Boone-Hutcheson Cemetery

Set on a high hilltop overlooking Big Walnut Creek and the picturesque Houck Covered Bridge, Boone-Hutcheson Cemetery occupies one of the most striking pieces of ground in Putnam County, Indiana. The view stretches across open farmland in every direction—soybean fields, cornrows, and the kind of rolling central Indiana terrain that looks peaceful enough in daylight but takes on a different character entirely after dark. The cemetery was established in 1812, a full nine years before Putnam County itself was officially founded, making it one of the oldest burial grounds in the region and a direct artifact of the earliest American settlement in what was then unbroken wilderness.

The names on the stones tell the story of who came first. Susan Boone Rissler, buried here, was the great-niece of Daniel Boone. Three children of Squire Boone—Daniel's brother—are also interred on the grounds. A monument to Phoebe Rissler Boone, Squire's wife, stands in the cemetery as well, though some records suggest the stone was erected by the family when she and Squire left Putnam County for Iowa in 1852, and debate persists over whether she is actually buried beneath it. The Hutcheson family arrived soon after—Dr. Walter Hutcheson reached the area in 1827, and his descendants have maintained a presence ever since. Civil War veterans, War of 1812 soldiers, and pioneer families fill the rows, their stones dating back to the 1820s and forward through the present day.

But it is the landscape beneath the cemetery, as much as the one above it, that has given Boone-Hutcheson its particular hold on local imagination. A cave opening sits on or near the grounds, and the lore surrounding it has been accumulating for nearly two centuries. Legend holds that this cave connects to Sellers Cave near the DePauw University campus in Greencastle, roughly five miles northeast, through a tunnel system running beneath much of the town. One persistent story claims enslaved people escaping via the Underground Railroad used the passages, and that some who entered never emerged—their remains occasionally surfacing in macabre fashion. Another tale links the cave to John Dillinger's escape after his Greencastle robbery, though records confirm he left by automobile. Geologists have been considerably less impressed. The president of the Indiana University Caving Club has stated that caves in the Greencastle area are very small due to thin limestone, and that a five-mile underground passage is unlikely in the extreme. Visitors who have entered the opening confirm it is barely large enough to crawl into.

None of that has done much to quiet the paranormal reports. The most distinctive claim involves a spectral police officer from the 1950s who sits inside the cemetery accompanied by a floating blue light. Multiple witnesses over multiple decades have described this figure independently. One longtime Greencastle resident recalled seeing the blue lantern drifting across the grounds as a teenager. Another visitor described finding an older-model police cruiser parked at the hilltop in broad daylight, the officer waving from the driver's seat—a vehicle consistent with no currently active patrol car. Others have reported seeing a car driving up the narrow road toward the cemetery only for it to vanish before arriving, with no turnoff that could explain its disappearance.

Then there are the dogs. Phantom canines with glowing red eyes are among the most frequently reported phenomena here, and the accounts carry unusual consistency. Visitors describe aggressive growling directly outside car doors without any visible animal. Others have seen a black dog with red eyes running alongside their vehicle as they fled. The sounds are described as unlike anything recognizable—a moaning that grows louder and closer without resolving into a visible source. A woman in white has been spotted on the road leading to the cemetery. Investigators using spirit boxes report responsive communication and repeated warnings to stay away from the surrounding woods. The persistent sensation of being watched and the sound of footsteps mirroring a visitor's movement from the opposite side of the gravel loop appear in account after account.

Skeptics can fairly point to the power of atmosphere—a hilltop cemetery at night, surrounded by open farmland and backed by woods, with a cave and generations of legend practically demanding a fear response. Real cows graze the adjacent field and have startled more than one visitor who mistook them for something worse. But the blue light reports predate the internet. The dog encounters come from people who arrived expecting to debunk them. And the cemetery itself, with two centuries of burials rooted in the earliest days of Indiana statehood, carries a weight that has nothing to do with legend.

Boone-Hutcheson remains active, maintained through donations with no government funding. The covered bridge is visible from the hilltop. The Boone family section sits near the front. Whether you come for genealogy, the view, or the things that move between headstones after dark, the cemetery asks only that you respect the ground—because the people beneath it have been there a very long time.