Last week, I shared some stories about the residents of Mount Mora’s Mausoleum Row. With 30 mausoleums total on the property, it’s difficult to narrow it down to a smaller list. But the Burnes mausoleum deserves to be included on it.

Led by James Burnes and his wife, Mary, the Burnes family left Indiana after their son, Lewis, returned from an exploratory expedition of the Platte territory in Northwest Missouri. James served as a circuit court judge in Indiana and hoped his sons would work together in Missouri. Three of them attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Of James and Mary’s children, James Nelson Burnes made the biggest splash. After graduating from Harvard Law, he was Attorney of the District of Missouri in 1856 and served as judge of the court of common pleas from 1868 to 1872.

James Nelson Burnes also financed and built the Chicago & Northwestern railway from Eldon, Iowa, to Leavenworth and Atchison, Kansas in 1870 and 1871. During the same years, he started construction of railroad bridges across the Missouri River at both places. In 1873, he settled in St. Joseph. With his brother, Calvin, he established the National Bank of St. Joseph and the city’s waterworks.

In 1883, James Nelson Burnes was elected as representative of Missouri’s Fourth District to the 48th Congress (and elected to the 49th and 50th as well). He was re-elected to the 51st Congress, but died in Washington, D.C. on January 23, 1889, before the start of the congressional term.

James Burnes’ son, Daniel Dee Burnes, also got his law degree at Harvard and practiced in St. Joseph. He followed in his father’s footsteps and became Fourth District representative for the 53rd Congress in 1893. He only served one term, returning to Saint Joseph to resume his law practice.

Both James Burnes and Daniel Dee Burnes, and their wives, are buried in the Burnes Mausoleum. Several other Burnes family members are interred within it as well. Built in 1889, the architects of the Romanesque Revival tomb were Harvey Ellis and George Mann.

What sets the Burnes mausoleum apart from its neighbors is the unusual facade, rising above and beyond the mausoleum crypt masked behind it. Made of dressed limestone, the structure sweeps from the base to a parapet gable with a simple cavetto cornice. The grill work of the gate is simple, close to an Art Nouveau style.

The Owen Mausoleum, while not particularly notable in appearance, is worth mentioning. Three of attorney James Alfred Owen’s daughters would never marry but their lives were by no means ordinary.

Mary Alicia Owen, the eldest Owen child, gained attention as a folklorist by collecting and recording old African-American and Native American folk tales. Her earliest publication was Old Rabbit the Voodoo, and other Sorcerers. In an era when most young ladies married and had children, Mary Alicia set her own course.

In 1906, Mary became one of the founding members of the Missouri Folklore Society.  Owen also helped organize the St. Joseph Folklore Society and started the Mary Alicia Owen Story Teller’s League to encourage women to write fiction.

Luella Agnes, the second Owen child, focused her interests on spelunking and geology. As a child, she loved to roam the outdoors, dig in the dirt, and explore the caves along the bluffs of the Missouri River around St. Joseph. Not exactly the habits of a debutante! Her parents were less than thrilled.

After her father died in 1890, Luella felt free to go on trips with fellow spelunkers (people who explore caves and caverns). She often wore a long, split skirt that skimmed the tops of her boots. Between 1890 and 1900, Luella reportedly explored hundreds of Missouri’s estimated 3,500 caves. In 1898, Luella’s book, Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills, was published to much acclaim.

Fascinated by the loose, yellowish soil she saw along the Missouri River bluffs, Luella discovered that this loess was very fertile and only exists in a few other areas in the world. In 1900, she traveled to China and Germany to explore their loess soil sources and wrote scientific papers about it. She also traveled around the U.S., sharing her geologic information and insights.

The youngest Owen daughter, Juliette Amelia, became an ornithologist (bird expert) and artist. She was especially inspired by the work of artist John James Audobon. She drew all the illustrations in her sister Mary’s first book, Old Rabbit the Voodoo, and other Sorcerers.

