Ohio Eccentrics

Some notable Buckeyes approach life from a peculiar vantage

Ohio has produced more than its share of eccentric men and women, whose peculiar ideas, bizarre behaviors, and outlandish antics have served to make the world more interesting. Among them are a Native who accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 1806, a failed merchant who convinced many people that the Earth was hollow in 1818, sisters who fell out of favor with the women's rights movement in the nineteenth century because they were too scandalous--or perhaps too progressive--and a minister who became convinced, in 1908, that the Garden of Eden was in southern Ohio. From John Chapman and Annie Oakley to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker illuminate Ohioans who took the road less traveled and, sometimes one that wasn't even there.