Friday, July 18, 2008 3:16 PM
Juliet Norris
Tomorrow’s auction of a Frazeysburg-area park is drawing some local interest.
Baughman Memorial Park, which features several sandstone sculptures of U.S. presidents and generals, will be auctioned by a Canton company tomorrow (Saturday).
Local author Aaron Keirns wrote a book about the carvings.
“It’s called ‘Statues on the Hill,’ and I wrote it several years ago, actually. I just happened to go up there one day and I found this place and was just amazed that these wonderful statues were still standing on this hill, kind of lost in the woods, really,” Keirns said.
Keirns hopes the property is not split up. He says the statues, which have stood in the park since at least the 1920s, could be moved.
“They could be. They’re really big and heavy," he stated. "They’re solid stone. We’re hoping that they’ll all stay intact where they are.”
Logging company owner Kevin Morehouse of Hanover bought the 62-acre park, which also includes two cabins, from the Longaberger Company earlier this year. Morehouse says he had hoped to use the land as a family retreat, but soon realized he didn’t know how to care for it. He says he’s selling the property so the artwork can be better preserved.
The Longaberger Company had owned the park for more than a decade.
Local undertaker Daniel Brice Baughman carved the statues between 1898 and around 1930 on land that was once a stone quarry. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
