Few things can be as sacred and scary as a burial site. When we’re young, we tell each other ghost stories to amp up the fear before we play “Ghost in the Graveyard,” dodging spirits from unknown graves and tripping over tombstones in our flight from delicious terror. As we get older and the realization sets in that we, too, will someday inhabit a coffin of our own (or perhaps an urn, if you’re so inclined — whatever is comfortable), cemeteries take on a more profound meaning. They become a place where the living meets the dead. We can communicate with them, and if we’re (un)lucky, they will communicate with us.

Many gravesites are monuments, decreed and built by the community to honor the fallen, provide a place for reflection and add beauty to a community. Others become monuments thanks to the fame of the person looking at the grass from the wrong side. People flock to remember and pay their respects, or vandalize and do something lewd. Most gravesites never reach that level of fame or notoriety, and remain lonely places where people are slowly forgotten.

Ohio has a number of famous graves, some monumental and some miniscule. Visit one or two this October to help amp up your own fear before Halloween hits.

Presidential Memorials
William Henry Harrison’s tomb in North Bend, Hamilton County, is a monument to our ninth president. The tomb itself is relatively small and unassuming, considering that the former president and at least six or seven of his family members are buried there. Years after the president was interred, eagle-topped pillars and a 60-foot obelisk were added to the site, making it much more presidential.

The Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio, is a Greek temple dedicated to our 29th president. Doric columns surround the 50-foot structure and a pleasant park surrounds the lot. President Harding lies in the middle with his wife Florence. Herbert Hoover dedicated the monument in 1931.

The McKinley National Memorial, locally known as McKinley Monument, is the site of our 25th president’s body. Schoolchildren from all over the United States gave their milk money to help build the structure, which includes two domes and more than two million bricks. Right next to it is the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum. Stairs in the front of the monument allow you to run up and down to feel like Rocky.

Famous People
Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland is one of the oldest collections of graves in this part of the state. It is home to a president (Garfield), an oil magnate (Rockefeller) and a G-Man (Eliot Ness). There are another hundred thousand bodies here, and the area is home to a wilderness preserve and huge concrete dam. President Garfield is buried in a mausoleum blackened with age. His wife, Lucretia, is buried with him, and if you use your imagination the whole thing could have a Dark Shadows kind of a vibe. Fortunately, Lakeview is guarded by The Haserot Angel, one of the most famous pieces of burial art in this part of the world.

The Wright brothers are interred in Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, along with Erma Bombeck and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Quick history lesson: The Wright brothers are famous for flying planes in North Carolina. Erma Bombeck is famous for writing “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank” and other books, articles and essays. Paul Laurence Dunbar isn’t famous for being one of America’s earliest black writers, with a portfolio that includes books, poems, essays, musicals, songs and plays, but he should be. Also, the ghost of Johnny Morehouse, a young boy who drowned in the Erie Canal, haunts the graveyard. He is kept company by his dog, who died on Johnny’s grave of starvation and a broken heart. Eerie.

Annie Oakley, née Phoebe Ann Mosey, is buried in Greenville, Ohio. One of the first American female international superstars, one of history’s greatest sharpshooters and a voice for the women’s movement, Oakley is (perhaps unfortunately) most famous as a character in “Annie Get Your Gun,” the Tony and Emmy award-winning musical starring Ethel Merman that gave us “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and that song from that one Jordan commercial. The glitz of her character overlooks the truth of her person: Her modest tombstone is made of red marble, the only thing that distinguishes it from those around it.

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