While all three Owen sisters did a fair amount of traveling, much of their time was taken up with tending their invalid mother (who died in 1911). They all lived together in the same house they had known since childhood on the corner of Ninth and Jules Streets. Luella died in 1932, Mary in 1935, and Juliette in 1943.

Built in 1891, the Owen mausoleum is another one in the Victorian Eclectic style. The architects are unknown. Composed of two parts, the larger element was built as a chapel, with a smaller building containing the burial vaults appended to the rear.

The last two I’m going to talk about today are the Crowther and Self mausoleums. Built only a year apart, they’re almost identical in appearance and are of the Victorian Eclectic style. The architect is unknown but it’s almost certain he designed both.

George Crowther and his family emigrated from Lancashire, England to the U.S. in the 1850s. He had trained as a machinist as a young man. The 1860 U.S. Census indicates George was a molder so he was experienced in the iron trade.

After spending years in New York, Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska, the Crowthers settled in Saint Joseph and George helped start the iron manufacturing firm of Burnside, Crowther & Rogers. After his death, his sons George, Thomas, Enos and James ran the firm, which changed names to Crowther & Rogers.

George and his wife, Harriet, had several children but not all had long lives. Ira, who died of typhoid at 18, shares his parents marker at Mount Mora. The Crowther mausoleum appears to have been built after the death of Thomas Crowther, the oldest son, in 1892.

The Crowther and Self Mausoleums both feature (above the columns) elaborately designed corners above the doors with rosettes and oak leaves. They also feature small, narrow stained glass windows on each side.

In addition, both have a polychrome encaustic tile floor (don’t ask me what that means) that begins at the exterior porch and extends into the interior of the mausoleum. A brown tile border with a pattern of multi-colored tile work borders a field of gold tile with inset diamond-shaped tiles.

Unfortunately, I could find out little about the Self family. There’s nothing on Find a Grave beyond a handful of names and none died before 1914. Born in 1852 in Missouri, James A. Self was (according to the U.S. Census) a carpenter, brewery president and a real estate executive over the decades. His wife, Josephine Gaughan Self, was from Chicago. I can find no record to indicate if she’s interred with her husband or not.

The main difference that you can see on the Crowther and Self mausoleums is that the Crowther mausoleum has the Masonic and Odd Fellows (the three-linked chain) over the name above the door. The Self mausoleum has twin columns of red granite while the Crowther ones are limestone like the rest of the tomb’s stone. The bases of the two pillars on both mausoleums differ as well. The Self mausoleum has a small tower with a rosette carved into it above the date while the Crowther mausoleum does not.

I’m not done with Mausoleum Row just yet, so come back next week for Part IV. There’s much more to see.

Since writing Part I about Mount Mora Cemetery, I’ve learned a few things I’d like to add about its origins. To do that, here’s a little history lesson on how Saint Joseph began.

In its early days, Saint Joseph was a bustling town, serving as a last supply stop and jumping-off point on the Missouri River toward the West. It was the westernmost point in the U.S. accessible by rail until after the Civil War.

In 1843, successful fur trader Joseph Robidoux chose Frederick W. Smith and Simeon Kemper to help fully design Saint Joseph’s layout. Under Kemper’s plan, the town was to have been called Robidoux, a feature Kemper thought would appeal to his boss. However, Robidoux liked Smith’s plan more because it featured narrower streets and would leave more land for Joseph to sell in the form of lots.

As is often the case, the pocketbook won over the ego. The main east-west downtown streets, however, were named for Robidoux’s eight children and his wife.

Believing a cemetery might become a lucrative business opportunity, Kemper and his wife, Jane Ann, deeded two-thirds of a 20 acre plot on their farm to Israel Landis (who is mentioned in Part I) and Reuben Middleton. The land covered a scenic hilltop approximately a mile west of the Buchanan County Courthouse.

Sadly, Kemper had a personal connection to the property. The Kemper family’s three-year-old daughter, Susan Jane, died in 1847. Nine days later, their infant son, 10-month-old Simeon Love, was buried beside her. The Kemper family plot is on top of the hill of Mount Mora.

