creek in rural Hancock County. I never would’ve found it if not for Fred Schrope.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than two years since Fred first emailed me out of the blue. He ended that message with a curious teaser: “I’ll soon write back about a flowing gas well I’m familiar with that you don’t know about.” Intrigued? You bet I was! That one mysterious well turned into two, and tracking down what we came to call the Danforth and Garretson wells soon became an adventure of its own. Not long after, Fred reached out again with news of a third.
The announcement that Fred had found a third well came a while back, but he and I have kept in touch ever since. He’s become a great friend to this blog and an even better friend in real life. Still, it took some time for our paths to cross again. It finally happened yesterday, when we set out on a new adventure together: finding the Braddock well. With permission in hand, we met up at the grain elevator in Willow Branch. The well sits about two and a half miles southwest as the crow flies, but county roads have a way of turning that distance into a longer, twistier drive.
The intersection of a pair of rural roads seemed the right place to pull off for the well, but we passed it and circled back just to be sure. Once confirmed, we headed north along a long, grassy drive towards a pair of metal barns and old farming equipment. From there, the trip got dicey as we drove through a field in our hardy GMC pickup. It wasn’t as dramatic as taking a Gator down a sixty-foot bank towards the White River as we had last time, but off-roading a little was still plenty fun.
Fred and I weaved around trenches and dodged deep ruts as we hugged the south bank of Brandywine Creek. The truck jolted with every dip and bump. Fred swore we were close, but for a moment, I wasn’t so sure. Then, together at once, we both spotted it: the well stood half-hidden near a bend in the creek.
The artesian well sat there spraying water out without a marker or sign, just quietly doing its thing like it has for more than a century. Even though we’d purposely sought it out, locating the old flowing well felt like stumbling onto a secret that waited for someone to find it again. That feeling never gets old!
Fred and I hopped out of the truck and cupped our hands to take long, cold drinks. The water was crisp and fresh with that unmistakable hardness that comes from flowing straight out of the earth. We lingered there for a while, swapping stories as the creek burbled nearby and the well kept on flowing like it always had. Eventually, it became time to head back to civilization, but part of me stayed behind. Even as we bumped our way back down the field, I couldn’t stop thinking about that hidden corner of Hancock County. It was hushed and untouched, but alive.
Back in Willow Branch, Fred asked if what we’d visited had started as a gas well. With its metal casing jutting from the ground and newer PVC fittings guiding the flow, it sure looked the part. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say for certain. Curiosity got the better of me as soon as I got home, though, and I found that the well we’d just drank from had indeed been drilled for gas. The operation dated back to a lessee named Henry Braddock1, who controlled about 200 acres in the area around the turn of the twentieth century2.
Back in Henry Braddock’s day, wells like his lit lamps, powered machinery, and fueled visions of progress. No one could have guessed that more than a century later, his old well would still be flowing with water instead. There’s no roar of gas or hiss of flame today, but what’s left is something simple: a bubbling stream that still speaks to Indiana’s restless past.
Hancock County’s old Braddock well is an important reminder of a bygone era, but it’s extra important to me since it was the forty-fifth flowing well I’ve been to! Unfortunately, it was the last flowing well Fred Schrope had up his sleeve. It’ll be a great day when I can share a new artesian well with him in return! I can’t wait for our next adventure.
Sources Cited
1 Well Events For IGWS ID: 139467 (2025). Well Record tables. The Indiana Geological & Water Survey. Indiana University. Web. Retrieved July 6, 2025
2 Monger, O.H. (1906) Atlas of Hancock County, Indiana, U.S.A. The William Mitchell Printing Co. [Greenfield]. Map.
