About Elijah Bond’s Ouija Tombstone
Most gravestones summarize a person’s life with a name, dates, and a few words. Elijah Jefferson Bond’s marker in Baltimore goes much further. Turn it around and the back becomes a stone version of the talking board he helped bring into American popular culture.
Bond was the original patentee associated with the Ouija board. Yet when historian and collector Robert Murch began looking for Bond’s burial place, the grave in Green Mount Cemetery had no marker. According to the Talking Board Historical Society, Murch found the location in 2007 after a fifteen-year search.
A new memorial was installed the following year with support from enthusiasts, Bond’s descendants, and the cemetery. The front resembles a conventional headstone. The reverse contains the recognizable alphabet, numbers, yes and no markings, and other elements derived from the talking-board design in Bond’s original patent. The cemetery has since described the grave as a heavily requested destination for visitors.
The interest here is historical design, not a claim that the monument possesses unusual powers. It is simply an exceptionally literal memorial. An inventor who helped patent one of America’s most recognizable novelty objects now has that object carved into the back of his tombstone. Green Mount is an active cemetery, so visitors should follow cemetery rules, remain on permitted routes, and treat nearby graves respectfully.