Fouts Cemetery on 8/22/98 (before cleanup by inmates)

Fouts Cemetery on 8/22/98 (after Fall 2000 cleanup by County Jail inmates,  courtesy of the County Sheriff and many hours of work by LuAnne Stahly)

This cemetery is located just west of Highway 62 on Frank Fischer Road, which is about a half-mile or so northeast of the community of New Washington.  It is located near the center of the Northwest 1/4 of Section 29 of Washington Township.  (Click here for a topographical map of Fouts Cemetery, courtesy of Topozone.com.)

From the center of New Washington, take Highway 62 north about 1 mile.  Turn LEFT onto Frank Fisher Road.  Proceed about 1 mile, past the junction with Northern Road and across a small creek.  The entrance to the cemetery is a gravel lane on the right, leading up to the top of a hill.  There you will find Fouts Cemetery.

Fouts Cemetery has been in desperate need of attention for a number of years.  Last fall, a crew of inmates from the Clark County Jail spent a week working at Fouts Cemetery.  Their assistance has been invaluable.  Since that time, a band of volunteers led by Barbara Robison Lee (nklee@jayco.net), Luanne Stahly (lpstahly@thepoint.net) and Patty Fouts Jackson has been trying to finish cleaning the site and to attempt to restore it.

The cemetery looks so much better now (2002).  These volunteers have installed a fence and gate across the front of the cemetery.  A cousin of Barbara Lee brought in a little tractor with a scoop and digger and took out all the big stumps and smoothed off a lot of the big mounds of dirts.  Barbara has taken pictures of all the stones and has one copy with another on file at the New Washington library.

They have talked to cemetery restorers John and Micki Walters of Connersville about coming down in the Spring of 2002 and doing about $1000 worth of work on the stones.  They have not yet set a definite date for this work.

The people known to be buried here are from the following families:

 

Arbuckle Blackford Bower Brisben Bronner Cain Copple Davis Fisher Fitch

Fouts Galispie Garley Giles Giltner Goforth Graham Graves Henderson Henley Horner

Hutsel Kantz Kenny Kistler Manaugh Montgomery  Payne Paterson Phillipy Rae Ratts

Renley Robinett Robison Rodgers Smith Summers Taff Taflinger Tolbert Warner Younce or Younge

Barbara Lee has contributed to www.FindAGrave.com the names and dates for all of the stones found thus far at Fouts Cemetery.  Click on the FindAGrave link above to view that list.

Other names will be added when located.  There is at least one Civil War casualty from the Battle of Perryville, KY.

For additional information please contact:

• Barbara Robison Lee (765-857-2676 or nklee@jayco.net)
• Luanne Stahly (812-293-4533 or lpstahly@thepoint.net)
• Patty Fouts Jackson at (812-293-4170).

"Fout's grave-yards, now known as the Barnes burying-grounds, on the forks of Fourteen-mile creek, were used by the settlers fifty or sixty years ago. Squire Jacob Fouts, who lived near the East fork of Fourteen-mile Creek, had at first a private burying place. It was afterwards used by the neighbors and came to be regarded as public property. The other, laid out by a relative of Mr. Fouts, perhaps a brother, was situated on the West fork of Fourteen-mile creek. Both sustained about the same relation to the public. They are now among those things of bygone days which in history must ever be regarded with affection, and which are reminders that we must all pass away."

There was another firepit on top of another group of graves near the bonfire remains. The weeds were nearly waist high in late Spring. There were huge depressions or sinkholes, one big enough to park a small automobile.

Many, many stones had been toppled; many more were broken; some stacked in piles, other arranged in a pattern around the smaller firepit.

I visited Fouts Cemetery again in June 1997 and found that a little more than half of the site had been mowed. I do not know if the mowing was completed or if it has been mowed again in 1997.

1998 UPDATE FROM LOIS:  I stopped by Fouts Cemetery on August 22, 1998.  It remains in terrible condition.  The site has obviously not been mowed this year; the weeds are no less than 3 feet high.  It was all so very sad!  I admit I'm a bit of a chicken and, daunted by the high weeds sheltering who knows what manner of slithery creature, I did not venture past the first stone in the cemetery.

In the photo at left, the dark object on the left is the uprooted base of a tree, toppled in a tornado which passed this way many years ago.

Suffice it to say that Fouts Cemetery needed a LOT of attention. This is a large cemetery, with approximately 200 known burials.

Note from Barbara Lee, Oct 1, 2005

“We live in Randolph County but have traveled to Fouts/Robison Cemetery many times through recent years to work on the cemetery. We did have John Walters do some of the restoration work. The rest of it has been done by Luann Stahley and by myself and my husband Norman Lee. We (the Robison family) have paid for a fence across the front of the cemetery, $1000.00 worth of restoration work by John Walters, a sign designating that this is the Fouts Cemetery (est. in 1812), and much more. Luann has been doing most of the mowing this summer since I have health problems that have keep me from making the trip. There are many other graves there (in the cemetery) marked by creek stones that have no name on them. Barbara Marsh has done hours and hours of research on this cemetery. She has found obituaries and death certificates for some people buried there in graves with no name on the creek stones. We still have a long way to go, but the cemetery looks so much better that it did. We have received no monies from the trustee for this project. Sure wish there was some available money.”

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