Snakes infest an atheist's grave

William Branham's version of the story

One memorial that I’d like to refer now, it’s in Ohio, and there was an infidel. I forget his name. I got the picture somewhere there in my collection at home. Where, he was so firmly against Christianity, till he wanted a memorial built to him, after his death, with his foot on the Bible, pointing down like that, and saying, “Away with religious superstitions, and up with modern science.” And when he was dying, he said, “If I’ve been wrong, serpents will crawl out of my grave.” And when he died, they were still shoveling the dirt into the grave and they killed two or three big vipers. And today, in that graveyard, a minister taken a picture recently and brought it to show me, and hanging over the chains around his lot…The graveyard is a beautiful place, but his mound is nothing but a snake mound. And no matter, even into the fall and winter, serpents still crawl from his grave. A memorial! God forbid me ever have a memorial like that, or any of you.

The "Gospel Tract" version

Gospel Tract Society, Inc., Independence MO

Snakes in an Atheist's Grave

Last September, while engaged in a Defenders Conference in Idaho, a gentleman by the name of Mr. C. M. Crew came to me with one of the strangest stories I had ever heard, about an atheist in Ohio who was said to have been very bold, blatant and outspoken against God and the Bible; a man who had defied the Supreme Being by saying: "If there is a God my grave will be infested with snakes."

Said, Mr. Crew, "At the funeral it was necessary to remove a snake from the grave before the casket could be lowered. The sexton told me he had killed four big snakes at one time: never saw a snake at any other grave. I saw several holes in the ground at this grave."

Mr. Crew said that he would ask a gentleman in Alliance, Ohio, to write me more details. On September 20th, I received further word from Alliance together with a picture of the bronze monument at the atheist, Chester Bedell, who died in 1908 at the age of 82. This letter said:

"Mr. Bedell said while living there was no God and never did believe in One. He did not hesitate to speak of these things. Occasionally he attended the Presbyterian Church in his home town of North Benton, Ohio, and the members said it threw such a coldness over the people as soon as he entered. He built a monument years before his death. His statue is of bronze and in his uplifted right hand is a scroll with this inscription, UNIVERSAL MENTAL LIBERTY. Under his left foot is a scroll representing the Holy Bible with the inscription SUPERSTITION. Before his death he made this remark, "If there be a God or any truth in the Bible let my body be inhabited with snakes". Since his burial the family lot has been full of snake holes around the curbing. The snakes can be seen any day you visit the grave yard. Last year twenty of us went out on the 30th of October and saw three snakes. The neighbors there say the more they kill the thicker they seem to be."

Who would not be interested in a story like this? I was. I wrote immediately to the Rev. L. P. Lehman of Franklin, Pennsylvania, not far from North Benton, Ohio. Mr. Lehman motored to the cemetery and wrote me that the whole circumstance was "weird but evidently true."

Late last month (April) I had an opportunity to make an observation of my own. While engaged in a Defenders Conference in Youngstown, Ohio, I was taken by automobile first to Berlin Center and then to North Benton. As we came to Berlin Center, I asked an old man if he could tell me where the Bedell grave was. "Sure, everybody around here knew where Chet Bedell was buried," said the old timer. So many miles south, then turn to the right, then about a mile, then to the right, then turn right again just before getting into North Benton. "You can't miss it, big bronze monument in the grave-yard. Looking for snakes?" --grinned the native. Later another man told us, "Well, if Bedell did ask for snakes, he sure got 'em."

By this time I was in a state of real expectancy. We turned to the right and sure enough, there was the monument, the upraised scroll, the other scroll under his left foot, the stern bronze countenance, the tomb stones all about, the caretaker at work nearby. We parked our car, and approached the grave, camera in hand. Was it a hoax? or was it true?

Mr. E. E. Flowers, my companion, was first to see a snake. "O 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 twenty in a single day. Finally he said, "I don't know, maybe the Lord did have something to do with it." We saw the angry looking holes around the curbing. The snakes are garter and black snakes.

I was told by a neighbor that Bedell was in twenty-one lawsuits during his life and that he owned approximately twenty-five hundred acres of land in the community when he died. We were told that he once wrote a book and that his daughter, now a woman 75 years old, residing in Berlin Center, might have one. We called on her to inquire, and her answer was, "No, I wouldn't have any of the old devil's literature in the house." "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." Mk. 8:36.

This is the story. I am not explaining it. I am only relating it as it has come to me. The pictures were taken the day we visited the monument.

