
St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery - St. Charles, Missouri
Posted by:
BruceS
N 38° 48.264 W 090° 29.459
15S E 717872 N 4298061
Historic Catholic cemetery located in St. Charles, Missouri.
Waymark Code: WM1QBN
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 06/23/2007
Views: 58

The following is an excerpt from Missouri: A Guide to the 'Show Me' State,
1941 in the St Charles section:
St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery, west of Blanchette Park, contains the
graves of many early pioneers, among them, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable [first
settler of Chicago], Francois Duquette (1774-1816), Major James Morrison
(1767-1848), trader, salt manufacturer at Boon's Lick, and merchant, and Rebecca
Younger (1826-50), wife of Coleman Younger of Liberty, famed outlaw of Civil War
decade. A monument has recently been erected to the memory of Louis
Blanchette, founder of St. Charles, the site of whose grave in the cemetery is
unknown. The tablet records that Blanchette was the "builder about 1776 of
the first St. Charles Borromeo (log) Church... In its shadows both he and his
Pawnee Indian wife were buried after their deaths late in 1793. According
to tradition they were removed in 1831 to the present Borromeo churchyard and in
1854, translated to this ... cemetery"
Items for Americana are the gravestones of Sir Walter Rice and William
Dugan. Rice (1799-1859 was not a nobleman, but an American whose parents,
naming him for Sir Walter Scott, believed that "Sir" was a Christian name.
Dugan (1803-74) was fond of drink, heedless of his wife's warnings that he would
come to an unhappy end. One day his mule kicked him to death, and his
wife, to point the moral of the tragedy for future generations, had the scene of
the mule kicking Dugan carved on his gravestone, as well as an account of the
event.
St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery remains an active Catholic cemetery managed by
the Archdiocese of St. Louis. All the stones mentioned in the Guide
are all remaining though some due to the marble weathering over the years are
difficult to read. The weathering has effect both the Rice and the Dugan
gravestone but it is still possible to read the Sir and see the mule.