Pettis County, Missouri, Cemeteries This file was begun on 1 December 2004. Updates from the Sedalia Democrat are included from those available on that date to the present. The impetus for putting this together is to demonstrate the entirety of information available on Pettis County burial grounds. Sources are available at libraries throughout Missouri, including the Kathryn Linneman Branch of the St. Charles City-County Library District, the Headquarters Branch of the St. Louis County Library, the Central Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, the Missouri Historical Society Library in St. Louis, the State Historical Society of Missouri Library (located in Ellis Library at the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO), the Sedalia Public Library, the Boonslick Regional Library in Sedalia, and the Mid- Continent Public Library in Independence, MO. I have added Genevieve Carter’s data, which has been supplied online by Laura Paxton. In addition to this, there are other transcriptions. Elizabeth Prather Ellsberry produced a limited transcription of Pettis County cemeteries (she included Longwood Cemetery amongst her Saline County listings). The Osage Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution produced the most detailed listings in a series of five “Rural Cemeteries of Pettis County” volumes, containing information compiled between 1955 and 1970. Some of this predates Carter’s work, but most of it post-dates it. The DAR included several of Carter’s transcriptions in volumes 2 and 3, but the majority of transcriptions in the collection were not performed by Genevieve (“Mrs. J. R.” or “Mrs. Ray”) Carter. This material seems to suggest that the three-volume set of Tombstones of Pettis County by Mrs. J. R. Carter was published in 1964. The DAR also produced separate series of volumes listing burials in Crown Hill and Memorial Park cemeteries. These contain only burial dates and death places, but no birth dates. There is also a DAR update of these books (the update also contains additional listings for Crown Hill, Memorial Park, and Highland Sacred Gardens). The 1986 update is available in St. Louis and at Boonslick Public Library in Sedalia. Vols. 4 and 5 of the original DAR transcriptions are also available at the St. Louis Public Library, but the first three volumes are available only in Columbia, Sedalia, and Kansas City. In addition to these are a 1979 transcription of Pettis County cemeteries and burial plots, a 1986 transcription of Miller’s Chapel Cemetery (available at Boonslick Regional Library in Sedalia), and a 2002 transcription of Blackwater Chapel Cemetery (located at Mid- Continent Public Library in Independence and at Sedalia Public Library). There is also a 1993 Waunita Davis Lovercamp report on Pettis County’s burial grounds available at Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN. J. R. Carter’s map of Pettis County cemeteries can be found at Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence, MO. The Sedalia Public Library has a 2002 listing for Pettis County cemeteries and Helen Winston Cunningham’s 2004 transcription of County Line Cemetery. There are three transcriptions available online: George Willick (http://www.rootsweb.com/~mopettis/) and Laura Paxton (http://www.interment.net and http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/missouri/pettis.htm) have both provided transcriptions for most of the county’s cemeteries. Tara Day has also provided a transcription of Baptist African Cemetery. Willick’s material is more useful as it is all alphabetized; however, some of his (and all of Paxton’s) are incomplete. Pooling all of this together is time consuming, but it should produce a fairly comprehensive listing for all of these cemeteries. I will provide updated information once I visit the libraries holding the updated material. Also, I should eventually visit these sites and do some transcribing. In some cases, I have already done some selective transcription. In 2001, my family and I visited High Point, Longwood, Union, and Ellis cemeteries. In 2004, my family and I visited County Line and Green Ridge cemeteries. I thank the Sedalia Democrat for providing obituaries online, all those who have provided published transcriptions of Pettis County’s burial grounds, and Betty Singer and Rebecca Carr Imhauser for two intriguing books filled with obituaries from Pettis County and with obituaries relating to Mount Herman Cemetery. In 2002, the DAR produced A Location Index for Missouri Cemeteries. Edited by F. Susan Brown Biggs and Shirley M. Brown, the index is in two volumes and was published Dogwood Printing, Inc., in Ozark, MO. All DAR entries are in red. (A copy of this two-volume work is located at the Saint Louis Public Library and at the Jefferson County (MO) Library) For those living in the Sedalia area, this book is at Boonslick Regional Library and Marshall Public Library. Also, several of my updates are