The Merchant Ball

Marion’s best known oddity.

Please note: A expanded version of this story appears in our book Haunted Marion, Ohio.

For anyone digging up stories about Marion’s spookier side, the Merchant grave is the natural starting point. In fact, it would be hard to find anyone in Marion who hasn’t at least heard of the grave and its mysterious revolving ball. Ripley himself deemed it interesting enough to include in his newspaper column in 1929.

Personally, I remember hearing about the ball as a kid and picturing a huge glowing ball suspended in the shimmering air, it’s rotation slow and deliberate.

Alas, the reality, as always, is a bit of a let down. But more on that in a minute…

According to the Marion Cemetery Association web site:

In 1886 the Merchant family of Marion constructed what they thought would be a beautiful and fitting grave monument for their family burial plot in Marion Cemetery. Within two years after its construction, someone noticed that the 5,200 pound polished granite ball atop the 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, being concerned about this, brought the erection crew back to the site to re-set the ball. It was not long before the ball again began its now continuous movement.

Various explanations have been proposed for the ball’s movement: the Coriolis effect, the seasonal expansion and contraction of the ball, seismic activity. However, since it’s a grave, there are also those who suspect some otherworldly explanation. Still, there is no record of any gruesome or even untoward stories about the Merchant family that would suggest that their grave should be haunted. The real reason behind the ball’s movement remains a mystery.

Seth had already been to the Merchant ball, but this was my first time seeing it. (I had unsuccessfully tried to find the ball once before. However, I was only able to find some other huge ball that, apparently, doesn’t move.) I stood dumbly in front of it, maybe hoping to see some slight movement, while Seth snapped a few pictures. However, according to the book Weird Ohio by Loren Coleman, Andy Henderson and James Willis, the ball only averages two inches of movement per year which means, literally, I would be better off watching grass grow.

Jeez.

Still, facts are facts, and if one presents the facts just right, it does sound like a good story: “So listen, in my hometown there’s this 5,000 pound granite ball in a graveyard. And, nobody knows why, but it moves under its own power, and….”

A Haunted House or Just a Rumor?

Please note: A expanded version of this story appears in our book Haunted Marion, Ohio.

After shooting Dosha, Miller Herman reportedly picked her up and told her, "Goodbye sweetheart. Well, I got you this time."
After shooting Dosha, Miller Herman reportedly picked her up and told her, “Goodbye sweetheart. Well, I got you this time.”

An article that appeared in the Marion Daily Star on March 25th, 1921, had the titillating headline “Many People Flock to Haunted House.” However, it’s probably a better example of how gossip spreads around small towns than it is a legitimate ghost story.

The genesis of the story was a murder that occurred at a house located on the southwest corner of Creston Avenue and Niles Street in 1919. This story, appearing in the March 3rd, 1919, edition of the Star, described how Miller Herman, heartsick over having been rejected by Dosha White, showed up at her mom and dad’s house and shot both Dosha and her new suitor, Lee “Pat” Patterson. Dosha later died from her injuries while Lee survived. When Miller turned the gun on himself, it was Dosha’s mother who, surprisingly, grabbed his hand and diverted the shot so that Miller only succeeded in grazing his scalp.

After the crime, Herman ran back to his house not far from the White residence. When police showed up a short time later, Miller didn’t protest his innocence but instead willingly went to jail where he made a full confession a short time later.

Herman's photo as it appeared in the 1921 Marion Daily Star.
Herman’s photo as it appeared in the 1921 Marion Daily Star.

Herman’s crime, while shocking, was nonetheless not especially brutal or hard to understand. The man was jealous and angry, so he thought he’d get revenge on his ex and her new boyfriend.

Still, that the house where the murder occurred became known as “haunted” is probably due more to rumor than to the accounts of people who actually lived in the house. In fact, the man who owned the house – the White family had apparently moved out some time before – seemed baffled by the attention his residence was receiving. He was quoted as saying, “[I’ve] never heard of the house being haunted. Other families never complained about it, not even the Whites.”

Was the house really haunted? The truth, as with so many ghost stories, will probably forever remain a mystery.