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ST. LOUIS' HISTORIC CEMETERIES
OFFER FINAL REST FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS
OFFER FINAL REST FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS
What's the best way to learn about the history of a place? Read a book? Check out the monuments? Tour the historic homes?
Try visiting the city's oldest cemeteries.
Few places reveal a community's history and character the way a cemetery does. It's easy to spot the city's prominent and wealthy families here because in death as in life, the movers and the shakers stand out, and the prosperity or simplicity of a city is evident in the final resting places of its residents. Take St. Louis' largest and oldest cemeteries-Bellefontaine and Calvary. Here the grave markers, mausoleums and monuments read like a "Who's Who Among St. Louis Elite" or even a history book about our country. William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame, Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, fur trader and banker Robert Campbell, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, engineer and bridge-builder James Eads, beer kingpin Adolphus Busch, poet Sara Teasdale and playwright Tennessee Williams are among those buried here.
It's hard to imagine a more beautiful final resting place than Bellefontaine. Modeled after Boston's famed Mount Auburn with its landscape engineering and dedication to horticulture, the cemetery now is surrounded by creations of modern urban life-residences, a highway and an industrial area. But inside its 330 acres is a world apart-lush and green and tranquil. Here on bluffs high above the Mississippi River, 14 miles of tree-lined streets bearing names such as Ambrosia, Primrose, Sunset and Memory bend gently left and right following rolling hills and opening to soothing vistas of quiet beauty. A sense of peace and quiet permeates as breezes rustle through the trees-mature trees of many species not often found in Missouri adding color, shade and tranquility to the slopes and gravesites.But in this place of beauty and serenity lies evidence of the harsh realities of life in the 19th century-women dying in childbirth, children dying in infancy or during their early years, epidemics laying waste to the population. The cemetery is also a museum of memorial art-from simple headstones and markers to grandiose monuments and mausoleums amid an almost endless collection of angels, cherubim, columns, tableaus and statues, each a unique, quiet expression of the grief family members suffered in their losses. Plans were already underway for establishing Bellefontaine Cemetery in 1849 when a cholera epidemic stole into St. Louis in January with a single death. By summer's end, it had taken one-tenth of the city's population.
The epidemic delayed plans for opening Bellefontaine but it increased the need for a new place to bury the dead. The city cemeteries filled quickly with victims of the epidemic and those of a fire that destroyed much of the downtown area the same year. The situation hastened the need for the "rural cemetery." Officials had already recognized that the existing cemeteries along the area's growth path hampered development of the city, and new ones were needed. At the same time, a trend toward rural cemeteries in the East spurred the growth of cemeteries outside the city. The deaths caused by the epidemic hastened that movement in St. Louis. Civic leaders also feared the growing number of burials and a gas arising from the dead presented a health hazard to the living and soon prohibited more burials within the city limits.Early in 1849, a group of prominent men acquired 138 acres of what was called the "old Hempstead Farm" on Bellefontaine Road, an old military road in St. Louis, and set forth the charter of a new nonsectarian cemetery. They incorporated under the name "Rural Cemetery Association," but soon they dropped the word "rural" in favor of the name "Bellefontaine" for the old military road nearby.
Bellefontaine soon became the city's most prestigious place to be buried, and the bodies of many early St. Louisans were moved to the cemetery after it was established.
William Clark (1770-1838), who with Meriwether Lewis led the Corps of Discovery on an exploration of the Louisiana Purchase territory for President Thomas Jefferson, remained in St. Louis until his death. Clark was originally buried in a small Gothic tomb on his nephew's St. Louis farm, which is now O'Fallon Park. When Bellefontaine was established, his remains and those of other family members were moved to the prestigious new cemetery. Clark's monument, for which his youngest son provided $25,000 in his will, was unveiled during the 1904 World's Fair which was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. The inscription reads in part: "Soldier, explorer, statesman and patriot. His life is written in the history of his country."
Among the other early St. Louisans who lie in eternal rest here:
Robert Campbell (1804-1879), an immigrant from Northern Ireland and an early trader on the western frontier who later became a successful St. Louis merchant. Visitors today can tour his beautiful fully furnished and preserved Victorian home in downtown St. Louis. The home is on the National Register of Historic Places. Campbell's monument rises tall from a square-shaped family lot in the cemetery.
Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858) who was Missouri's first senator when it entered the Union. Benton was a staunch Union defender and supporter of the western expansion as well as a spearhead for the Missouri Pacific Railway starting in St. Louis. He's also remembered for killing Charles Lucas in the second of two duels the men had on Bloody Island, an island in the Mississippi River where prominent St. Louisans settled their differences in the city's early days.
