The Legend of Bricktop
Location: Shelburn, Sullivan Co., Indiana
This story is as related to me by my grandfather, Walter E Thompson.
When Walter was a young boy in the early 1900’s, there was a local legend in Shelburn about the grave site of a man known as “Bricktop”. The ghost of Bricktop was known to inhabit the woods and fields along the railroad tracks south of town, where he was buried in an unmarked grave. So, along about Halloween time, it was customary for the older kids to take the younger ones on a hike down along the tracks to that haunted place, where the legend could be properly told.
The tale begins with the arrival of two strangers at the Shelburn train depot located south of the town center. One of the men was an unusually tall, red-headed man from Louisville who had accompanied the other man who owned some land out west of town. The men walked out to the property, with the purpose of selling either the land or the timber rights to the red haired man. Later that day, the dying body of the other man was discovered, badly beaten and stabbed, in the woods along the road west of town. In his dying breath, the other man identified the “brick-topped” man as the one who had robbed and accosted him. An alarm was quickly raised, the sheriff was alerted, and “Bricktop” was quickly apprehended at the depot, anxiously awaiting the next train out of town.
Bricktop was immediately arrested and he admitted his guilt, but by then the now large and unruly crowd was incited into exacting some immediate justice. The crowd transformed into a lynch mob, and the guilty man was escorted to the east end of town where he was “strung up”, hanged by the neck until he was dead.
So what do you do with the body of a no-count murderer? Such a disgraceful person did not deserve the dignity of a Christian burial in the consecrated ground of a local cemetery. None of the locals wanted him laid to rest in their proper cemeteries, which were mostly located next to a church. The Little Flock Cemetery was the closest burying grounds, and included a section for Hamilton Township burials which was separate from the cemetery for the Baptist Church located there. But, no; the locals didn’t want the murdering thief buried next to their friends and loved ones.
In the end, it was “Uncle Billy” Higdon who provided a plot, located on his farm property along the railroad right-of-way, as a burial place for Bricktop’s body. The unmarked grave is about a half mile south of town in a wooded area, next to the tracks. However, Bricktop’s grave was aligned in a north-to-south direction, parallel to the tracks, rather than the traditional alignment where the body is facing to the east on judgment day. The superstition grew that Bricktop’s ghost inhabited that area, and a tall, redheaded man was occasionally spotted by passing train engineers or passengers.
According to Walter Thompson, after the telling of the story (in an appropriately scary voice, of course), the younger children were encouraged to recite “Bricktop, Bricktop, whatcha doin’ down there?” And of course, Bricktop, he said “Nothin”.
(note: William W “Uncle Billy” Higdon was the grandfather of Walter E Thompson & of Herschel V 'Shorty' Bennett, who owned the drug store which is now home to the Sullivan County History Museum.)
Historical Background
The accounts of this legend are based upon an actual incident, as reported in the History of Greene and Sullivan Counties, State of Indiana (Ref: Chapter VII, History of the Bench and Bar Continued, by Sewell Coulson – pg. 557). These events took place around 1865, towards the end of the Civil War.
The Murder of a Stranger
“At this same term of the Circuit Court, the grand jury returned an indictment against Hayden Cuppy, William W Rogers and James T Allen, charging them with the murder of a stranger, by hanging him by the neck. The circumstances of the case were substantially these:
Shortly previous to the sitting of the grand jury, two strange men, claiming to be from Louisville, Ky., got off the cars at the town of Shelburn, and started to the country for the ostensible purpose of looking at some land one of them claimed to own, and proposed to sell to the other. They had not been long gone when one of them returned. Some time during the day, a lady and some children were attracted into a thick wood by the moans of a person, when they found the other stranger apparently in a dying condition. He had been beaten over the head with a club in a terrible manner, and had been robbed of all his money and other valuables carried upon his person. The news of the supposed murder and robbery spread rapidly, and soon there were several hundred people on the ground. That man that had returned to Shelburn was recognized as the person that had got off the train in company with the murdered man. He was promptly arrested, and admitted his crime. He was taken to the woods east of Shelburn, and, in presence of a crowd of from five to seven hundred people, was hanged. The cause (sic) was not tried till the February term, 1867, and the defendants were admitted to bail in the sum of $5,000 each.”
Title: History of Greene and Sullivan Counties, State of Indiana, published by Goodspeed Bros. (1884)
Repository: Book purchased from Sullivan County Historical Museum
by Todd J Thompson (Oct 2014)
