Historic Bellefontaine Cemetery

Through mid-Ninteenth Century, graveyards were purely practical. Grave plots took up as little space as possible so as to use every inch--and make grounds-tending unnecessary. After the death of Queen Victoria's Consort Prince Albert and her devotion to his memory, cemeteries bloomed. They merited the elevated new title "Cemetery" as they became parks with ponds and greenery. Families took carriage drives through the winding paths and brought picnics to spend Sunday afternoons with their dearly departed

One of the earliest and grandest park cemeteries in the United States is the antebellum Bellefontaine Cemetery at 4947 West Florissant Avenue in St. Louis. Since 1849 it has welcomed the rich and the poor, the powerful and the humble, the famous and the infamous.

In the right-hand column are two stories which sprang from our country's great Civil War. But the Civil War is only a small part of the Cemetery's great heritage. Below you can explore capsules from the lives of a few of the fascinating folks interred at Bellefontaine in the last century-and-a-half.

1.    For a $500 fee this legendary steamboat pilot taught Mark Twain how        navigate the Mississippi River
2.    West Pointer who explored the West and had salt flats in Utah named        after him
3.    Founder of the League of Women Voters in 1920
4.    First female US Marshall
5.    First president of the first chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy
6.    Man who made the rifle that tamed the West and placed it in the         hands of such intrepid frontiersmen as Daniel Boone, Kit Carson         and Jim Bridger
7.    Grandfather of T.S. Eliot and founder of Washington University
8.    Inspiration for W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues"
9.    The lady who was once the highest paid performer in American         Vaudeville
10. For 34 years, this man carried in his left arm the bullet that killed Wild         Bill Hickok
11.  The lawyer who praised the dog as "Man's best friend"
12.  Record holder for running up Pike's Peak
13.  Ad man who used Tom Mix western fever to sell tons of Hot Ralston         Cereal

A. William Greenleaf Eliot
B. William Massie
C. Edna Gelhorn
D. Joseph Forshaw
E. Horace Bixby
F. Samuel Hawkins
G. Della May Fox
H. Russell Gardner
I.   Senator George Graham Vest
J.   Benjamin Bonneville
K. Phoebe Couzins
L.   Charles Claggett
M. Margaret "Mother" McClurey
.