O’FALLON, Mo. — Officials here are hoping a new federal grant will revitalize a historic Black cemetery, one of the city’s oldest landmarks.
The Sage Chapel Cemetery, which is next to the VFW Post 5077 on Veterans Memorial Parkway, is home to many former slaves and their descendants, most of whom are commemorated only by unmarked gravestones. The cemetery dates back to before the American Civil War and is one of the last remnants of a once-thriving Black neighborhood in O’Fallon called The Hill.
Now, the city is seeking a grant of more than $113,000 through the National Park Service’s to place a memorial marker at the cemetery, construct a wrought iron-style fence around the property, complete some landscaping and install signs to help people find the cemetery, today noted only by a wooden sign.
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“It is the best thing they could ever do,†local historian and author Dorris Keeven Franke said on Wednesday. “A lot of places are historic, but people pass them every day, and they don’t have any idea. These ideas, I think, will help change that.â€
The federal grant program is a $24 million initiative aimed to help communities “document, interpret, and preserve the sites and stories†of Black Americans from the days of the slave trade through the Civil Rights movement.
Since 2016, the Park Service has awarded more than $100 million to such projects: It helped renovate the , one of the few surviving Negro League baseball stadiums, and helped stabilize the ruins of the Clotilda, the last-known ship used to bring enslaved Africans to the United States through Mobile Bay in Alabama.
The city, which has owned the cemetery since 2021, partnered on the application with the O’Fallon Community Foundation, which is providing matching local funds.
Among those known to be buried at the cemetery, in unmarked graves, are Daniel Frost, a Black man who served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War and who died in 1913; Edith Dyer, a seamstress, who died in 1915 in ºüÀêÊÓƵ’ Carondelet neighborhood; Alvin Edwards, a 17-year-old Black teen who died from injuries he sustained after being run over by a Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad train on what is now known as the Katy Trail; and Rufus White, a St. Charles County farmer who was born into slavery in 1851 and who died in 1919.
The city would have two to three years to complete the work, according to officials.
“As a city, we would like to pay homage to those buried there,†said Alexis Jaegers, who works for the city’s public assistance department and oversaw the grant application.
Jaegers said she thinks many residents will be surprised to know that there is a historic Black cemetery in O’Fallon.
She said the grant program would not cover the costs of helping to find unmarked graves. She along with O’Fallon Communications Director Tony Michalka said the city also would not use the grant funds to cover the costs of mowing or other general maintenance work done at the cemetery.
Keeven Franke, the historian, said she hopes the marker will mention the 80 people known to be buried in the cemetery that do not have headstones. Thirty-seven people have gravemarkers or had grave sites that were identifiable.
“All 117 people buried there had a story,†Keeven Franke said.
She said she first learned about the cemetery in the early 2000s while working at the St. Charles County Historical Society and was asked by the O’Fallon Police Department for help tracking down property records for the cemetery. That research request, coupled with conversations with St. Charles County residents who have family members buried at the cemetery, led Keeven Franke to submit an application to add the cemetery to the National Register of Historic Places.
The cemetery is one of two O’Fallon landmarks on the national list. The other is the St. Mary’s Institute of O’Fallon, a historic convent, school and property that is used by the Sisters of Most Precious Blood religious order.
The first burials at the cemetery were made by slaves who lived on nearby farms that would one-day become the city of O’Fallon, Keeven Franke said. Seventeen of the people known to be buried at Sage Chapel were born into slavery.
Jaegers said she believes the city will continue to apply for the grant program until funding is received.
“We do have these gems of historical significance, and it is important that our residents, whether they have lived here their entire lives or if they are brand new to the city that they are able to easily access this site and able to easily learn more about it,†Jaegers told the Post-Dispatch after the meeting.
The city will find out in March 2024 if it has been awarded the grant.