Bellefontaine Cemetery: Learning History From the Dead | History Traveler Episode 347

[Music] [Music] I feel like it has been a while since we have done a solid American cemetery tour I used to do these all the time on this channel and uh well just haven't had a chance lately to to get to any cemeteries in the United States well anyway right now I am traveling through St Louis and I've been here before as a matter of fact I've been to a cemetery close by to the one where I am now early on in the channel called Calvary Cemetery it's where Williams comes to Sherman ISB Dread Scott Tennessee Williams so I'll put a link in the description where you can go check that out if you haven't seen it already but anyway I didn't get a chance to visit one close by where I am right now this is Bell Fontaine Cemetery and as far as historical Graves this one is pack loaded [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] anytime that I visit one of these cemeteries the Latin phrase momento Mori is something that that always comes to mind to me this is a phrase that the early Christians and and stoics would reflect on and in English it it roughly translates to remember death or remember that you have to die and it's something that like I said the early Christians would reflect on to uh think about their own mortality and how to spend their time on Earth wisely and invest in Eternal things well cemeteries are a good place to reflect on on death and the the finite nature of life and it's also a good place to learn about history and as I mentioned we're here in in belfontaine Cemetery uh this is a place that was or a cemetery that was established in the mid 1800s and we're going to start off our tour of the cemetery at probably the most visited grave here right here on the highest point in the cemetery is the grave of a man who if you went to school in the United States will Engrade School you no doubt heard his name uh this is the grave of William Clark whose name is most associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition uh so anyway uh William Clark just in short you know these videos are not designed to be like full-on biographies or anything just kind of giving you a little little taste of the the history here and you can go and look up more on your own but William Clark uh was born in 1770 at the age of 19 joined the military fought at the Battle of Fallen Timbers uh which was in the Northwest Indian Wars in Ohio is where the battle Fallen timers was anyway and in 1803 Maryweather Lewis recruited him to be a part of the core of Discovery uh the United States under Thomas Jefferson had just made the Louisiana Purchase and had this massive expanse of ground and Jefferson wanted to send this team of explorers up the Missouri river to see if there was a passage to the Pacific Ocean uh so they you know go on this massive Journey uh along the Missouri River and across the Rocky Mountains and uh ended up making it to Oregon and the Pacific Ocean Expedition goes from 1804 to uh 1806 and uh William Clark his name becomes etched in American history as one of our most famous explorers now he does have kind of a complicated Legacy he wasn't a perfect man he was uh known to be quite cruel with his slaves and uh later became a territorial Governor but yeah right here is the grave of William Clark okay now we have to use our imaginations on this one a little bit so just bear with me here uh if you look uh here is the grave of Henry Massie here is the grave of Fanny Massie and then we have this headstone that has been weathered to the point where you can't even read it anymore well buried somewhere here is a guy by the name of William Massie now you have probably never heard of William Massie uh he was a steamboat pilot from Missouri and he was playing poker with Wild Bill Hickock on the day that Wild Bill was shot and killed and here's the the wild part of this story it said that the bullet passed through Wild Bill's head and lodged in Captain massie's left arm and it's thought that he carried the bullet that car that killed Wild Bill Hickock with him until the day he died so somewhere here is the the grave of Massie and possibly the bullet that killed Wild Bill Hickock now here is a grave that I was really really wanting to make a point to visit while I was here at B Fontaine today this is the grave of John Barry mechum who lived from 1789 to 1854 and as you can see there says African founder and Pastor uh 1817 to 1854 of the First Baptist Church West of the Mississippi River that's pretty cool I'm a Baptist guy myself so I can appreciate that and then if we go over here uh we also see that his his uh wife Mary is also memorialized here now here's something that's really cool about John and Mary so John mechum originally started off in uh Kentucky and was a conductor on the Underground Railroad so he helped uh a lot of like upwards of 75 enslaved people at least that's what I read uh get from Kentucky to Indiana uh which was a free state and then once he got here to St Louis well he and his wife you know help people across the Mississippi River to Illinois which of course was a free state Missouri was a slave state at the time here's something that just really really fascinates me uh they had a school that was set up in their church basement and well Missouri had a law at the time that said that uh the African-Americans could not not be educated so there's a law Banning black people uh from being educated in Missouri so they set up the floating Freedom School on a steamboat in the Mississippi River so river that was Federal property so they were taking people out into the middle of the river during the day and uh getting them an education and I I just absolutely love that and I think that you should look these people up and learn more about them now also buried here is Reverend John Anderson you can see he lived from 1818 to 1863 