Fur trader Manuel Lisa (1772-1820) who built the first American fort in the upper Missouri River region. He married Mary Hempstead whose family farm made up most of the original cemetery. Her father, Stephen Hempstead, had served in the Revolutionary War with Nathan Hale.
Dr. William Beaumont (1785-1853) a doctor who studied the digestive process through an open wound in the stomach of a French Canadian fur trapper. Dr. Beaumont gained a place in medical history for his observations which were published in 1833. The patient survived the doctor by almost three decades although he declined surgery to close the hole.
>James Buchanan Eads (1820-1887), the self-taught engineer who built the St. Louis, the first iron-clad boat built in America and the first ever engaged in naval forces. Eads' boat helped Gen. Ulysses S. Grant win the siege of Vicksburg. His bridge, the first to be built over the Mississippi River, stands today in downtown St. Louis. His last words were reportedly, "I cannot die. I have not finished my work." But he did. He spends his eternal rest in a sarcophagus in Bellefontaine.
Bernard Farrer (1784-1849), the first American physician to practice west of the Mississippi River. His family's plot is marked by a monument with Grecian-style columns.
William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887), founder of Washington University in St. Louis. He also was instrumental in the establishment of the Missouri Historical Society and would become the grandfather of poet T.S. Eliot.
Joseph Charless (1772-1859), who participated in the Irish rebellion before he came to St. Louis. He founded the Missouri Gazette, the first newspaper west of the Mississippi River.
Capt. Henry Shreve (1785-1851), after whom Shreveport, Louisiana is named. Shreve built the first Mississippi River boat that floated on the water instead of plowing through it.
Capt. Isaiah Sellers (1802-1864), a steamboat captain who plied the Mississippi River between St. Louis and New Orleans for more than 40 years. It was Sellers who first used the pseudonym "Mark Twain." Samuel Clemens adopted it after Sellers' death. Sellers' monument is one of the more unusual in the cemetery. It features a captain standing at the wheel of his riverboat.
>Robert A. Barnes (1808-1892), a native of Washington D. C. who made his money in the grocery business. He willed $1 million for the establishment of the hospital that today bears his name.
Col. John R. O'Fallon (1791-1865), who settled in St. Louis after serving in the War of 1812. O'Fallon's ancestors included Irish kings on one side and explorer William Clark on the other. He won success as a businessman and donated the land for the establishment of St. Louis University. His country estate, Athlone Farm, is now O'Fallon Park. Upon his death, it was said of him, "One of the landmarks of our community is gone." His monument is the largest in the cemetery.
Samuel Hawken (1792-1884), whose "Hawken Rifle" was widely used by hunters of the American Fur Co. Hawken's rifle was a favorite of Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill. An etching of the rifle is on his tombstone. Today visitors can tour Hawken's restored home.
William Lewis Sublette (1799-1845), a fur trader and merchant who became a trapper and partner in Campbell's Rocky Mountain Fur Trading Co. His shortcut on the Oregon Trail helped open the Trail to wagon traffic.
Margaret Hunter Mason Buell who possibly has the distinction of being the only woman in this country-or even in the world-to be at eternal rest with two generals. Mrs. Buell is buried with Brig. Gen. Richard B. Mason (1797-1850), her first husband who was first military and civil governor of California, and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, her second husband who was a veteran of the Union Army.
Time marched on, and the country grew. With progress came the Industrial Age, and St. Louis' prominent were no longer explorers, trappers and frontiersmen. They were the leaders of industry, educators and literary figures. Change came, too, in the markers of the dead. Tablets and tombstones gave way to grandiose obelisks, statues and monuments. For the truly wealthy, ornate mausoleums and elaborate statuary or columns were erected in tribute to the dead. Vestiges of fences which once set off family burial plots can still be seen in some sections of the cemetery.
Perhaps no grander monument to the dead is the mausoleum for Adolphus Busch (1838-1913). Busch was a brewery supply salesman who married the daughter of Eberhardt Anheuser, owner of the Bavarian Brewery. Busch soon joined his father-in-law in the brewing business and went on to build the largest brewery in the world. His Missouri red granite Gothic-style mausoleum, built in 1915 two years after his death, is reminiscent of a fairy tale castle. Busch's mausoleum sits on "Millionaire's Row," so-called because the streets are lined with elaborate tombs holding the remains of the city's wealthiest residents.
