By Doug Carroll

Some say it's old James Johnston, out searching the Wabash River bottoms for anyone who crosses Stangle's Bridge by night, disturbing his slumber.

They say his habits never change. A purple head rises from the grave where they laid him 156 years ago and floats the half-mile stretch of county road to the old, one-lane plank bridge.

Accounts vary about what the purple head does on the bridge, but one thing is certain. The Revolutionary War hero shouldn't be bothered much with his head about.

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Stacy Ray says she hasn't seen the head while collecting tolls in her small trailer on the Indiana side of the bridge. She admits she hasn't looked too hard for it, either.

"People never talk about how big the head is or if it makes noise. They just come by here and tell me they've seen it. There seems to be a new tale each spring when the young people start coming out to the bridge and each one includes the purple head," Ray said.

Some believers say the spectre needs no invitation to appear. Others insist it's necessary to flash headlights on and off three times or honk the horn of a stalled car in th emiddle of the former railroad bridge.

There are reports that the head will float above the iron spans, wandering from end to end as if patrolling the 85-year-old structure.

One account has the head appearing in the rear view mirror of an unfortunate passerby, staying there until the car sped past Johnston's grave and headed toward St. Francisville.

Still others claim the purple head floats below the bridge and can be viewed through spaces in the railroad ties that now support the plank floor.

If it is old Johnlston, he's possibly trying to keep up with the changes since he was buried on his family farm in 1826. Even before cars he had to content with the rumble of trains along the line of the Carlo and Vincennes and later the Big Four.

In the late 1890s and early 1900s, the bridge was traveled at least twice a day by freight and passenger trains between St. Francisville and Vincennes.

Then the bridge was abandoned by the railroad and bought by Maurice Stangle, which gave the bridge its current name. The Stangle family turned the bridge into a toll way across the state line in the earlh 1970s after ferry service was closed, shutting off St. Francisville's only direct link with Indiana.

Haunted bridges are nothing new in Indiana. State folklorists have recorded their stories, studying similarities and variations.

The standard story has to do with ghosts of persons who died by accident or were murdered at a site. Johnston's ghost might have good reason for haunting Stangle's Bridg,e but he did not meet his end there.

Or perhaps the head is that of another.

On a December night in 1906, a Catholic priest, J.B. Hatter, fell from a Big Four train as it passed over the bridge. Hatter, pastor of the St. Francisville church, struck his head in the fall and lay all night, moaning for help.

Workmen on the morning train spotted him, and he was taken to the home of friends where he died. Before his death the priest explained that he had a few drinks in Vincennes and stepped onto the platform after he became ill. A sudden jolt led to the fatal fall.

Maybe nothing lurks in the murdy darkness of Stangle's Bridge.

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EMAIL: rking@indian.vinu.edu