and uh he kind of picked up the mantle from John meechum after he died and became Pastor uh here in St Louis uh he worked in the printing press of Elijah P Lovejoy who was an abolitionist who was killed and uh was also a spiritual adviser for uh Dread Scott and his wife yeah very fascinating look up some more on these people they their their story is really something else I'm uh kind of wandering around here in this Cemetery looking for a few more of these historic Graves and and as we are walking through here I I can't help but just mention how much I admire the the Artistry uh in in some of these headstones uh I'm I'm kind of biased towards old things anyway so I don't know it just looks really interesting to me kind of like this headstone right here which is just kind of a a giant stump I'm a big Outdoorsman uh myself so the idea of having a stump as a headstone uh is kind of appealing to me but anyway uh got a few more that uh well not a few more we actually have quite a few more uh Graves that we're going to be looking for here [Music] all right let's take a look at a civil war grave here in Bell Fontaine uh this right here is the grave of General Don Carlos bule so bule uh was originally out in California at the beginning of the Civil War and ended up uh coming back and was with mlen at the army of pic for a little bit and then got transferred out to the Midwest and became the commander of the army of the Ohio uh so he uh reinforced Grant uh during the Battle of Shiloh and kind of claimed that he was the victor of the Battle of Shiloh and then he was also at the Battle of Perryville uh bu kind of had a reputation for being a little bit slow moving uh even mlen kind of criticized his slow movement and if mlen is criticizing you for being slow man that is like molasses level slowness right there but anyway uh Don Carlos bule after Perryville uh ended up kind of Fading Into Obscurity I guess you could say as far as Civil War generals go uh he he didn't really have anything significant after that and was kind of faced with a bit of a demotion and rather than take that he just kind of well resigned but anyway here is the grave of General Don Carlos bule and his wife real quick while we are here at the grave of Don Carlos bule I wanted to show this grave right here because man this thing is stunning uh this is the grave of General Richard Barnes Mason who it says was Colonel of the first Regiment of drons US Army uh let's see born 1797 died at Jefferson Barracks 1850 but I just really like the uh the artwork and the sculpture here on his tomb and yeah thought it was worth just an extra look we've moved just up the hill from Don Carlos bule and here we have the grave of another civil war figure uh this is the grave of Sterling price now Sterling price as you can see right here on this bronze plaque uh had also served as the governor of the state of Missouri from 1853 to 1857 this was a slave state at that time and when the Civil War broke out well he found himself on the Confederate side uh Sterling price was in one of the early battles of the Civil War the Battle of Wilson's Creek which is a battle that's on my list of places to cover here in the the near future I need to get down to Wilson's Creek uh that battle also saw the very first Union general killed in the war Nathaniel lion uh price was was also at the Battle of Jenkins Ferry down in Arkansas that's another battle that we have covered here on the channel uh he ended up going uh across the Mississippi River to try and give assistance after uh board lost at the Battle of Shiloh but ended up back over on the trans Mississippi theater or in the trans Mississippi theater and in the fall of 1864 was wanting to do like a a fullscale invasion of the state of Missouri and ended up kind of just doing like a a really big Cavalry raid instead and he ended up doing kind of like this large tour of the state of Missouri uh fought at Pilot Knob and won there uh let's see Lexington uh there were a few other battles where where he was Victorious uh and then he ended up getting out to Westport which is around present day Kansas City and uh suffered a pretty ter terrible defeat there as a matter of fact I've heard Westport sometimes referred to as the the Gettysburg of the West and after that H there wasn't too much more that we heard from old Sterling price but here's his grave here's a grave that I wanted to just make quick mention of this is the grave of Susan Blow you can see that she lived from 1848 to 1916 and uh she is considered to be the mother of the American kindergarten so she established the first kindergarten in the United States and in the first year forget how many students she had but I know that she like financed the entire thing herself to keep it open so anyway for all of you uh Americans who went to kindergarten at some point or have kids who went to kindergarten well you can thank sus and blow for that all right let's take a look at another civil war grave here of a general who you may be familiar with uh this is the grave of John Pope now John Pope uh was a graduate of the US Military Academy in 1842 uh he was in the Mexican-American War and prior to the Civil War he spent a lot of his time uh surveying different Southern routes to a possible Transcontinental Railroad well when the civil war broke out uh he initially served under John Fremont and had some success under Sterling price whose grave we just saw a little bit ago uh at Island number 10 on the Mississippi River that's down around the Boot Hill of Missouri and did well there to the point where Lincoln brought him to the Eastern theater to lead the newly formed Army of Virginia uh well he comes to the East and he's kind of bragging about all of his success in the West and uh long story short gets his butt handed to him at the Second Battle of Bull Run or second Manasses uh he was kind of concentrating on