This old cemetery is located on Caney Road, about a mile east of Henryville near the intersection of the Brownstown Road with Highway 160, just behind Guthrie's Building Supply. Only a handful of stones remain today and they have been moved from their original location to a spot less than ten feet from the roadway on Caney Road. All of the surviving stones have been embedded on the earth, face-up on the ground at this location.

On October 26, 1997, Jeanne Burke and I visited the site. I took these pictures shown here. We had to move the fallen leaves to expose the stones shown here.

Jeanne and I believe a historic marker is in order for Collings Cemetery. She did some deed work this week and found that this area was a small settlement called "Bridgeport" (also "Bridgeton") in Grant 240. Zebulon and Sarah Collings sold this land where the cemetery is in 1849 to Salmon Sturdivant and Nathan Osborn, excepting a 30 square foot area "for a burying ground where there is of the dead now buried". When Louis Bauer sold to James D. Guthrie in 1953, the graveyard was excepted from the deed (". . . except 60 square feet for graveyard purposes") [apparently it had doubled in size by 1953]. The Bridgeton Presbyterian Church and a district school were nearby.

The original name of the cemetery is unknown, but it was on land that once belonged to ZEBULON COLLINGS, who ran a tavern at his relay station on the Charlestown-Brownstown Road (now Highway 160). It was here that many of the survivors of the Pigeon Roost Massacre took refuge from their attackers 1812.

Near this tavern and across the road was a stockade where a small garrison of soldiers was stationed.

There were in 1994 only a few half-buried stones to mark the site of what may once have been a sizeable cemetery. There is no reason to believe that there are not many, many more burials here than shown in the following index, which was abstracted by Jeanne Burke in 1994:

BECKETT         Son of L. & N. Beckett  b. 02/26/18__?  d. 12/18/1861



COLLINGS        James Zebulon Collings,

                son of Charity and

                George Collings; age

                1 yr, 2 mos.            b. 1848         d. 09/20?/1849



McCOMB          Mary, wife of Andrew

                Y. McComb               b. 12/17/1802   d. 03/20/1838



McCOMB          Nancy, daughter of

                A. & Y. McComb          b. 03/06?/1837  d. 11/15/1859



McCOMB          Willie A., son of Wm.

                & Lina McComb           b. ????         d. 03/??/????



PARKER          Lorenzo Parker, son 

                of L. D. & J. Parker    b. 09/22/1843   d. 06/06/1843

                  (Burritt Guernsey's

                  journal notes on 25

                  June 1843:  "Jane

                  Parker's child

                  buried this day"

                  and on 15 March 1843:

                  "Lorenzo Dow Parker

                  died")



PARKER          Lorenzo D. Parker; age

                  28 years (see note

                  above)                b. ????         d. 03/13/1843

SMITH           Sidney, wife of Thomas

                Smith; age 44           b. ????         d. 12/18/1861

SMITH           T. H., son of T. & S.   b. 07/20/1863   d. 08/19/1868

Sidney Smith's stone Oct. 26, 1997	T. H. Smith's stone Oct. 26, 1997

I have no further information on this cemetery. This index was obtained from the Jeffersonville Township Public Library, 211 East Court Avenue, Jeffersonville, Indiana 47130, telephone: (812) 285-5635.