The flowing well at Harlan Cemetery is a relatively new discovery for me. I didn’t stumble across it until 2023! I was passing through Charlottesville late last month when I suddenly remembered it and couldn’t resist making a quick detour. Unlike some wells that sputter or slow with time, this one still gushes steadily from its sharp-angled pipe. As much as I love the well itself, I was just as eager to wander the quiet graveyard it’s named for.
The Harlan Cemetery well doesn’t flow far from the Vandyne well I wrote about last month. To get there, take County Road 1100 east to North County Road 1000-East and make a right to head south. Drive two miles and you’ll come across Harlan Cemetery. The well is on your left, about midway between County Road 900-North and the cemetery entrance.
Harlan Cemetery sits on what was once the farm of Stephen Harlan, an early settler who built a mill nearby on Sugar Creek1. Harlan entered the area in 1834 and soon set aside five acres of his land to be used as a community burial ground. Legend has it that the cemetery’s bounds were drawn to include the grave of a child who had wandered from home and was found frozen on the banks of Sugar Creek2. I found a bank of elderly limestone markers looking down towards the flowing well from a hill, but I didn’t spot the child’s.
Around 1834, settlers established the Concord Baptist Church -better known as the Harlan Church- nearby3. The congregation eventually replaced their log chapel with a frame building that still stands -partially restored- at Harlan Cemetery4. It’s impossible to miss as you walk the grounds and see the graves of Adams’, Armstrongs, Beavers, Bolens, Bridges, and other families.
I love pioneer cemeteries, but I was mostly at Harlan for the flowing well. It sits about eight feet lower than the cemetery ridge and about ten feet lower than the surrounding farmland. Those are prime conditions for it to flow on its own! The water comes from a curved pipe connected to what I gather was the original well casing, and it flows into a tiny pool surrounded by boulders and bricks. I don’t know if the water drains into the pond across the road or not, but it ultimately reaches Sugar Creek.
Something is grounding about standing at a place like the Harlan Cemetery well. The steady sound of flowing water, the hush of the surrounding graves, and the history beneath your feet all combine into something deeply calming. In some abstract way, it’s a reminder that the past is still moving beneath the surface.
Sources Cited
1 Richman, G. J. (1916). History of Hancock County, Indiana. William Mitchell Printing Company [Greenfield]. Book.
2 Martin, N.J. (2006, September 14). Harlan Cemetery in Brown Township, Indiana. Find a Grave. Web. Retrieved July 29, 2025.
3 Union Meeting at Concord Church (1906, September 6). The Hancock Democrat. p. 6.
4 (See footnote 2)
I have found it surprising how much I like these posts on old cemeteries.
I’m glad you said something, I’d been getting a little burned out on them. I’ll keep going out and scheduling them!