By 1870, people were complaining that livestock roaming the cemetery and hogs were rooting up the graves. Town trustees hired prominent architect W. Angelo Powell to draw up and implement a master plan that eventually transformed Mount Mora into a rural cemetery with a park-like feel.

Most burials at Mount Mora occurred between 1851 and 1930. About 15,000 people are buried there, with approximately 8,850 stone markers. So many of the graves aren’t even marked.

During the post-Civil War period, Saint Joseph experienced a sort of golden age that gave rise to the construction of some exceptional tomb architecture. Mausoleum Row and the others scattered throughout the cemetery pay historical tribute to turn-of-the-century Saint Joseph.

Consisting of 21 mausoleums, Mausoleum Row also reads like a “Who’s Who” of St. Joseph’s economic and social elite, competing with each another to build magnificent homes and impressive burial tombs. It’s clear that the city’s creme de la creme had money and wanted to show it off, even in death.

Many people think W. Angelo Powell is buried in the Powell mausoleum but he’s actually buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery (also in Saint Joseph) with his wife, Cecelia. However, Powell’s son William (also an architect) and his wife, Gracie, are buried in the Classical Revival-style mausoleum at Mount Mora. It’s likely William’s brother, Grey, designed the limestone tomb. William’s ashes are in an urn placed next to a portrait of Gracie, which I could not photograph well through the door glass.

Built in the 1930s, the Townsend Mausoleum was designed by the firm of Eckel & Aldrich, who designed a number of St. Joseph structures. It is the centerpiece of Mausoleum Row and features an Egyptian Revival tomb with the influence of the modern Art Deco period (during which it was built) and lacking the ostentatious decoration found on the earlier Victorian mausoleums. Two sphinxes flank the front doors. Notice the winged disc/double cobra symbol at the top of the building, which I talked about at Omaha’s Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Robert and Mary Townsend are interred within the mausoleum. Townsend & Wall (officially known as Townsend, Wyatt and Wall) at 602 Francis Street was the principal department store in downtown St. Joseph from 1866 to 1983, founded by Robert’s father, John Townsend. Designed in 1909 by Walter Boschen, their last building was converted into loft apartments and is still in use today.

Amazingly, the roof alone of the Townsend Mausoleum weighs a whopping 24.5 tons according to Mount Mora historian Suzanne Lehr. She said in a recent article, “Because of the great weight on the granite walls, the mortar between the granite slabs has oozed out.” A multi-thousand dollar project will be completed to repair the steps of the mausoleum and to re-mortar it.

Two deeply intertwined families have mausoleums at Mount Mora, the Nave and McCord families. The McCord Mausoleum (which is to the right of the Townsend Mausoleum) also features an Egyptian-style of a winged disc (no cobras) above the door. Built in 1909, it’s not surprising that it was designed by Eckel & (Walter) Boschen, whose names we’ve seen already.

The cobras, however, can be found on the doors’ knockers. I’m not sure why a mausoleum would need them since the occupants within are deceased but who am I to question it? The Fairleigh Mausoleum features the exact same knockers on its doors.

In addition to the Egyptian motifs, the McCord Mausoleum has a variety of flowers woven through the bronze work of the front gates that cover the doors. It makes for an interesting contrast.

James McCord and Abram Nave were connected by marriage when Nave married McCord’s sister, Lucy Jane. They became business partners and the result was several successful endeavors too many to list here. The best known in Saint Joseph (and founded there) was the Nave & McCord Mercantile Co., a major pioneer mercantile chain of stores in the Midwest from the mid-19th century through the early 1930s.

The Nave Mausoleum is actually not located on Mausoleum Row but elsewhere in the cemetery. The style is Victorian Eclectic and the mausoleum is made of dolomite limestone. Black granite columns flank the doors. The words “AD MAJOREM GLORIAM” are above the doors, which means “To the greater glory of God.”