also in red. On 7 July 2005, my family and I visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. They have on file two transcriptions that I have found helpful in adding to the growing and changing listings. I am grateful for the effort of the LDS, Sedalia, ladies to transcribe the cemeteries they did. Each cemetery they transcribed will have the date of transcription and the names of those who did the transcription. Also, I am thankful for the work of Mary Leona Bales Meyer of Marshall, Missouri. Her collection of tombstones, compiled in 1994, is invaluable and adds a number of names, especially to Crown Hill Cemetery. I am including an index of the five volumes of Rural Cemeteries of Pettis County so that future researchers will know what is included in this relatively unknown (at least to some out-of-state folks) collection of DAR records. I later ordered microfilm from the Family History Library to update the images that were not clear on the CD that the FHL made for us. In November 2005, Betty Singer and Rebecca Carr Imhauser produced a new book, Down by Pin Hook, which focuses on the history of the Newland community in Pettis County. It also contains a complete listing of burials (through September 2005) in Hopewell Cemetery. This list is incorporated into this document. In April 2006, I discovered that there are additional transcriptions of Pettis County cemeteries in The Prairie Gleaner, a publication of the West Central Historical and Genealogical Society of Warrensburg. Copies of this journal are at the Missouri Historical Society and the Saint Louis County Library. Further updates from this journal will be added as time allows. I am also in the process of updating the listings from the Missouri Death Records online database, which was made available in the spring of 2006. I finished entering data from The Prairie Gleaner, 14 June 2006. In the fall of 2006, I decided to begin going through whatever online obituaries were listed on the websites of Sedalia, Missouri, funeral homes. I finished going through Heckart-Gillespie Funeral Home obituaries in the middle of October 2006 and I finished going through the online obituaries at the website of McLaughlin Funeral Chapel at the end of October. At the beginning of 2007, I began updating the files further from the Missouri Death Certificates online at the Missouri Secretary of State’s website. The update is an on- going project. Further cemetery updates are notes under the corresponding cemetery. In 2008 and 2009, I visited a number of the cemeteries listed on the Pettis County genweb page. For further information, see each cemetery. Also, I have found the Miller’s Chapel listing at Boonslick Regional Library in Sedalia and have included that in my list. I visited twelve cemeteries on 18 July 2009 and on 29 July 2009, my mom, sister, and I visited Longwood (with Betty Singer), Sedalia Hebrew Union, McKee Chapel, and La Monte cemeteries. On 21 August 2009, we returned to La Monte and also covered Dresden, Dresden Black, and Prairie Hill cemeteries. On 1 September 2009, we attempted to visit Asbury Goodknight Cemetery, but the entrance was overgrown. We were able to visit Bethlehem Baptist, Saint Patrick’s, Pleasant Hill, Abell, Flat Creek Baptist, Smithton, Bahner, and Providence Baptist. We did not find Lake Creek or Lamb cemeteries. On 7 September 2009, we visited Lake Creek, Lamb Immanuel Evangelical, Irwin, Lee-Glenn, Olive Branch, Olive Hill Amish Mennonite, and Salem Methodist cemeteries. On 12 October 2009, I visited Irwin and St. Paul’s Lutheran cemeteries. This completes the active cemeteries, with the exception of the Marshall Family Cemetery, to which I have no directions, and the Calvary Episcopal Church Columbarium. In 2010, I turned my attention to the inactive cemeteries. On 15 January 2010, Betty Singer and I visited DeJarnette Family, Beaman, Forbes-Bouldin, Thomson, and Allcorn cemeteries. She also showed me the sites for Scroggins (destroyed), Benningfield, and the address in front of the large cemetery in Georgetown. On 5 March 2010, Betty Singer and I visited Antioch Baptist, Point Pleasant, Prairie Chapel near Windsor, Old Hickory Point, Bethlehem Baptist, Asbury Goodknight, and Ellis cemeteries. On 19 March 2010, I visited Heath Creek Baptist in Saline County, Raines, Ellis, Scott, Hopewell, and Beaman. I found another transcription of South Fork Cemetery in Saline County cemetery records (DAR, but published by Elizabeth Prather Ellsberry) at Kathryn Linnemann Library in St. Charles on 29 March 2010. On 9 April 2010, I took my mom and sister with me to Hieronymus, showed them the area where Greer and Swope cemeteries are supposed to be, took a picture of the Hunt slave marker (in a pasture with cattle, so I did not go in), stopped by the house where Kearney Cemetery is supposed to be, then transcribed Point Pleasant (or Pleasant Point), took a picture at Memorial Park, transcribed Quisenberry-Shobe and Old St.