Nearby are the mausoleums of the Tate and Brown families. The Tates owned several theaters in St. Louis, Chicago and New York and gave funds to the University of Missouri for construction of a building at the Law School to memorialize their son Lee Harry who was killed in an automobile accident in 1921. The Tates' Egyptian-style mausoleum was built in 1907. The Browns made their fortune in shoe manufacturing. George Warren Brown, after whom Washington University's School of Social Science is named, was founder of Brown Shoe Company, maker of Buster Brown Shoes. He is interred in a hexagonal mausoleum. The tomb of his older brother George, a circular mausoleum, is across the street.
The Wainwright Tomb has been called the Taj Mahal of St. Louis. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, it was commissioned by wealthy brewer Ellis Wainwright for his young wife Charlotte Dickson Wainwright who died in 1892. The design is by Louis Sullivan who had just completed the Wainwright Building in downtown St. Louis, considered the world's first skyscraper. For the tomb, he combined a gray limestone cube with a simple dome for a simple but elegant structure. A stone border is etched with tulip and leaf motifs and double doors are framed by stone carving in a snowflake pattern. Nowhere on the tomb does the family name appear.
Other fascinating St. Louisans interred at Bellefontaine include:
Virginia Minor (1823-1894), an early leader of the suffrage movement in Missouri. The wife of an attorney, she studied law herself after the death of her only son, and sued the election commissioners for refusing to let her vote. The suit, which originally went to trial at the Old Courthouse, was heard by the Supreme Court but Minor lost her plea. The battle, however, helped speed the cause of the woman's suffrage movement. Reenactments of the Minor trial take place regularly at the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis.
Kate Brewington Bennett (1818-1867), known in her time as "the Belle of St. Louis." Her memorial, an elaborate white gothic framework over a woman reposed on the tomb, was once considered the finest in the cemetery. And the story of her death is certainly one of the strangest. Bennett, a stunning woman, was admired for her pale complexion. When she died suddenly at the age of 37, an autopsy found that her whiteness had been achieved by taking small amounts of arsenic. She never realized the poison had a cumulative effect.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), a reclusive poet whose life was plagued with depression. She was found dead in a bathtub in New York. In 1932 she had written to a friend: "The illness seemed to me a becoming time to make my final exit. But apparently that is to be delayed and I am not too glad." Her sister ignored her request that her ashes be scattered at sea so that "there may remain neither trace nor remembrance." She is instead buried in her ex-husband's family plot.
Gen. Sterling Price (1809-1867), who was governor of Missouri from 1853 to 1857. He tried to keep Missouri in the Union but later joined the Confederacy. He was driven out of Missouri and fled to Mexico where he served in Emperor Maximilian's army. His memorial which says, "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well," is marked by a 30-foot obelisk of Maine granite.
The Lemp family, another German brewing family and one of the most intriguing families in St. Louis history. The Lemps achieved so much wealth they even imported craftsmen from Bavaria to decorate their home near the brewery in south St. Louis. Despite the family's great wealth and prominence, a dark cloud seemed to hang over it as several members fought apparent depression and committed suicide. The brewing company was founded by Adam Lemp, a German immigrant and later run by his son, William Sr. By 1875, William had turned the company into the largest brewery in St. Louis but he later fatally shot himself in the family's house on DeMenil Place. Years later hen the brewery faltered, it was auctioned. Six months after the auction, William Jr. killed himself at his office downtown. A brother and sister also committed suicide in other places. The family's home on DeMenil Place is now a bed and breakfast and a restaurant. Murder mystery dinners are also held there each Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
David Rowland Francis (1850-1927), one of Washington University's first graduates. He was also mayor of
St. Louis, governor of Missouri and Secretary of Interior under president Grover Cleveland and served as president of the 1904 World's Fair. Later President Woodrow Wilson appointed him Ambassador to Imperial Russia where he served until the Bolshevik Revolution.
John T. Milliken (1852-1919), founder of Milliken Chemical Co. The company was later sold to Abbott Laboratories. Milliken and his wife, May Patrick Milliken, rest in a mausoleum reminiscent of a Greek temple with columns similar to those of the Parthenon.
William S. Burroughs (1857-1898), the inventor of the mechanical calculator and founder of the Burroughs Corp. The inscription at his monument reads: "Erected by his associates as a tribute to his genius."