Lucy McCord Nave died in 1853, only 10 years after she and Abram married. They had seven children together, several of whom died in infancy.  He would marry twice more after that. While Lucy is buried in a different cemetery, Abram and his other two wives are interred in the Nave Mausoleum.

Another Victorian Eclectic-style mausoleum is next to the McCord Mausoleum. The Marlow Mausoleum only has two occupants, George Marlow and his wife, Arcadia Perry Marlow. Built in 1893, the architect is unknown. The rectangular-shaped structure is constructed of dressed blocks of gray granite. A broad projecting pavilion, deeper than any other on the Row, dominates the facade.

Marlow, a native of Virginia, headed to St. Joseph after the Civil War to open a shoe and boot business called Elephant Shoe Store that was quite successful. Arcadia Perry Marlow was the daughter of a prominent St. Joseph businessman. They married in 1886. A long-time bachelor, Marlow was 48 and Arcadia was 30.

Sadly, their story did not end happily. On Nov. 16, 1893, Marlow arrived at his store as usual and went up to the third floor to do some work. One of the shoemakers found him a few hours later, laying on the floor dead. He had shot himself in the head with a pistol.

Marlow left two letters, one for one of his clerks and another for Arcadia. According to a newspaper article, the letter to the clerk said he was “racked with pain, was unfit for business, and did not desire any longer.” Apparently, Marlow had been miserable and told his wife several times that his head felt like it was “on fire.”

Arcadia never remarried but chose to live with her sister in St. Joseph. She died in 1937 and her ashes were interred in the Marlow Mausoleum with her husband. They never had any children together.

Next time, I’ll have more stories to share from Mount Mora’s Mausoleum Row in Part III.

 

 

I visited several cemeteries during my visit to Nebraska in September 2015. But one of them was actually in Missouri.

We drove down to St. Joseph, Mo. to visit the Glore Psychiatric Museum. It chronicles the 130-year history of what began in 1874 as “St. Joseph’s State Lunatic Asylum No. 2” along with centuries of mental health treatment. It’s located on the adjoining grounds of the original state hospital. I won’t go into what all we saw at the museum but if you happen to be in St. Joseph, it’s worth stopping by to visit (but kids might find it a bit frightening.)

My other aim for visiting St. Joseph was to visit the city’s oldest and grandest cemetery, Mount Mora. Established in 1851, Mount Mora is on the National Register of Historic Places. I couldn’t find out what the current acreage is but it was originally 20 acres.

I didn’t do a great deal of homework on Mount Mora. By this time in my trip, I’d visited so many cemeteries that I wanted to amble through the stones and simply enjoy being there. But I did look up the people whose graves I saw later.

One thing I noticed when I got up to the top of the hill was that Mount Mora has a lot of white bronze (zinc) markers, some the largest I’ve ever seen. It was a delight to see so many in once cemetery.

I couldn’t find out much about Abbott Porter Goff but he was a successful merchant in St. Joseph, having spent his early life and marriage in West Virginia. He and his wife, Susan, had eight children.

Their monument is a nice example of a white bronze monument, complete with a bound wheat sheaf/scythe on the side. I see this often on white bronze markers, signifying a long and fruitful life in many cases. Since Abbott lived to 70, that makes sense. It also has Biblical overtones as a symbol of Resurrection.

The Hutchinson/Ashton monument is another rare white bronze because it has a statue on the top. Sarah Aspinal, a native of England, married William Ashton (a cloth manufacturer) and came to America in 1824. Ashton died in 1829, leaving her with two children.

Sarah married William Hutchinson in 1832 and they eventually moved to St. Joseph. In her obituary, her son Thomas Ashton is referred to as “Col. Ashton” although the military records I found on him indicate he had a physical disability that prevented him from serving.

A smaller white bronze monument got my attention because of some of the more uncommon symbols on its sides.

