Okay, lets finally sort things out with this story debate:
The Haunted Mansion was Walt Disney's final project. Everyone toyed with various stories, such as one involving the Headless Horseman and another involving a pirate named Captain Blood. The facade was built, but the ride wasn't completed for some years afterwards, and so the outside bore a sign stating that it was a retirement home for ghosts. Unfortunately, before the ride reached completion, and, more important to the story, before a concrete story could be decided upon, Walt died.
This began a new era for Imagineering, and the company as a whole. Walt was always the deciding vote and the final say, but now there was a group of men who were all equal, without a clear cut leader, and they couldn't come to agreement. The biggest struggle was between the two camps of Claude Coates and Marc Davis. Claude Coates wanted to create a really dark and scary ride, which he believed was what a haunted mansion should be. Marc Davis, on the other hand, who was responsible for the funny characters of Pirates of the Caribbean, argued that the ride should be a light and fun one, believing that the dark tone that Coates wanted to set was too mean-spirited for a Disney park aimed at kiddies. This arguement raged on, and the eventual result was the current mansion, which mixes Davis's "happy haunts" with Coates's dark atmosphere, and one can see the difference in the dark first half of the ride and the light second half.
But, also, in the end they could not decide on an official story. And so it was simply left with the story of a "Ghost Host" taking guests on a tour of a haunted mansion. Originally, the Raven had a bigger part, which is why he appears so many times through the ride. He would punctuate the host's statements by screeching his last few words. Either way, the mansion does technically have a story. A host is taking mortals on a tour of a haunted mansion. However, nothing is explained about the individual ghosts; how they got there, who they are, or what their stories are. Some, however, consider the original plaque that hung outside to explain the presence of the ghosts. They have merely gathered there for what the sign calls "active retirement". However, Walt spoke of going out to Europe and finding ghosts living in castles and the like, and wanting to bring them back to live at the mansion, so it's probably more of a side story to make it seem like the ghosts are real than the story of the mansion.
Enter the Haunted Mansion community. The fans as well as CMs rode the ride, and there were some things they noticed. First of all, the tombstone dedicated to Yale Gracey bore the name "Master Gracey" and was bit bigger than the rest. They thus inferred that this must be the master of the mansion, likely the Ghost Host, and the place also gained the name "Gracey Manor". The second major point was the Bride. The Bride was set by herself, and kind of ruled the attic. She must have been important. Maybe she was the bride of Master Gracey! Not sure when the ring came to be discovered, but it was matched up with the Bride. Some say her position near the mirror, and the ring smashed into the pavement denoted a fall (perhaps with someone's help) into the cold stone below. Is so, then perhaps the slide down from the window represented her fall.
And so things grew from there. The CMs began cobbling together a story, and would eventually look through the ride and make up a story for all of the ghosts inside. The final result, which has been one of the foremost examples of the Haunted Mansion story is the Ghost Gallery, a grand collection of these stories by the Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansion CMs, which can be found here:
http://members.aol.com/HtdMsn/gallery.html. It is notable that even the ring is given a place in this story. Many stories regarding the mansion have the same key players, and even the same major plot points, although there is always some discrepancies.
There is a strong story for the Haunted Mansion. A very strong story. In fact, there are two or three, with an infinite amount of stories based on those but with a few discrepancies. In fact, the story has become a major part of the attraction, and has made it more enjoyable. Everyone can pass on their version of the story, whether telling it to their children, other relatives, or simply guests passing by the mansion grounds. The story has become to integral that Disney has even validated some parts of it in its feature film (Master Gracey, Gracey Manor, the Bride being his wife).
However, the fact of the matter is that there is no story to the Haunted Mansion officially, or at least not as much of one as we'd like. It's just a series of interesting sights. The story that everyone knows is really nothing but fan fiction. However, the fan fiction has become to ingrained into the attraction that it might as well be official in the minds of many people. Disney knows that.
That being said, we now know why Disney cemented over the ring. They were told it was a safety hazard, and dealt with it quickly as possible (accounting for the bad job). If that didn't happen, they'd probably leave it there. It's become a beloved part of the attraction. Unfortunatley, one man who is a number of things I can't say on a family board has ruined it all for us.
Also, I'm curious to see the pictures of the gate. I've seen a diagram, but never an actually seen a picture. Yes, it was a small pole that they couldn't get out of the pavement so they sawed it off. It was not a ring, but we wanted it to be so badly. Did it actually look like one? The jewel was made of iron! The jewel can obviously be seen to be the tip of a large flathead screwdriver that they attempted to pry the thing out with. Oh, but we didn't care. It was too perfect. It was a bit of Disney magic that has been lost to the ages.
Anyway, that's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the Mansion's story and the ring's origins taken from Doombuggies.com, Jason Surrel's book, the Ghost Gallery, and a variety of other sources.
And that's the story of the
