HAMILTON, Ohio — A history project turned into an unusual discovery at one Ohio playground. A boy scout found two bodies still buried at a park.

What You Need To Know

  • Boy Scout Zackary Kramer was working on a history project and stumbled on where he believes two bodies are still buried at Symmes Park in Hamilton 

  • He worked with a company with radar equipment to confirm the bodies are still at the park that used to be a cemetery 

  • Kramer plans to build a memorial to honor Paul and Mary Bonnel, a Revolutionary War soldier and his wife, and mark their graves

It all started as a history project for Zackary Kramer. He was trying to get his next Boys Scout badge and become an Eagle Scout, but what he found at a playground shocked everyone. 

“We didn’t know for sure, so it was kind of like a shot in the dark,” said Kramer, “We glanced over it and we kept going, and then I turned back and said don’t those coffins cave in after a while and he was like, ‘yeah.’"

He worked with a company with radar equipment to confirm there are bodies still buried there — two graves left behind at Symmes Park in Hamilton, a playground built on top of what used to be a cemetery.

“In 1848, they built out the main cemetery, Greenwood, the majority of the bodies were exhumed and moved over to Greenwood,” said Hamilton Freshman High School History Teacher Chris Maraschiello.

He’s working with Kramer on the project to find out more about who is still buried there, and why they were left.

“We don’t know, it’s something we don’t know because some of the other family members who were buried here were removed, we can only speculate,” said Maraschiello. 

He said they do know John Symmes, a philosopher and Army officer whom the park is named after, is still buried there. His headstone still stands in the park.

Maraschiello is organizing a festival to honor Symmes and whomever else is in those graves across the park.

They believe it's Paul and Mary Bonnel, a Revolutionary War soldier and his wife, and they want to finally honor the couple the way they say they should be.

“I’m also gonna construct a bench and plaque hopefully, it’ll go around the area in which we believe we found him at, and then I’ll go through a review process and get my Eagle Scout," said Kramer. 

The festival they’re organizing is called the "Hollow Earth Festival." It’ll be held at Symmes Park in Hamilton on April 13.