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Legend slithers around 1908 grave of farmer
By Mark J. Price
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, Dec 29, 2008
The wealthy farmer was buried in 1908 at Hartzell Cemetery, a small graveyard in Deerfield Township in the southeast corner of Portage County. His final resting place — or so he thought — was below a grand monument that he commissioned: a bronze statue of Bedell standing on a 10-foot stone base.
The lifelike sculpture, an uncanny representation of Bedell, was stern and imposing. Its right, upraised hand held a scroll bearing the motto ''Universal Mental Liberty,'' while its left foot trampled a parchment labeled ''Superstition.''
Bedell didn't believe in an afterlife. As an atheist in North Benton, a farming community of fewer than 200, he was distinctly in the minority.
Irascible and outspoken, he scoffed at religion and feuded with the Presbyterian church, yet he studied the Bible and could quote chapter and verse. Ministers dined at Bedell's home — along with his wife, Mary, and eight children — to debate theology and test ideas for sermons.
Despite his notoriety, Bedell garnered respect as the richest man in town. The cattleman owned 1,700 acres and several farms near the Portage-Mahoning County line.
''Chester Bedell had his faults and yet he was full of good qualities,'' the Alliance Review eulogized in 1908. ''He was wedded to his home and his family. He was a man who had endured persecutions without number. He lived a busy life and made the most of the opportunities afforded him. In his grave we lay all his faults and cover them with a mantle of charity. The good of his life we will retain. His eccentricities will be forgotten.''
No one remembered how the snake story got started. It slithered out of nowhere and wrapped itself tightly around Bedell's name.
Before his death at age 81 following complications from a massive stroke, the infidel was rumored to have declared: ''If there is a God, let snakes crawl over my grave.''
Although there was no proof that Bedell made such a remark, whispers grew in the community. People began to show up at Bedell's grave to look for snakes. Soon there were fantastic tales of serpent sightings: black snakes, brown snakes, garter snakes. Out-of-town tourists started to visit Hartzell Cemetery.
Preachers used the snake story as a cautionary tale for nonbelievers, and it spread to congregations all over the country. Over the decades, the legend coiled around the world.
The Rev. Gerald B. Winrod (1900-1957), a fire-and-brimstone minister from Wichita, Kan., made a pilgrimage to Bedell's memorial in the 1930s and published a chilling account in a religious tract titled Snakes in an Atheist's Grave.
''We parked our car, and approached the grave, camera in hand,'' Winrod wrote. ''Was it a hoax? Or was it true? Mr. E. E. Flowers, my companion, was first to see a snake. 'Oh look there,' he shouted. Yes, there it was. We walked around the grave and counted one, two, three, four, five, six. Mr. Flowers killed one. I photographed one.
''We took other pictures. The sexton told us he had killed four that morning, has killed as high as 20 in a single day. Finally he said, 'I don't know, maybe the Lord did have something to do with it.' ''
Famed U.S. journalist Ernie Pyle visited the Deerfield grave in 1938 at the request of his mother, Maria, who had heard the story from an evangelist at an Indiana revival meeting.
The snake-phobic writer was pleased to report that he saw no serpents.
''How ironic it would seem to Chester Bedell that his strong feeling against superstition should merely have fanned further the fires of fanaticism,'' Pyle wrote.
Vandals hurled paint on Bedell's statue, knocked it down and tried to break its arms. Gunmen occasionally peppered it with buckshot. Bedell's descendants patched up the statue, only to see it vandalized anew.
Hartzell Cemetery caretaker Raleigh Bundy, who was 22 when Bedell died, was weary of the constant fuss. He believed the snake legend was rubbish.
''I remember one minister drove up one day and chatted with me about old Bedell's grave,'' the gravedigger, 68, told the Beacon Journal in 1954. ''He was a nice chap and I told him the truth, that no more snakes had crawled over that grave than any other around here.
''Well, sir, I was convinced he was one man who was interested in the truth. But a little while later, an old woman in her 80s comes to the cemetery and asks to see the grave with all the snakes.
''I tell her it isn't so. She mentioned where she was from and it was the same town as this minister. I asked her if she knew him and she said he was the one who told about the grave with the snakes crawling around.''
Local admits truth
Of course, there was a perfectly logical explanation for some of those snake sightings.
A North Benton restaurant owner paid kids to place snakes on the grave in the 1930s. He took photos, made postcards and sold them to tourists.