A native of Kentucky, William Strop was the son of German immigrants. He served in the Union’s Fifth Regiment, Company L of the Kentucky Cavalry during the Civil War. By 1870, he and his wife, Carrie, were living in St. Joseph and he was earning a living as a brick mason. In 1880, he and Carrie had a son and three daughters. For reasons, unknown he died in 1881 at the age of 35.

The three-link chain in the photo above represents the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is one I see on markers everywhere. The three links represent “Friendship, Love and Truth.” But the symbol below it was new to me.

I learned that the AOUW was the Ancient Order of United Workman. The AOUW predates Modern Woodmen of America, established in 1868 by John Jordan Upchurch, a mechanic on the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad. His original idea was to create a fraternal order that might unite the conflicting interests of capital and labor, but he became more interested in improving working conditions for members and establishing an insurance fund.

The emblems and symbols used by the AOUW have roots in Free Masonry, featuring the All-Seeing Eye, the Holy Bible, anchor, square and compasses, over which the motto “Charity, Hope and Protection” are displayed. By 1885, its membership numbered in excess of 318,000.

Another panel on this monument features a cherub. I suspect William and Carrie may have had a child who died in infancy. Census records indicate that the four children I saw listed lived well into adulthood but it’s highly possible there was one who died at birth or within the first years of its life. I’ve never seen a cherub on a white bronze monument, however.

Many gravestones feature an anchor, which symbolizes hope or eternal life. It’s also a favorite on Mason graves, meaning well-grounded hope. However, once in a while I spot an anchor on an actual Navy or Marine veteran’s grave.

Francis Sherman graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy as a mid-shipman in 1871 and served as an officer in Navy War Department. During the Spanish American War of 1898, he was a Lieutenant Commander in the North Atlantic Squadron in command of the U.S.S Passaic. Afterward, he served as adviser captain on the Navy Flag Staff and retired in 1901.

One thing that’s particularly interesting about St. Joseph itself is that it was the starting point of the Pony Express, which only lasted 19 months in 1860 and 1861, and covered 2,000 miles. Mount Mora is the resting place of not only two Pony Express riders (Charlie Cliff and John Benjamin Harrison), but Israel Landis. He is often credited with helping create what’s known as a mochila, the leather mail pouches so critical to the Pony Express.

Oddly enough, I don’t recall seeing Israel Landis’ grave because I’ve since seen a picture of it. What I did see (and photographed) was this stone with an iron hitching post in the shape of a horse’s head. In my research, I saw a mention of this being a memorial to Pony Express riders. The one grave that’s next to it is of Lawrence Weakley, who married Israel Landis’ granddaughter, Jeanette Landis Weakley.

The last thing I’m going to talk about is the Maud Vanderlinde mausoleum. Mount Mora has 30 mausoleums, many of them ornate and glorious. I’ll get to those in future weeks. But Maud’s is so shrouded in legend that I feel the need to mention hers here.

The popular story behind Maud’s death was that she died while she and her husband were passing through St. Joseph on their way west. She supposedly died in childbirth. Her husband was said to have asked a Native American chief to perform some kind of ceremony over her body to keep it preserved before placing her in the red brick mausoleum he had made for her eternal rest.

Word around town was that if you peered inside the window of the mausoleum, you could see Maud’s casket resting on two sawhorses, her remains visible for everyone to see.

Thanks to her obituary and some digging on Ancestry.com, I was able to find out the real story. Maud (or Amanda as the 1880 U.S. Census indicates) was the daughter of John and Susan Vanderlinde, who married in 1869 in St. Louis, Mo. John was a surveyor for the U.S. Customs Office in St. Joseph.

Maud was the only daughter of the Vanderlindes and contrary to the legend, she never married. She died at the age of 23 after a lengthy illness, a much beloved member of the community.

The mausoleum underwent some repairs in recent years and its doorway is now bricked up. The legend of her death as a young bride and expectant mother, however, has persisted over the years.

In my next post, I’ll share the stories of Mount Mora’s Mauseolum Row. You won’t want to miss it!