Herman Luyties (1871-1921), owner of St. Louis' first drug store. During the early 1900's on a trip to Italy, Luyties fell in love with an artist's model. He asked her to marry him despite the fact that he was already married. When she declined, he was heartbroken. He commissioned the sculptor she posed for to sculpt a 12-foor marble statue of the woman. He had the statue shipped to St. Louis where he displayed it in the foyer of his Portland Place home. Because the extreme weight of the sculpture threatened the integrity of the building, he had it moved to the family plot at Bellefontaine. When the elements began taking their toll on the statue, a framework was built around "Luyties' Lady" to protect her. Luyties died at age 50 and is buried at the feet of the woman he loved.
Green Erskine (1797-1888) who made a fortune in the import/export business. Named after Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Green, his mother's second cousin, Green moved to New York City in 1831 and founded Knickerbocker magazine but he returned to St. Louis the next year. Erskine was a successful grocer on the Laclede's Landing.
Samuel Cupples (1831-1912), a woodenware salesman who created great wealth in the warehouse business. He and his partner Robert Brookings built the Cupples Station warehouse complex in downtown St. Louis as a center for all freight moving in and out of the city. Cupples' incredible 42-room Gilded Age home, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is on the campus of St. Louis University. It is open to the public for tours Wednesday through Sunday. In the Greek Revival Mausoleum are interred Cupples and his two wives, sisters Amelia and Martha. The Cupples Station warehouses in downtown St. Louis are being reborn in 2001 as a Westin Hotel and an office, retail and residential complex.
James S. McDonnell (1899-1980), a former Army pilot and engineer who started a small aircraft factory in 1939. The company grew to become McDonnell Douglas, one of the world's largest manufacturers of aircraft and missiles in the country. McDonnell left a legacy of science and medicine programs he created and financed.
Maj. Albert Bond Lambert (1875-1946), an aviation pioneer and balloonist who brought the first International Air Race to the U. S. Orville Wright taught him to fly an airplane, and a few years later Charles Lindbergh, an unknown flyer, landed on a field Lambert leased. Lambert, after whom St. Louis' airport is named, was one of Lindbergh's backers on his trans Atlantic flight.
Chris Von der Ahe (1851-1913), owner of the St. Louis Browns, St. Louis' first baseball team. Von der Ahe's statue, created by a relative in Germany, was erected long before his death. The year of death on the monument, placed there while he was still alive, turned out to be prophetic.
Edward Mallinkrodt (1845-1929), who started one of the country's leading chemical companies. Mallinckrodt was still a boy on his parents' farm north of downtown St. Louis when he developed an interest in chemistry. His father, aware of that interest, sent him and his brother Otto to Europe to study. When he returned, Mallinckrodt built three small buildings on the family farm, now the site of the company's world headquarters. After his brothers who helped run the company died, Edward founded the National Ammonia Co., now Mallinkrodt Chemical works, a leading pharmaceutical company and manufacturer of purity testing methods. The company was one of the first businesses to install a telephone.
>James Louis Westlake (1871-1944) who organized Westlake Construction Co. in St. Louis in 1897. His Egyptian Revival mausoleum is the only memorial in Bellefontaine where the sarcophagus is in an open tomb.
Henry Clay Pierce (1849-1927) who with William H. Waters established the Walters-Pierce Oil Co. and was considered one of the four richest men in the country. Later the company became a subsidy of Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co. The family bought a 30-foot wide parcel of land to insure no other monuments would be built close to the Pierce's memorial.
Col. James Wallace Paramore (1830-1887), president of the Texas and St. Louis Railroad. The family's Richard Romanesque/Gothic structure is reminiscent of a sandcastle with turrets.
John J. Mitchell (1813-1903), a steamboat trafficker who developed the Chicago and Alton Railroad to work in conjunction with the steamboats. He is credited with saving the St. Louis Arsenal during the Civil War. His steamboats transferred weapons to Alton, Illinois before Confederate troops arrived, and he distributed arms to the Union soldiers and persuaded the residents of Alton to help relocate the arsenal to Rock Island, Illinois where it remains today.
Calvary Cemetery, Bellefontaine's Catholic cousin, adjoins its northern boundary and is also the final resting place of many notable St. Louisans. Like Bellefontaine, rolling hills and pleasant vistas punctuate Calvary. The cemetery was established on the eastern edge of property purchased in 1853 by Archbishop Peter Kenrick.
