Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri

in this episode i take you to bella fountain cemetery in st louis so sit tight and get ready to learn [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello i'm jason welcome to another episode of historically marked this is the first in one of many series i plan on doing called cemeteries with markers and what better way to start than do it here in arguably st louis's most historic cemetery which is belafontaine now speaking of which because let me just get this out of the way now i've heard it pronounced many different ways bella fountain bellafontaine bellfonten i don't know but uh you'll hear me say it uh many different ways in this video so kind of bear with me on that one but it is one of the most historic cemeteries in north st louis all over the city because it was actually the first of such thing here in the city because now let me give you a little history here back in the late 1840s you know even before going back to the city's founding a lot of people were buried outside their churches their residences and in some rural areas well at the time this spot where i'm standing on was once considered rural in the mid 19th century and so there was a cholera epidemic and they wanted to put some of the victims you know here and you know there's a lot more detail into that but this was this was intentional to put it you know on the outskirts of the city you know away from downtown and a lot of cities seem to have followed on that there are over 87 000 people buried in the cemetery i don't really know how much is marked but i'm sure there's a maybe a small percentage of that and according to the website findagrave.com which is one of my favorite historical websites there is at least 300 famous internments here politicians inventors authors entertainers and in this video i will show you plenty notable um graves and one other thing to note is this is a non-religious affiliated cemetery so anybody of any faith or lack of faith can be buried here unlike say calvary cemetery which is next door i will have an episode on that pretty soon but um as far as like political divides there are both um union and confederate soldiers buried here so that is very interesting to note and i understand cemeteries are not for everyone but if history and cemeteries are your thing then definitely come with me and i will show you a little tour of bella fountain cemetery here we go they do have self-guided tour maps for anyone who is interested and there is a road you know that takes you all around the cemetery and it is marked with a white line and you'll see plenty of red markers which i will show you a lot of the special internments are marked with one of these with a red marker this one happens to be the first one the some of the civil war ones on the other hand are marked with a black marker this is the lambert family not to be confused with the throat rolls fame but this is albert bond lambert's family lambert was an athlete he competed in both the 1900 summer olympics as well as the 1904 summer olympics which were held in st louis while the latter was and he was also the son of the founder of listerine you know the mouthwash stuff we use and he was an aviator so later in life he funded the flight for charles lindbergh which was very world famous in the 1920s and now we are approaching the gravesite of the queenie family in case you don't know who the queenies are no it is not the name of a dog but um this is john f queenie's family and john f queenie john francis queenie is the was the founder of monsanto which is one of the most controversial companies in america it is based here in saint louis this is a special grave site for hermann cg leite's i hope i'm pronouncing his name right but who um who was herman leitz you ask well i didn't know until i came here but he was the owner of the first proprietary drug store in st louis and as far as this angel statue this was commissioned and it was pretty much the version of the monteverde angel in italy behind glass as we approach the grave sites of the mcdonnell family i'd like to point out there is a marker about the state champion tree which held that position from 2 2010 to 2017. this is the american elm tree and here is historical marker even though it's pretty much about horticulture but still and now we get to the mcdonnell family james s mcdonald jr is the co-founder of mcdonald douglas which as we as most of us know was became boeing later on but as a lot of us know james s mcdonald jr his legacy is in being a pioneer in aviation as well as engineering a lot of places hold his name including james s mcdonnell boulevard which is by lambert field the planetarium which is now part of the st louis science center bears his name which is of course in forest park there's also a james mcdonald park here in st louis many others there's also a building at washington university so yes this man left behind a great legacy and i'm glad people are following in his footsteps as far as his vision and aviation and now for us cardinal fans well like myself i understand a lot of my viewers probably aren't but this is the grave site of chris van der rohe who was one of the original owners this was back in 1882 when they were known as the saint louis brown stockings in the national league so here's a story of chris van der rohe's background he immigrated from germany opened up a grocery store here in st louis after quickly spending some time in new york city and then that grocery store became a saloon and then he wondered you know well how is he making money you know he really wasn't making much money except for people who are coming back from baseball games so he thought his ticket to some cash flow was purchasing the 1882 st louis browns for only 1 800 of course back then and even though he didn't really know very much about baseball at the time of his purchase um he stayed very involved with the team knowing little by little about the whole sports business he even hired future chicago white sox owner charles kamiski to play first base and eventually manage the team now the statue i don't know if you can see it because of the sunlight but yes he had that statue made of himself during while he was alive and this was actually placed outside sportsman's park in st louis which of course where the brown stockings played but fittingly it is now on his monument there's still a lot of history beyond the early years of the st louis cardinals franchise like in 1892 van der rohe went bankrupt but so he decided to expand the stadium which he owned and made it into like an amusement park and he even called it the coney island of the west in 1898 he was forced to sell the team after many scandals and such but in 1899 the baseball team became the perfectos only for only that year and of course as we all know by 1900 they were known as the st louis cardinals rest in peace indeed and another tidbit about chris vanderhoff apparently according to his wikipedia page the term fan which we all know is short for fanatic was attributed to him ain't that something this is the grave site of robert barnes and his wife and in big litters on his monument founder of barnes hospital this gravesite right here is the grave