Marion, Ohio: Mysterious Moving Tombstone

Enter Delaware Avenue entrance -- stay to your left until you come to a T in the road -- then stay to your left again until you see a grass/gravel road on your right. Pull in there, and the grave will be on your left (look for the big globe marker being surrounded by smaller globes on the ground).

The moving tombstone is still there and, according to locals, still moving. It took me two visits to find it. Clues to finding the stone have not been plentiful and the cemetery actually contains two big stone spheres surrounded by a bunch of smaller spheres. Both have some dates from the late nineteenth century so I guess this sort of thing was kind of popular back then.

The mover is in the north east part of the cemetery. Remember: Merchant not Morrow.

In 1896, the Merchant family erected a beautiful grave monument for their plot in Marion Cemetery. Within two years after its installation, someone noticed the 5,200 pound polished granite ball atop the Merchant pedestal had begun to rotate. The only unpolished spot on the ball was now visible, indicating the ball was on the move.

The Merchant family had the ball reset. The ball continued its unexplained motion. In 1929 it was featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" famous newspaper cartoons and the monument soon gained international recognition.