Only a few years after Missouri became a state and Jefferson City became the permanent seat of government, it was necessary to designate a small cemetery plot for state officials at Woodland Cemetery.
Yelverton O'Bannon, a representative from Madison County who died Dec. 31, 1831, was the first to be buried in the 60-by-32-foot plot in what is today Woodland Cemetery. The first burial in Woodland, a private cemetery, wasn't until 1837.
At that time, McCarty Street was Van Buren Street and it ended at Chestnut Street on the east side. Old City Cemetery, with many of Jefferson City's first families buried there, opened in 1826 and runs perpendicular with Chestnut Street from McCarty to Miller streets.
The Jefferson City National Cemetery, which bounds Woodland Cemetery to the east and runs parallel with Locust Street did not receive veteran burials until 1861, becoming an official national cemetery in 1867.
The state's modest lot sits along the northern fence. The most noticeable from the street is the obelisk of Gov. John Sappington Marmaduke, though it is a cenotaph because he is not buried there. He died in Mexico.
Israel and Mary Read bought the land where the state lot already existed, as well as the entire block, in 1838 from the commissioner of the permanent seat of government. The Reads sold the property back to a subsequent commissioner in 1856 "on behalf and for the use and benefit of the State of Missouri," according volunteers of Jane Randolph Daughters of the American Revolution Chapter.
The last recorded burial in the state lot was for Henry Ewing, who died Sept. 6, 1898, the son of Judge Ephraim Ewing, a state attorney general and secretary of state as well as a circuit court and state supreme court judge.
The most distinguished burials are for Gov. Thomas Reynolds (1796-1844) and Gov. John Sappington Marmaduke (1833-87), who both died in office.
"Cemeteries are proverbially lonesome. But the state cemetery of Missouri is about the spookiest and most forgotten little corner of all the earth's surface," The St. Louis Republican reported Aug. 8, 1886.
By this time, the lot had been used for so many state interments that space remained for only two more.
The frequency in the mid-1800s had to do with transportation. When these public servants were away from home at the Capitol when they died, it was less costly and more dignified than trying to transport them home.
In its peak of use, the site likely was grand, with the engraved memorial tablets straight upon their table legs. The 1886 Republican said it "resembles the banquet hall of the dead."
But time and gravity took their toll, the tablets bent in the middle and the chimney-legs dropped. Today, these tablets, though mostly intact, lay flat on the ground, exposed to weathering and creeping landscape.
Those who are buried there include state officers, clerks in state departments and other public position holders.
"For the most part they are members of the legislature, who, dying far from home, are buried within sight of the scenes of their official activity," the 1886 Republican said.
That newspaper account discussed two unmarked graves in the state lot at the time - John Pattison and James Edwards.
Pattison was a New York Herald correspondent, who died in Jefferson City while holding a principal clerkship in the secretary of state's office. Edwards died while a clerk in the state auditor's office.
"In life, the two men could never agree upon any matter, and their constant disputations and disagreements are still remembered about the Capitol building. Their close proximity in death - for they sleep side by side - is one of the remarkable features of (this) graveyard," the 1886 Republican concluded.
In 1895, Alex Sherwood was buried at the state lot. A poor man, Sherwood's wife decided to have him interred in the state lot, despite offers from St. Genevieve and other Missouri towns, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported. Sherwood, a member of the Democratic state executive committee, had an attack of vertigo and fell 28 feet over the stair railing at the St. Louis Fairgrounds Jockey Club, the Macon Republican reported.
Veterans buried in the state lot include John McHenry, who served in the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 and died while a representative from Bates County; Gov. Marmaduke, who was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, a colonel in Missouri State Guard and brigadier general in the Confederate States Army; and Alfred Morrison Lay, a Confederate Civil War veteran who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and was a U.S. District Attorney.
When Marmaduke died in 1887, a "magnificent granite monument" was erected by the Missouri Assembly, the Moberly Monitor Index reported.
From Cole County are buried Rep. John McKernan, State Treasurer John Walker and George Bickerton Miller.
The latter had been a deputy county recorder, city clerk, police judge and assistant superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. He was a Civil War Union veteran.
From Callaway County, Peter Glover was justice of the county court, state representative and state senator, auditor of public accounts, superintendent of common schools and state treasurer.
State Auditor James McDearmon and U.S. District Court Judge E.W. Wells are buried inside the lot. And two attorneys general are buried just outside the lot with state-erected monuments - William Robards and William Minor.
"Few Missouri citizens know that the state owns and appropriates money to care for a plot in the Woodland Cemetery at Jefferson City, where many of the early-day statesmen and officials of Missouri lie buried," the Moberly Monitor-Index wrote in 1941.
As early as 1874, the state appointed a sexton named Sherrer for the state lot and also appropriated money for the site's repair.
In 1875, the Legislature passed a bill "For improving and keeping in repair the State Cemetery at Jefferson City, $100, to be expended under direction of the governor." And in 1877 another bill provided funding for further repairs.
In alternating years from then until about 1973, appropriations for repairs to the state lot were passed.
In 1899, $149 was appropriated for curbing. In 1953 and 1955, it was $500.
In 1961, $500 from general revenue was appropriated "for use of the trustees of the Woodland Cemetery in Jefferson City, Missouri, in connection with the care and upkeep of the state lots."
That sum, from the conservation commission account, continued in 1963, 1965 and 1967. The appropriation was reduced to $250 in 1969 and came from the state parks department budget and continued at that amount in 1971.
Then, in 1973, an appropriation for $1,250 was made. City cemetery board chairman Nancy Thompson said she has been unable to find further appropriations or an explanation of that sizable expenditure.
The city has been responsible for maintaining the state lot since 2000, when it took over the Woodland Cemetery caretaking from a dwindling trust.
Today, the city cemetery board is attempting to restore the entire Woodland and Old City cemeteries block, one piece at a time. The board hopes to gain support from the state for the continuing upkeep of the state lot.
"Others who served in the government in various capacities are buried here and there throughout these cemeteries," Thompson said.
For example, state supreme court judge William Scott was removed from his farm cemetery and buried in Woodland under an obelisk paid for by the state, she said.
Visit findagrave.com to learn more about those buried there.
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