A section of the cemetery was used by Native Americans and the military stationed at Fort Bellefontaine nearby. After the Calvary Cemetery Association was incorporated in 1867, the remains from these burial grounds were gathered and interred in a mass grave on one of the highest spots in the cemetery. The bodies of many Catholics buried in cemeteries in the city were also reburied in Cavalry. Among noteworthy St. Louisans buried at Calvary:
Several members of the Chouteau family, considered the founding family of St. Louis. There was already confusion over Auguste Chouteau's birthday-believed to be either September 7, 1749 or Sept. 26, 1750-when he died in 1829 and was buried in a Catholic cemetery on Walnut Street in what is now downtown St. Louis. But almost 100 years later, a Chouteau descendant moved his grave to Calvary and inexplicably changed his birthday on the tombstone to 1740. That date is widely believed to be inaccurate. Chouteau's brother Jean Pierre and several other family members are also buried in Calvary.
John Mullanphy, St. Louis' first millionaire and first philanthropist. A native of Ireland, Mullanphy came to St. Louis in 1804 following the Louisiana Purchase. Because he was fluent in French, he fared well in St. Louis which was a largely French-speaking community at that time. He made real estate purchases in and around St. Louis and amassed a fortune selling cotton to Europe. He donated much of his fortune to charities and financed St. Louis Mullanphy Hospital, the first hospital west of the Mississippi. After his death, Mullanphy's wife and later his only son continued his philanthropic endeavors. The Mullanphys donated land to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart where they built a convent, a church and a school to educate girls. When Mullanphy died in 1833, the Missouri Republican said of him: "In his death, the orphan and the afflicted have lost a most liberal benefactor and literature a firm supporter." Mullanphy's son Bryan founded the Traveler's Aid Society.
Alexander McNair, Missouri's first governor. During McNair's term, the capitol was moved from St. Louis to St. Charles. After he left office, it was moved to Jefferson City. McNair was originally buried in a cemetery in St. Louis, but his remains were moved to Calvary when it was established. The Calvary Cemetery Association erected a red granite monument on his grave on the 100th anniversary of Missouri's admission to the Union.
Dred Scott, the man whose suit to be freed from slavery became a landmark decision in U. S. history and one of the reasons for the Civil War. After a series of court decisions, the nation's highest court ruled that Scott's birth as a slave negated his rights as a U. S. citizen and that living in non-slave states for several years did not change his status. Scott remained a slave until his owner freed him in 1857. But his life as a free man was short-he died the following year. The marker on his grave reads: "In memory of a simple man who wanted to be free."
William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War General who led the Union Army in several major battles including those at Vicksburg, Chattanooga and Knoxville. He also led the famous "March to the Sea" which was pivotal in helping the North win the war. His funeral procession on Feb. 21, 1891 from downtown St. Louis to Cavalry Cemetery took almost three hours.
Literary great Kate Chopin whose book "The Awakening" is considered an early feminist work. Although Chopin was born in and died in St. Louis, she lived in Louisiana for 11 years after her marriage to Oscar Chopin, and "The Awakening" was set there. One of her publishers wrote of her upon her death after a visit to the 1904 World's Fair: "St. Louis has lost a woman of rare intellect and noble character."
Robert Hannegan, a powerhouse in the Democratic party. Hannegan was chairman of the Democratic National Committee and instrumental in President Franklin Roosevelt's reelection for a fourth term. He later served as Postmaster General in Truman's cabinet after his election. In St. Louis, Hannegan and his friend Fred Saigh Jr. owned a majority interest in the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals. He was also instrumental in early negotiations to set up Cardinal Glennon Hospital.
Tennessee Williams, considered one of the greatest playwrights of his time. Williams lived in St. Louis for 20 years, and the Central West End apartment where his family lived when they moved to St. Louis when he was a child later became the setting for his play "The Glass Menagerie." His plays, often drawn from themes in his own life, would win him two Pulitzer Prizes but his later years were marked by hypochondria, alcoholism and addiction to drugs. When he died in 1983, his family disregarded his wish to be cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. Instead, he was buried in the family plot at Calvary Cemetery. His simple pink granite tombstone offers a quote from "Camino Real" which reads: "The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks."
Dr. Tom Dooley, author of the best seller "Deliver Us From Evil." Dooley, whose book was based on his experiences in Vietnam, was born in St. Louis in 1927. He served in the Navy as a medical officer and in 1954 he was assigned to a camp at Haiphong, Vietnam where he helped formulate "Passage to Freedom," a program that evacuated refugees from Communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam. He also co-founded MEDICO, a non-profit business bringing aid to areas that lacked medical facilities. Royalties from his second book, "The Edge of Tomorrow," helped finance the organization. When cancer struck him down at age 34, more than 2000 mourners from around the world attended his funeral mass in St. Louis.
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