Buried at the Ball Park

Ken McCracken has determined that Capt. William McCracken, Jr., was the last American soldier to die in the Revolutionary War, and that he is buried somewhere in Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park. The grave is in one of two locations:

-- Deep under the far southwest corner of the ballpark footprint, along Joe Nuxhall Way, south of the team's Hall of Fame. That spot would be a fenced-in, AstroTurf-covered rectangle next to the Rose Garden. The garden marks the spot where Pete Rose's record-breaking hit No. 4,192 landed in 1985.

-- Across Joe Nuxhall Way from the fenced-in space. Teeming with earth-moving equipment, that spot is the future home of a parking garage serving the proposed Cincinnati Riverfront Park and The Banks project.

"That's as close as I can narrow it down after well over a decade of genealogical research trying to see if I'm related to this man. I feel very confident I've got my facts straight," said Ken McCracken, an amateur historian. [Link]

[Thanks, J. Hansen!]

[Photo credit: nice day by Robert Meeks]

First Fox Was a Fuchs

Vicente Fox's grandfather pursued the American Dream all the way to Mexico.

Fox's family name is actually Fuchs, a German name that was changed to Fox at some point. His grandfather, Joseph Louis Fox, was born in Cincinnati in 1865, attended Woodward High School and moved to Mexico at age 32. His son, Jose Luis Fox, married Mercedes Quesada and had nine children, including Vicente Fox Quesada, who served as president from 2000 to 2006. [Link]