Bon's Chapel

Indiana · United States · Church

A headstone in Orange County, Indiana grows a chain link. The stone has been replaced more than once and the chain keeps coming back.

The burial ground at Bon's Chapel near Paoli in Orange County, Indiana holds one of the best known graves in the state.

A chain appears in the stone, and local tradition holds that it gains a link each year. The headstone has been replaced a number of times, and the chain keeps returning.

The story given for it concerns a man who went into the army and the woman who waited for him. They had meant to marry before he left, and his parents intervened.

How that ended is what the chain is understood to represent.

The geological explanation is well known: iron and other minerals in limestone weather at different rates and can produce a raised chain like pattern on a cut surface. That is almost certainly what this is. It is also why replacing the stone has never solved anything, since the replacements came from the same quarry.

FAQ

Where is Bon's Chapel located?

Bon's Chapel is in Indiana, United States.