Stonewall Jackson and then Long Street hit him in the flank and routed his army but anyway uh here is the grave of John [Music] Pope if you were from from sheveport Louisiana you might take an interest in this grave right here this is the grave of Henry Miller shrieve For Whom the city of shreport is named after uh now this headstone or this Monument is really weathered and it's pretty difficult to read uh anyway he was born in 1785 and lived until 1851 and uh was really known for his work in the steamboat industry so he made some improvements to the steamboat and also you know early on in River travel there was huge problems with log jams and with shallow Waters and things like that well he developed something called a snag booat to basically clear rivers of log jams so uh he ended up really doing a lot to help with River traffic and and his grave is right here if you are a big- Time businessman and philanthropist there's a decent chance that after you die you get to have your final resting place in a big old tomb like this one right here uh this is the final resting place of AD Dolphus Bush you might recognize his name from the anheiser bush brand he was one of the co-founders uh Bush was uh German born and was an immigrant to the United States uh he was the 21st of 22 kids like that is wild to think about uh somebody cranking out 22 kids but anyway in 18 uh 57 I think when he was 18 years old he immigrated to the United States with three of his older brothers uh settled in the St Louis area as did any German immigrants and well because there were a lot of German immigrants here there was a demand for beer uh he ended up serving in the civil war with the Union Army uh he was with the third Missouri us Reserve Corps if I remember correctly and uh anyway after the war uh he ended up partnering with his father-in-law a guy by the name of eard and anheiser and then after anheiser died he became the president of the company um to kind of build up Budweiser's a national brand he created this network of rail sided ice houses to keep the uh beer cold and also came up with like these refrigerated cars or utilized them I think he had the First Fleet of refrigerated Freight cars so uh did a lot to build the brand after his father-in-law died yeah right here inside of this impressive structure is the tomb of Adolphus Bush okay now I mentioned that uh Adolphus Bush was the son-in-law of the other name in anheiser Bush eard anheiser well right back here is the grave of Ard and Heiser so again he he's kind of like the original as far as the beer brand and then in 1861 his daughter Lily uh married Adolphus Bush and then uh ad Dolphus kind of became more prominent in the company uh they they renamed it anheiser Bush and then after anheiser died well Bush uh became the president and now he rests here behind his son-in-law in a resting place that's a little bit more humble than his [Music] son-in-laws this group of graves that we are looking at here is for the bonnaville family and one of of them is a man by the name of Benjamin bonnaville and I think that's this one I think it's kind of worn off and really hard to read and I can see something up there that says USA uh but anyway Benjamin bonnaville uh was in the US Army he was also a fur trapper and uh another Explorer of the American West we've already visited the grave of William Clark here's another man kind of in that uh Pantheon of uh American Western explorers uh he's kind of noted for his Expeditions West and for opening up parts of the Oregon Trail uh he also in one of his Expeditions uh sent a guy named Joe Walker to explore the Great Salt Lake and also to find an Overland route to California so it's thought that the path that they blazed became the primary Trail uh known as the California Trail which is where immigrants to the the goldfields went during the California Gold Rush anyway here's the grave of Benjamin Bonville I was just walking back from Pope and Bonville grave getting ready to get in the Jeep and go to the next spot and happened to notice this grave right here to a Jesse Lindell who died in 1858 um and I thought well that's kind of an interesting looking marker and then I looked behind it and holy smokes looks like there was a big old puff of wind came along and blew this Monument over and did a little bit of damage but I I see some little orange Flags here uh I do want to say this doesn't reflect on the the grounds Keepers or the staff here at the cemetery this is a very very well-kept cemetery and uh from everything that I've seen they they do an excellent job here but uh yeah that is that is really unfortunate huh got another interesting grave up here that we'll stop and make quick mention of now at the beginning of the video I mentioned that right next to this Cemetery is Calvary Cemetery and it's one of the places that I went in one of my early early videos I'll link it in the description Calvary Cemetery is the final resting place of Dread Scott so Dread Scott was a slave uh who uh lived in Missouri before he was sold to an army officer the army officer was stationed in I think Illinois and Wisconsin and Scott sued for his family's freedom in 1846 because he said that they were living had lived where slavery was illegal well the original owner of Dread Scott was this man right here Peter blow uh so this court case ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court uh Dread Scott ended up losing that case which outraged the country and was one of the things that that kind of further caused division was pushing more towards you know the Civil War um here's something that's really cool though is that Peter blow's Sons ended up purchasing Scott in 1857 and his wife and setting them free so you have one generation who was the the slave holders and the Next Generation were the abolitionists yeah but here's the grave of Peter blow all right now here is a grave