23 Famous People You Probably Didn’t Know Were Buried in Ohio

Warren G. Harding

Harding Tomb, Marion

Our 29th president, Harding was popular until scandals like the Teapot Dome Scandal came to light after he died. He is now considered one of our worst presidents.

Photo via Mike Sharp/Wikimedia Commons

James A. Garfield

Lakeview Cemetery

Our 20th president, known best for dying after only six and a half months in office.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Frankie Yankovic

Calvary Cemetery

Yankovic grew up and learned to play the accordion in Collinwood. He went on to win the title of “America’s Polka King” in a contest in Milwaukee, WI and starred in TV shows in Chicago and Buffalo centered around that identity.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison Memorial, North Bend

Harrison was the 9th president of the United States and the grandfather of the 23rd. He became the first U.S. president to die in office when he died of typhoid 31 days into his first term.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

William McKinley

McKinley Memorial Park, Canton

The 25th president of the United States, assassinated six months into his second term. He was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Eliot Ness

Lakeview Cemetery

Ness was the Public Safety Director for Cleveland from 1935-1942, but he’s better known for helping to catch Al Capone in Chicago.

Photo via Michelle Belanger/Wikimedia Commons

John D. Rockefeller

Lakeview Cemetery

Yes, the oil tycoon himself is buried in Cleveland. Apparently when he died in 1937 at the age of 98, he requested to be interred in the city where his business career began.

Photo by Arnold Genthe, via Wikimedia Commons

Sara Lucy Bagby Johnson

Woodland Cemetery

Sara Lucy Bagby Johnson was a runaway slave and the last to face charges under the Fugitive Slave Act. However, she was freed with the help of Union soldiers in 1862. She then settled in Cleveland. Sara Lucy died in 1906 and was buried in an unmarked grave until 2011.

Photo via FlickrCreativeCommons

Chief Tarhe

Chief Tarhe Monument, Upper Sandusky

Chief Tarhe was born to the Porcupine Clan of the Wyandot people. Out of 13 chiefs to fight at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, he was the only one to survive, losing the use of one of his arms. In July 1975 he signed the Treaty of Greenville as the representative of the Wyandots. Above is not his memorial but a sign commemorating the last of the Wyandots.

Photo via Daniel X. O’Neil/FlickrCC

Orville and Wilbur Wright

Woodland Cemetery, Dayton

The inventors of modern aircraft and the reasons Ohio is called “The Birthplace of Aviation,” are buried in a family plot in Dayton.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons