Tarzan and Jane final resting place

Original 1927 movie poster

Several actors and actresses played the parts of Tarzan and Jane while bringing Edgar Rice Burroughs’ many novels to the big screen. One of those actors was a man named James H. Pierce. He was discovered by Burroughs himself at a party at the Tarzana Ranch and was hired to play the jungle hero in the 1927 film Tarzan and the Golden Lion.

The next year Jim Pierce married Edgar Rice Burroughs’ daughter Joan. The happy couple starred as the voices of Tarzan and Jane for the Tarzan radio show from 1932 to 1936.

“Tarzan”

“Jane”

 

 

 

 

 

Jim pierce was originally from Shelbyville, Indiana. He and wife Joan and other relatives are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Shelbyville. Their family plot is similar to many in the cemetery. However, only on Jim and Joan’s gravestones will you find the names “Tarzan” and “Jane”.

May they Rest In Peace

Haunted Hays Cemetery

East of Indianapolis in central Indiana is the small town of Wilkinson. In early days you could leave the town on Main Street and follow it to a cemetery that is basically out in the middle of nowhere. The Main Street Cemetery, also known as the Hays Cemetery, has over the years developed the reputation of being haunted. It is at the end of a rather rough gravel road and the road climbs a small rise and cuts across the center of the cemetery. Put Hays Cemetery in Google maps and you’ll get directions to the beginning of the gravel road.

The video shows that the Hays Cemetery is a neatly kept and open cemetery. There is plenty of room between the headstones. Several of the headstones list the names of Hays family members. Unfortunately lots of the stones have suffered from decades of weathering, making them very hard to read.

One of the Hays family who died in 1872

Sad marker for a sweet young girl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now to the haunting stuff. Several sources on the internet refer to the “fact” that this is a very haunted cemetery. One of the paranormal things has been the discussion of a ‘devil child’. There is supposed to be a pitch-fork shaped tree growing from the child’s grave. There are reports that local kids used to go out at night and try to call ghosts. We also saw one reference to some man hanging his wife from a tree and shooting her as well, thus spawning another ghostly presence.

Based on location, this might be the “Devil Child”

Ghostly wise, we didn’t see anything. We didn’t hear anything. We didn’t sense anything. We thought that this was a beautiful, peaceful and quiet resting place for many centuries gone Indiana early pioneers.