Indiana's Most Storied Pioneer Burial Ground
7114 N County Road 675 W, Brazil, IN
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public cemetery access during daylight hours
Access
Limited Access
Steep hillside stone steps and uneven cemetery ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1860 · Civil War Era Burial Ground · Indiana Folklore · Pioneer Cemetery · 1892 Body-Snatching Incident
100 Steps Cemetery occupies a forested rise on the west side of North County Road 675 in unincorporated Cloverland, Clay County, Indiana, roughly halfway between Brazil and Terre Haute along the old US 40 corridor. The cemetery's formal name varies in local records — Carpenter Cemetery and Cloverland Cemetery both appear — but the steep stone staircase ascending the hill gave the burial ground its popular nickname.
The cemetery was established around the era of the American Civil War, serving the rural Cloverland community that grew along the National Road. Markers date from the 1860s onward, and the cemetery remains in occasional use. Many of the headstones belong to early Clay County pioneer families, several with Civil War service records.
In 1892, the cemetery suffered an intrusion that left a permanent imprint on local memory. Resurrectionists — the period term for body snatchers — exhumed at least one recently buried corpse, presumably for sale to a medical school. The Indiana of the late 19th century saw repeated body-snatching scandals, with medical colleges in Indianapolis and Terre Haute paying for cadavers under conditions that did not require provenance. The 1892 incident at 100 Steps was documented in local newspapers and folded into the cemetery's growing reputation as a place where the dead did not always remain undisturbed.
The stone steps themselves have been the subject of considerable confusion. Visitors counting them today typically find fewer than 100, with some accounts placing the original count closer to 60. The discrepancy has fueled the legend rather than diminished it: the number 100 in local tradition is symbolic, not literal.
Indiana State University's folklore archive holds field-collected accounts of 100 Steps Cemetery dating to the mid-20th century, suggesting the legend was firmly established in regional oral tradition by at least the 1950s. The cemetery has since become one of Indiana's most-visited folklore sites, drawing students from Indiana State, Rose-Hulman, and DePauw who arrive at Halloween to test the legend.
Sources
The 100 Steps legend follows a strict ritual structure that has remained remarkably consistent in regional folklore collections going back decades. The visitor arrives at the base of the stone staircase at midnight, ideally under a moonless sky. They ascend the steps one at a time, counting aloud. At the summit, if the count reaches exactly 100, the spectral figure of the cemetery's first undertaker appears. He shows the visitor, in a vision, the manner of their own death.
The ritual is not finished at the top. The visitor must then descend the same staircase, recounting each step. If the count differs from the ascent — if a step is missed, miscounted, or skipped — the visitor will die in the manner shown in the vision. Only a perfectly symmetrical descent breaks the curse.
Indiana State University's folklore archive contains multiple field-collected versions of this account, with minor variations: some have the visitor placing a hand on the caretaker's tombstone at the summit, others require carrying a coin to leave at the top. The core structure — count up, see vision, count down — is stable across versions.
Reported phenomena at the cemetery, drawn from regional press coverage and folklore archives, include shadow figures observed near the older markers, the sensation of being watched, and unexplained cold pockets along the staircase. Some visitors report camera and phone battery drain at the summit. None of these have been documented under controlled conditions, and the cemetery has not been the subject of academic paranormal study.
The body-snatching incident of 1892 has been absorbed into the legend cycle. Some versions hold that the caretaker's ghost appears specifically to warn visitors against disturbing the dead, a folkloric inversion of the historical violation of the cemetery by living resurrectionists.
Atlas of Indiana folklore researchers note that 100 Steps Cemetery represents a regional variant of the broader American 'cemetery ritual' folklore tradition, in which an act of counting, walking, or breath-holding at a grave summons an apparition. Similar ritualized cemetery legends exist in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky, suggesting a Midwestern folkloric corridor along the old National Road.
Notable Entities
Walk the stone steps climbing the hillside to the burial ground established around the Civil War era. Markers date primarily from the 1860s through the early 20th century, with the cemetery still in occasional use. Local tradition holds that counting the steps at midnight summons the spirit of the first caretaker; daytime visitors find a quiet rural pioneer cemetery on a wooded ridge.
View the hilltop cemetery from County Road 675 West. The cemetery faces west on a rise overlooking the road, with the stone staircase visible from the shoulder.
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