of elizabeth w robert well she later became elizabeth mcmillan as it says in the stone but she was a titanic survivor whose story was the first first-hand account of the tragedy and it was published by the st louis post dispatch and now we are here at the wainwright mausoleum where the final resting place of ellis wainwright is now even though the bella fountain cemetery is in the national register of historic places this actual mausoleum itself was added to the national register of historic places in 1970 so it's kind of odd that uh you know n rhp inside an nrhp the person who designed this tomb was louis sullivan who was a renowned architect at the time now keep in mind now during the 19th century's architects were like the rock stars of their time whoever came up with the coolest design got all the attention and right across from wayne wright is the lemp family i plan to do an episode in the future on the limp mansion the limp family as most st louisians know about their troubled history they were once a brewing empire during the late 19th century competing with anheuser-busch so i'm going to go kind of closer to the door i know obviously i can't go in there but it's kind of worth getting close to if you know what i mean going towards the northwest part of the cemetery this is a chapel that was named after the first superintendent of the cemetery it was named after almerin hotchkiss hotchkiss chapel here we go and this is just a plaque commemorating that and obviously funeral services are conducted in this place as well as weddings that's right i don't know i mean of course i'm no expert on weddings nor do i probably have any room to criticize but it'd be kind of weird you know having your whole wedding party and all of your guests going to this whole cemetery you know but the chapel is kind of small and you know some people prefer modest weddings and that's fine and to the left of the chapel you can actually get a really nice view of the industrial part of saint louis there's like a big stack of it's not dirt but it looks more kind of like metals of some sort it's always easy to forget that we're on top of a hill this is the final resting place of ann ct ferrar who was william clark's niece and don't worry we will see clark's grave on this tour in this video and this is kind of like a greek revival be very careful you can tell times have kind of been hard on this pretty unique for what it is and here it even says i didn't realize there was more than one person it looks like there's 40 30 40 people very below here wow crazy as it is and one of the most visited tombs here in the cemetery belongs to one of the patriarchs of one of the most famous beer empires not just here in st louis but all over the world the adolphus bush tomb of course i can't go in you can see it's locked but you can kind of get a view of how magnificent looks behind the glass from what i hear though they do have um brewery tours here at the cemetery and i think they actually let people go in this place but i could be wrong somebody may have to clarify that for me and not too far from the bush mausoleum is this grave of susan blow sure you probably don't know who she is but chances are you've likely attended kindergarten well if it wasn't for this lady right here you probably wouldn't have attended kindergarten she is the founder of the first kindergarten which was here in st louis south side but still st louis and next to her is henry t blow her father and now i'm approaching the lot for the o'fallon family this is the family of john o'fallon the towns or should i say cities of el fallen illinois missouri were both named after him he was also the nephew of william clark and you know throughout his life he was a banker he was a tycoon goes without saying he was st louis when st lewis sends one of their most richest men he's got a big family a lot of them are buried here you can just kind of tell you know just kind of looking around and giving a little pan shot here so not many people know this but the pedestal figure that is on top of this which i'm pointing to right now is called hope and the direction she is facing is towards the mississippi river so yeah so in other words uh the mississippi river is that way okay still very cool very unique and cool obelisk and this here is the link family this is one of the most famous local architects theodore link he designed st louis union station as well as monticello seminary in godfrey illinois which is now lewis and clark community college in addition he was also one of the main architects of the 1904 st louis world's fair here's the gravesite of john barry meacham who was a pastor and he was the first pastor of the first baptist church west of the mississippi river his wife was mary meacham who of course was part of the mary meechan freedom crossing now she is not technically buried here nobody really knows for sure where her human remains are but her memorial is here in belle fountain cemetery and just a short walk from those is the grave site of john mason peck he was the founder of shirtless college which is now siue dental school in alton there is even a historical marker dedicated to him across from the school which is not too far from the robert wadlow statue and in front of me is the william clark monument this is the final resting place of the explorer obviously the clark and lewis and clark fame and well no person buried in the cemetery is better than others by any means this one definitely comes with a lot of inscription this of course is a bust of his with a masonic symbol on top and then you just kind of walk around talks about his journey a passage from deuteronomy and some uh yeah i guess this is a gargoyle something gothic of anything and before i leave this area this is also kind of a marking which was put here during the bicentennial of their famous voyage in 2004 hopefully you can see it this is a quote of communicating with his friend thomas jefferson hopefully you know who he is and there is some more inscription on the back of this so i hope you enjoyed this tour of many of the famous notable people who are buried here in the cemetery the cemetery has quite a lot of history maybe uh you might be buried in here who knows but the cemetery is open to anyone it is in north st louis and it is very highly secured there's at least one or two security cars here and of course when i was here there was one but um anywho uh this is the first in many of my cemeteries with markers series so i hope you tune in for the future i understand cemeteries are not for everyone for me there are many things they're kind of relaxing sometimes depressing sometimes a learning experience and a lot of times you know very calm and peaceful so um hope you uh again i hope you enjoyed this so this is jason i'm signing off this is historically marked

Channel: HistoricallyMarked

Views: 2,203

Rating: 4.8461537 out of 5

Keywords: lemp family, lemp brewery, ellis wainwright tomb, susan blow, john queeny, chris von der ahe, james eads, theodore link, william clark gravesite, john berry meachum, wainwright tomb, albert bond lambert, david barnes, historical markers

Id: hqB_TyOHlnc

Length: 20min 32sec (1232 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020