Howard County Burial Ground of the Hell Hounds
Jerome, IN
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to visit as a public cemetery.
Access
Limited Access
Grass and gravel, uneven ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Howard County was organized in 1844, and the surrounding agricultural communities developed over the following decades as settlers established farms across the flat terrain of north-central Indiana. Jerome is an unincorporated community in Howard Township, small enough that its cemetery represents one of its most noted features.
Jerome Cemetery itself predates the region's paranormal reputation by well over a century. The burial ground follows the typical pattern of small Indiana pioneer cemeteries — established to serve a local farming community, maintained across multiple generations, and gradually accumulating the folklore that attaches to isolated rural burial grounds.
One of the two main legends attached to the site may have an origin in documented animal behavior. The story holds that a dog laid beside its owner's grave until the animal itself died — a loyalty narrative of the type occasionally documented in American newspapers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Whether this specific event is recorded in Howard County history hasn't been confirmed through available public sources.
Sources
Jerome Cemetery's paranormal tradition divides cleanly into two strands. The first involves a phantom dog — described with enough consistency across multiple accounts to qualify as the cemetery's signature phenomenon. The entity is characterized by its glowing eyes and the experience of pursuit: multiple visitors report being chased from the grounds at speed after encountering it after dark. Whether the animal has a form visible enough to identify as canine, or whether the accounts are primarily sensory (sounds of pursuit, glowing lights), varies across individual reports.
The second strand is architectural and ritual in nature. The cemetery's driveway is described as shaped like the numeral 6. Driving around the complete circuit three times creates — in the legend's logic — the number 666, which is said to summon or activate the site's spirits. This type of numeric ritual legend is common to American cemetery folklore and represents a genre unto itself: the site-specific activation ritual that gives visitors a sense of agency over the paranormal encounter.
A separate, quieter account suggests the phantom dog may have begun as something more sorrowful than menacing — a living animal that haunted its owner's grave until it too died there. The glowing-eyed pursuer of contemporary accounts would be a significant evolution from that origin, if the connection is authentic.
Jerome Cemetery appears in Kokomo-area paranormal writing and regional Indiana ghost-lore collections. No formal investigations with published findings have been located.
Notable Entities
Walk the grounds of Jerome Cemetery in Howard Township, roughly an hour north of Indianapolis. The driveway configuration — reportedly curved in a shape resembling a 6 — is part of the legend. Visitors after dark have reported being chased from the grounds by a phantom dog with glowing eyes. Use a flashlight after sunset.
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