that I did not want to leave here without seeing first this is the grave of James eids uh this guy was a civil engineer and an inventor and this man was an absolute genius where he initially gained his fortune uh was when he was just 22 years old uh he designed these Salvage boats that could basically Salvage wrecks from the Mississippi River uh he also created a diving bell where you know people could go down and retrieve Goods that were sunk in in Riverboat wrecks and and it was during this time you know on the Mississippi River that James eids really kind of learns a lot of skills and learns a lot of things that's going to pay off later in life when the Civil War breaks out in 1861 uh you may have heard of the the ironclads James eids is the guy he is the one who the US government contracts to to make the ironclads uh after the Civil War he constructs the very first Steel Bridge in the world uh that spans the Mississippi River it still exists to this day and is being used by modern traffic uh it's called the the E's Bridge um but yeah it was the the longest arch bridge in the world when it was completed uh so you can look up more about that there was kind of an urban legend at the time because people were afraid to cross this thing uh there was an urban legend at the time that an elephant wouldn't cross an unsafe structure so when they opened the bridge uh they had they brought an elephant out to to cross it's probably more for show than anything else uh he also developed a method for opening up the Mississippi River uh to wider River traffic there was problems with silt building up and you know Riverbats and ships would get hung up so the US government basically made a bet with him that he could solve the problem they' give him $8 million and he solved it with a real simple system where basically constructed this Jetty system that went out into the river and then the natural flow of the river sped up and cut these channels to where Riverbats and barges and River traffic could get through but anyway I I love the story of James eids very very interesting guy and here's his grave we've moved over now to the grave of a pretty famous American political figure that of Thomas Hart Benton uh now we are looking at a monument to Benton it might be that his grave is actually back here so if it turns out that I'm wrong about this I'll put a note in the description I'm kind of kind of Flying Blind here but uh Benton his nickname was old bullion and he was the uh first Senator one of the first Senators for the state of Missouri and was the first Senator to serve for five terms uh now we would call senator who serves five terms a rookie uh but anyway uh he was originally born in North Carolina served with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 he was one of his AIDS and then after the war uh settled in St Louis uh his big thing was West expansion he called for the annexation of Texas which happened in 1845 uh also pushed for uh basically taking hold of the Oregon Territory uh he authorized the first Homestead Act which granted land to uh settlers who were willing to farm it uh so anyway uh yeah Benton is a pretty pretty famous political figure in America American history and also kind of a complex figure as well he owned slaves but came to oppose the institution of slavery uh so anyway kind of an kind of an interesting guy all right well let's take a look at another civil war grave so here is the grave of a civil war soldier by the name of Henry O'Brien and if you see that blue flag there well that might give you a clue as to why we are stopping at this particular grave uh Henry O'Brien was a part of the first Minnesota volunteer infantry and fought in the Battle of balls Bluff and at Malin Hill and at Harper's Ferry and if you know anything about Gettysburg well you know something else that he was a part of on the second day of the battle uh the regiment made a desperate charge against will Cox's Alabama Brigade and suffered devastating losses so Henry O'Brien was one of the lucky men who survived from the first Minnesota on the second day of the battle and then on the third day well he is going to perform an action that is going to lead to him being awarded the Medal of Honor his citation says taking up the colors where they had fallen Corporal O'Brien rushed ahead of his regiment close to the muzzles of the enemy's guns and engaged in the desperate struggle in which the enemy Was Defeated and though severely wounded he held the colors until wounded a second time and the action that they are referring to there is what we now know as picket charge but anyway even though we are in St Louis Gary Adelman all roads lead back to Gettysburg but anyway that's the grave of Henry O'Brien [Music] all right well there you go uh that was just a little bit from here at Bell Fontaine Cemetery in St Louis Missouri uh and there were several Graves that I wanted to get to that I just simply didn't have time to go to uh the gates close for this Cemetery at 5:00 and I just looked at my phone and it is 4:48 so I've got to get moving but anyway places like this like I said earlier this is where you can learn a lot of history here we have history of the Civil War of uh different you know politicians of abolitionists of slaveholders of explorers all right the the these cemeteries are so rich in history and it's worth your time to go to one that is nearby even if they don't have any famous people and uh learn a little bit more about your local area and about this country all right quick update um well I didn't make it in time oh JD [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 118,895

Keywords: bellfontaine, bellfountain, bellefountain, bellfontain, st. louis, cemetery tour, history documentary, history doc, cemetery doc, dark tourism

Id: 38-_drVC_OM

Length: 33min 2sec (1982 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2024