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Ohio Drivers Continue Civil War Carnage

April 12, 2009

John Grate lived to be 103. His eternal memorial only lived to be 59.

Grate was Ohio’s last living Civil War veteran. He died in 1949 in the town of Atwater, was buried in the local cemetery, and had a six-foot-tall marble monument erected in his memory. It was destroyed in March of this year, when an uninsured driver crashed into it.

Two weeks later, in the neighboring town of Deerfield, a 15-foot-tall Civil War monument was pulverized into “a broken heap of stone and concrete rubble” by a pickup truck, according to the Ravenna Record-Courier. The truck “went through a stop sign … drove over the curb … and traveled an additional 40 feet before smashing into the historical marker, leaving it in ruins.”

According to the story, this was the third Deerfield Civil War monument to be destroyed on this identical spot. The first went down in 1975 “after it had been struck several times by vehicles.” The second was obliterated in 2002. It was on borrowed time anyway, as a gazebo next to the monument had been destroyed in 1998 “when a truck drove into it after its driver suffered a fatal heart attack.”

We don’t know if this is a Civil War curse in action, or if it’s just really dangerous to be near roads in Ohio. Other lasting tributes such as the Rocket Booster Memorial and the Yellow Fever Steamer Monument seem to have survived in the Buckeye State unscathed… so, okay. It’s a curse.

Sections: Attraction News 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Ohio Drivers Continue Civil War Carnage”

1. Susie K Says:
   April 15th, 2009 at 5:15 pm

   Is it me, or does it seem like there’s a traffic pattern or street design problem at work here? I mean, the multiple hits on that Deerfield monument, which is a stationary object? Maybe a guard rail or higher curb or flashing caution light would be more cost effective than constantly replacing the monument — not to mention safer for drivers.

2. Jackie Woodring Says:
   May 21st, 2009 at 5:21 am

   The comment about John Grate being the last Civil War vet in Ohio is incorrect. He was the last CW vet in Portage County. There were two others left in the state of Ohio. The last was Daniel Clingaman, who died Feb 18, 1951, and it buried at the Wauseon Cemetery, in Clinton Township, Ohio.

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