A newspaper's review in 1990

Gerald B. Winrod in The Defender

The Record-Courier, Ravenna OH Sunday, October 28, 1990

Infamous infidel, Chester Bedell troubles from beyond the grave

There are Halloween stories and there are ghost stories, but the very best spooky stores are those founded on local legend--they just might be true! One of the most told tales from this area involves the late Chester Bedell from the Deerfield-North Benton area whose rebellious reputation has endured for 80 years beyond his grave.

Chester Bedell was born in New Jersey in 1826 and moved to Deerfield with his parents in 1835. He married Mary Hartzell from a prominent North Benton family in 1851 and they raised a large family of sons and daughters and accumulated more than 2500 acres of land in Portage and Mahoning counties. Not much of a scary story, right? The best is yet to come.

Throughout his life, Bedell studied the Bible and other religious teachings, but not for the usual reasons. He wasn't interested in living a "Christian life." He was an atheist and sought information to refute the existence of God and Christ. He was labeled an infidel, a nonbeliever.

Bedell was infamous as a crusader against the church in general and the Presbyterian Church of North Benton in particular. Records show that when his wife's family tried to force the doctrines of that church upon him, he began an insurgence that lasted the rest of his life. Outspoken and embittered, Bedell toured the Holy Land several times to gather information to use against Christianity. He authored a book, "Twenty-one Battles fought by Chester Bedell with Relations and Presbyterian Intolerance with a short sketch of is life," which propelled him into the realm of the infamous and permanently labeled him a heretic.

On one of his fact-fathering missions, he posed for a life sized statue of himself to be erected on the gravesite in North Benton's Hartzell Cemetery. This action was perhaps the most controversial at his crusade. The bronze figure of Bedell depicted him holding a scroll inscribed with his atheistic creed in an uprised hand and his foot on a scroll declaring, "superstition". His militant crusade and outspoken manner became the subject of more than one religious tract which used him as a horrible example of infidelity.

Shortly after Bedell's death, a rumor circulated that on his deathbed he declared, "If there is a God, let snakes infest my grave!" Instead of the scroll, gossip said he was standing on a stack of Bibles and God indeed unleashing his wrath on the Infidel of North Benton by sending large numbers of snakes to the small, rural cemetery.

It was reported that if a person very quietly approached the grave, the ground seemed to move and pulsate with hundreds of black and garter snakes. This gruesome story spread quickly and was repeated by many including members of the clergy.

In 1932, an article from The Alliance Review of 1932 told how the legend persisted. The curious from all over the United States had arrived, in buggies then in Model Ts to see the snake covered grave of the great Infidel who was burning in hell for his beliefs.

What is the true story! Do snakes inhabit this plot of ground or is the story just a myth? Larry Fischer, president of the Deerfield Historical Society and Lucille Ernest, president of the Deerfield Ladies Cemetery Association, confirm that a popular activity for pranksters and hunters, even today, is to kill snakes elsewhere and drape them over the gravesite to keep the legend alive. Others swear that they have seen the snakes. So prevalent was the story that a life-long friend of Bedell, D.B. Cassaday, an Alliance mortician, signed a notarized statement that he had ever seen snakes on Chester Bedell's grave.

In a quote from his obituary in the Alliance Review, September 1908, Bedell's life was summed up nicely, "Two days before his death he lapsed into unconsciousness without having expressed a murmur at the grasp of the icy hands upon him. He died hopeless of the future as he had lived."

In 1943 when several of the graves in Hartzell cemetery were moved to higher ground to make way for Berlin Reservoir (including Chester Bedell's), the Bedell family decided to remove the much maligned and abused statue to the safety and privacy of a relative's barn, where it rests today. No one in Deerfield will disclose the whereabouts of the controversial statue saying, "The family just wants to be left alone."

On a frosty October night when the moon is full and the wind is howling a ghoulish tune, maybe old Chet Bedell will begin a tirade on the evils of Christianity and awaken the snakes. Then you'll be able to decide for yourself.

In 1999 the Bedell family donated Chet's monument to the Berlin Center Historical Society, Berlin Center OH.

A more recent examination

When Chester Bedell died 100 years ago, he believed it was the end. 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.

Local history: For heaven's snakes By Mark J. Price Beacon Journal staff writer Published: December 29, 2008, Updated: June 17, 2011 - 09:04 PM

Navigation

Home Our Podcast The List of Problems Life Story Prophecies & Visions Seven Seals Was William Branham Honest? Doctrines

Church Ages Jesus Languages Videos Print Resources Help! Facebook Contact Us