Giants in Marion
Oct 9th
Although sources are scant, there are a few older texts that make tantalizing references to giants who once roamed Marion County. I first saw a reference to giants while thumbing through a book called The History of Marion County, Ohio in the Ohio Room of the Marion Public Library. The book, which was published in 1883, makes the following bizarre claim:
Evidence for the occupation of this region before the appearance of the red man and the white race is to be found in almost every part of the county, as well as through the northwest generally. In removing the gravel bluffs, which are numerous and deep, for the construction and repair of roads, and in excavating cellars, hundreds of human skeletons, some of them of giant form, have been found.
Another book, Giants and Dwarfs, which was published in 1868 by a fellow named Edward Wood, makes a very brief mention of Marion: “In the 1860′s, some excavators digging in a hill in Marion, Ohio, uncovered thirty skeletons who also ranged in height from seven to eight feet.”
Where exactly these skeletons were discovered in Marion County remains a mystery. Was there really once a race of giants roaming Marion County? Are some of their bones are still waiting to be discovered?
The Grave in the Road
Oct 9th
John Grimm's grave is located on Cardington Road just east of East River Road on the right side.
There is a a grave that stands out in Marion County by virtue of its unusual location—the edge of Cardington Road!
Every Sunday from February 1960 to February 1961, a local lawyer by the name of Charlton Myers broadcast a fifteen-minute segment on WMRN. The subject matter was generally local history, and the transcripts of those broadcasts were eventually collected in a work called Tales from the Sage of Salt Rock. In the book Mr. Myers provided some of the back story about the grave in the road.
Mr. Myers wrote that the grave is the final resting place of a man named John Grimm. Apparently Grimm was struck by a falling tree at that exact spot in 1833. For reasons unknown, that is where his wife decided that he should be buried. The grave is easy to spot while driving along Cardington Road—it’s surrounded by four upright concrete slabs that surround the original (and now nearly illegible) gravestone.
To read about other weird bits of Marion miscelanea, check out the “Odd and Ends” chapter of Haunted Marion, Ohio.