Ohio

Marion Cemetery

Mercant Ball

For more than 100 years, a 5,200 pound ball of polished black granite has been slowly rotating on a pedestal in the Marion Cemetery. This mystery was featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not' in 1929.

The mysterious occurrence, which is apparently quite real, is the very gradual (but very regular) revolution of the ball on its base. Its movement can be tracked by the location of the rough spot which was originally at the bottom of the ball. Some say this is due to the expansion and contraction of freezing water that collects in the dip beneath the ball over time, but others say it's a restless spirit.

Harding Home

The people working the shift on the same date and time as President Harding died, the antique clock will stop and for a while and re-start, also, in his "office" on top of a tall wooden chest with glass doors sets a model ship....the sails move back and forward. Warren G. Harding launched himself into the White house in 1920 with his famous "front porch" campaign, which he conducted from his Victorian home in Marion, Ohio.

The restored house was built in 1891 and contains almost all original furnishings owned by President Harding and his wife Florence. Adjacent to the Harding Home is a press house used during the 1920 campaign which now serves as a museum dedicated to President and Mrs. Harding's lives.

Florence Kling-deWolfe-Harding grew up the daughter of Amos Kling a rich businessman who really wanted a boy but accepted a girl born in 1860. She may have been a daughter but he treated her like a son. He had to deal with her strong will for he also had a strong will and she grew up with a self-reliance unheard of in that time.

Against her father wishes, she ran of with Henry deWolfe a former neighbor and two years older than she. He was a drunk who deserted her after the birth of their son. She returned to Marion but not to her father's house. She was too proud. She rented rooms and earned a living teaching piano lessons. She divorced her husband in 1886. He died at age 35 years old.

Warren G. Harding arrived in Marion when a young boy and worked a the newspaper and finally purchased the Daily Star. He met Florence and they married, over the opposition of her father in 1891. The wedding took place in Hardings house where they lived until they both died. She was very superstitious and demanded they be married before the half hour believing that any action taken on the upswing of the clock would bring negative results. This is the same clock that points to the haunting of the Harding house. Other than Florence's son, there were no further children. He migrated toward politics and Florence took over the newspaper. He became Republican nominee for President in 1920 and she, "the Duchess," (his pet name for her)worked hard on his campaign.

They moved into the White House and it was Florence who opened it to the public. She traveled with him when her health allowed it. On other occasions he traveled with an alleged mistress who bore him a daugher. On August 2, 1923, President Warren Harding passed away at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. He was 57 years old.

The offical cause of death was listed as a heart attack. Mrs. Harding ordered that no autopsy be performed, and the President was hastily taken back to Washington to lay in state in the East Room of the White House. Almost immediately, rumors began to surface that the President was posioned. Many suggested that his wife had grown tired of his affairs. Other whispers supported the idea of a mafia-backed hit organized by members of Harding's own cabinet, many of whom stood to lose everything should the President make good on his promise to clean up the corruption within his government.

She accompanied his body to Washington for a state funeral at the Capitol and then back to Marion for burial. . She died in Marion on November 21, 1924, surviving Warren Harding by little more than a year of illness and sorrow.




In August, 1923, the President's body was placed in a receiving vault in Marion Cemetery while a permanent tomb was erected nearby. When his wife passed away in on November 21, 1924, she was laid to rest next to her husband in the temporary vault.

A shadowy figure has been seen standing in this entrance to the vault

Harding's apparition has been seen standing on these steps.

In June, 1927, both bodies were moved to the newly completed Harding Memorial. Dedicated by President Herbert Hoover in 1931, the Harding Memorial would be one of the largest tombs constructed on American soil. Standing over 50 feet high with a diameter of 103 feet, the Harding Memorial cost nearly $800,000 dollars to complete.

Not surprisingly, the ghost of President Harding is said to haunt both his memorial and his former receiving vault. The memorial, which is the current home of Harding's body, lies across the street from the cemetery that houses the old vault. Witnesses have reported odd sounds and cold spots at both locations. The apparition of President Harding has been seen standing on the steps of his tomb. A shadowy, dark figure has been reported standing in the entrance way to the receiving vault, as has the unexplained smell of a strong perfume.

Liberty Settlement

European settlers built this settlement in 1800 on the Olentangy River before Ohio was a state. The former inhabitant were savage Indians.

In 1804 they built the first combination sawmill and gristmill along what was then called the Whetstone river. The area grew up fast and by 1832 they got a post office and called their village Carpenter's Mill. The village kept thier post office until 1837

Many of Ohio's least remembered ghost towns were little more than a single post office surrounded by a handful of locals, often in operation for less than a year. The post office at Carpenter's Mill remained until 1837.

James and Peter Bieber added a gristmill in 1843 who replaced an old wood building with a sturdry stone structure which housed both a sawmill and a gristmill along with other in other communities. They get rich and moved to Marion, Ohio.

The Bieber family plot lies in Vesper Grove, Lot 19 of Marion Cemetery,

The sketal remains are seen from SR 315 across the Olentangy River, South of where the 315 goes into SR 23. Bieber's Mill is only accessible by crossing the river on 23 and doubling back on Chapman Road, the smaller road which follows the eastern bank of the river.

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