Bellefontaine and Calvary Cemeteries

Bellefontaine Cemetery (established in 1849) and the Roman Catholic Calvary Cemetery (established in 1857) in St. Louis, Missouri are adjacent burial grounds, the location of numerous historic and extravagant graves and mausoleums. They are the necropolis for a number of prominent local and state politicians, as well as soldiers of the American Civil War.

The cemeteries were established after the cholera epidemic of 1849, to ensure that burials were made further from the river and water supplies. The original St. Louis cemetery was by Old Cathedral in Downtown St. Louis near the Mississippi River. Bodies from that cemetery (including that of city co-founder Auguste Chouteau) were moved to Bellefontaine.

Burials from an African-American cemetery discovered during construction at Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport were reinterred here in the 1990s.

Bellefontaine

Bellefontaine Cemetery at 4947 W Florissant, St. Louis, is the burial grounds for prominent pioneers to the West. It is also the resting place for several victims of the 1855 railway accident known as the Gasconade Bridge train disaster. Also buried in the Bellefontaine Cemetery are a number of the famous Busch and Lemp family of brewers.

The neighborhoods around the cemeteries, particularly to the immediate west and south, have become among the roughest in St. Louis, as many workers became unemployed during deindustrialization and St. Louis' changing economy.

Notable Bellefontaine burials

*Thomas Hart Benton (1782–1858), U.S. Senator
*Henry Taylor Blow (1817–1875), politician, statesman
*Susan Blow (1843–1916), educator
*Francis E. Brownell (1840-1894), soldier during the American Civil War, Medal of Honor recipient
*Don Carlos Buell (1818–1898), American Civil War general (Union)
*William Seward Burroughs (1857–1898), inventor
*William S. Burroughs (1914–1997), author
*Adolphus Busch (1838–1913), brewing magnate
*William Chauvenet (1820–1870), scholar, educator
*Martin L. Clardy (1844–1914), U.S. Representative
*William Clark (1770–1838), explorer
*Charles B. Clarke (1836–1899), prominent architect, designer of the Fagin Building (1888)
*Nathan Cole (1825–1904), U.S. Representative and Mayor of St. Louis
*Alban Jasper Conant (1821–1915), artist, author, educator
*Phoebe Wilson Couzins (1842–1913), pioneer suffragette
*Ned Cuthbert (1845–1905), baseball player
*James Eads (1820–1887), engineer and inventor
*Aaron W. Fagin (1812–1896), milling magnate, millionaire, and builder of the Fagin Building (1888)
*Gustavus A. Finkelnburg (1837–1908), U.S. Representative and Federal Judge
*Della May Fox (1870–1913), actress, singer
*David R. Francis (1850–1927), statesman, United States Secretary of the Interior
*Frederick D. Gardner (1869-1933), governor of Missouri and St. Louis funeral director and coffin manufacturer
*Jessie L. Gaynor (1863–1921), composer of children's music
*Henry S. Geyer (1790–1859), U.S. Senator, lawyer
*James Eads How (1874–1930), son of wealthy St. Louis family, known as the "Millionaire Hobo"
*Benjamin Howard (1760–1814), first governor of Missouri Territory
*Anthony F. Ittner (1837–1931), Missouri politician, brick manufacturer
*Caroline Janis (1864–1952), painter and sculptor, member of "The Potters"
*Albert Bond Lambert (1875–1946), aviator
*Theodore Link (1850-1923), architect of St. Louis Union Station
*Naphtali Luccock (1853–1916), a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
*James Smith McDonnell (1899–1980), founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation
*John McNeil, Civil War general (Union)
*Charles Nagel (1849-1940), last United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor, lawyer
*Trusten Polk (1811–1876), elected both governor and U.S. senator in 1856
*Sterling Price (1809–1867), American Civil War general (Confederate)
*Mary Marshall Rexford (1915–1996), Red Cross worker and the first woman to land on Utah Beach on D-Day
*James McIlvaine Riley (1849–1911), Co-founder of Sigma Nu International Fraternity
*Irma S. Rombauer (1877–1962), author of "The Joy of Cooking"
*James Semple (1798–1866), Illinois state senator
*Henry Miller Shreve (1785–1851), inventor
*Luther Ely Smith (1873-1951), founder of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
*Theodore Spiering (1871–1925), violinist, conductor, and teacher
*Edwin O. Stanard (1832–1914), Lieutenant Governor of Missouri and U.S. Representative
*George Strother (1783–1840), Virginia congressman and lawyer, collector of public money in St. Louis (reinterment)
*Sara Teasdale (1884–1933), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
*Charlotte Dickson Wainwright, within architect Louis Sullivan's 1892 Wainwright Tomb
*Erastus Wells (1823–1893), U.S. Representative and businessman

Calvary

Calvary Cemetery, at 5239 W. Florissant Avenue, is a 477-acre (1.9 km²) Roman Catholic cemetery established in 1857. It is the burial place for several members of the Chouteau family. They were co-founders of the city of St. Louis. Their descendants were part of the ceremony for the Louisiana Purchase. Some of the old burials and tombstones were transferred to Calvary Cemetery from much older Catholic cemeteries originally existing in what is now the downtown area of the city near the Old Cathedral and the Mississippi River.

Notable Calvary burials

*Mary Odilia Berger (1823-1880), founder of Franciscan Sisters of Mary, which operates hospitals in Midwest
*Lewis V. Bogy (1813 - 1877) United States Senator
*Kate Chopin (1851-1904), author
*René Auguste Chouteau (1740-1829), fur trader, cofounder of the city of St. Louis
*Black Eagle (unknown-1831), Nez Perce leader
*Speaking Eagle (unknown-1831), Nez Perce leader
*Daniel M. Frost (1823 - 1900), CSA General
*Robert E. Hannegan (1903 - 1949), Saint Louis politician
*John Baptiste Charles Lucas (1758-1842), U.S. Representative who donated the land for the Old Courthouse
*Thomas Caute Reynolds (1821-1887), second Confederate governor of Missouri
*Dred Scott (1799-1858), freed slave, subject of important U.S. Supreme Court case
*William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), American Civil War general (Union)
*Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), playwright
*Carl Whitney (1919-1986), Negro League baseball player

ee also

*List of United States cemeteries
*List of famous cemeteries