''Now I can personally testify that snakes surely did infest his grave,'' Canal Fulton resident Carl F. Weast confessed in 1965. ''In fact, I put a few of them there myself! It was a habit of hunters and kids in the area to capture snakes, kill them and drape Bedell's grave with them. It impressed visitors and started the legend of the snakes on the grave. I'm sure some religious 'nuts' thought it genuine.''
Following years of vandalism and storm damage, Bedell's heirs finally took down the statue and moved it to a private barn in the early 1950s. It remained hidden from view for decades until the Berlin Center Historical Society rescued the relic from obscurity.
Today, Chester Bedell's bronze likeness stands in a corner of the historical society's Weidenmier House at 15823 Akron-Canfield Road (U.S. Route 224), Berlin Center.
There are no snakes in sight.
Curious sightseers continue to visit Hartzell Cemetery, which is off Hartzell Road north of state Route 14 near Sebring Country Club. The Internet has helped keep the story alive — although modern interest is nothing like the 1930s, when hundreds of visitors would show up on a single day.
Weirdly enough, the legend has come true — sort of.
Bedell's grave isn't where it used to be. The cemetery had to move several graves in the early 1940s while a dam was built to create Berlin Reservoir. The flood-control project swallowed 249 square miles of Portage, Stark and Mahoning counties.
The original grave site for Bedell — roughly 150 yards from its present location — is now a part of the reservoir. It's the aquatic home of scads of scaly creatures, including walleye, bass, bluegill, muskie and — maybe, just maybe — a water snake or two.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Akron, OH
Posted 07:49 AM, 12/29/2008
I suppose the ABJ has to print sumthin' for the non-believers this time of year.
I wonder how many of the hypocrites took pay for the religious holiday. Surely they would do anythin' within' their power to avoid recognizin' any religious holiday, regardless of the form of recognition.
Wadsworth, OH
Posted 09:02 AM, 12/29/2008
Funny how many religions hold celebrations around the Winter Solstice, including many that predate the birth of Christ by centuries, yet Christianity has somehow tried to make this time of year all its own.
akron, oh
Posted 10:23 AM, 12/29/2008
wow lived here all my life never heard a that one (@@)
Posted 12:53 PM, 12/29/2008
I wonder if bedell road near berlin lake is named after him?
Carrollton, Ohio
Posted 02:05 PM, 12/29/2008
I don't celebrate holidays because of their pagan roots.I do however love history of any kind.There are many colorful old stories in Ohio linked to old ghost stories.Although most of the ghostly stuff isn't true,the history of how they began is.My love of history is also what inspired me to stop celebrating holiday's also.Unfortunatly those stories of pagan practices are true.I enjoyed this article for it's historic value.
Akron, OH
Posted 02:41 PM, 12/29/2008
Betamax, your bigotry is showing. There are plenty of other people who don't believe in Christmas who got the day off as well. Let's hear your slurs against Jewish, Muslim, Buddhists and the myriads of other believers as well as atheists.
Akron, OH
Posted 04:40 PM, 12/29/2008
@KenmoreKid, ((chucklin'))and y'alls stoopidity is showin' as well.
Is it bigotry to call out any who accept anythin' for a religious holiday they do not believe in, and rail against?? I think not. Those that do, practice hypocrisy.
Besides, I said nuthin' about gettin' the day off. I think ever-buddy would agree, that those who get the day off, because their place of employment is closed for the holiday, earned that by default.
But I guess it's too much to expect y'all to understand what y'all read.
Akron, Oh
Posted 07:03 PM, 12/29/2008
Betamax, your an idiot
Akron, Oh
Posted 07:06 PM, 12/29/2008
Betamax, "y'alls stoopidity is showin' as well"?
- Not smart enough to even know how stupid you sound?
Posted 07:42 PM, 12/29/2008
BetaMax = ABJ forum answer to Archie Bunker.
Posted 07:43 PM, 12/29/2008
Its hard to understand anything, or should I say anythin Betamax writes,strange. Great article though,Im sure Bedell would have enjoyed a good laugh over all the goofballs that showed up at his grave.
Akron, Oh
Posted 10:06 PM, 12/29/2008
Religion is only a way of control, nothing more. I can pretty much prove evolution to you, anyone that still believes in hokey mysticism will be classed the same as the ancient idiots that worshiped the sun. Get a clue people, you are slowing the progress.
