Those familiar with black history in St. Louis probably know about John Berry and Mary Meachum, educators and reformers who taught black students to read and write when such lessons were crimes.
Some may even be aware of the Rev. John Anderson, founder of the Second (Central) Baptist Church and reportedly the man who was helping Elijah Lovejoy print anti-slavery pamphlets when Lovejoy was killed by an angry mob in Alton.
Both men are buried in history-rich Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, and Mary Meachum is memorialized on her husband’s monument.
But what about the Roberson brothers, William and Francis, whose talents with a pair of scissors made them two of the wealthier black residents in town before the Civil War?
Newspaper advertisement from 1863 of the barber shop of Francis "Frank" and William Roberson. Image courtesy of Bellefontaine Cemetery
They also have final resting places in Bellefontaine, a cemetery that never had a segregation policy for gravesites, something Daniel Fuller is proud to note.
“We have always had people of color here, and we’ve never had African-American or Jewish ‘sections,’ as so many others did,” said Fuller, the cemetery’s event and volunteer coordinator and one of its most avid historians.
“Even during the days of Jim Crow laws, after the Civil War, when St. Louis ordinances prohibited African-Americans from buying property, the (cemetery) directors seemed to have turned a blind eye to those laws,” Fuller said.
Which leads us to the story of the Roberson brothers: William was laid to rest at Bellefontaine in 1878; older brother Francis (aka “Frank”) in 1887.
Their history is discussed in “The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis,” written in 1859 by Cyprian Clamorgan.
Clamorgan was biracial and born in St. Louis in 1830, then sent off by his white guardian to be educated out of state, according to historian Julie Winch, who edited a 1999 reissue of the book.
A drawing, circa 1860, in a St. Louis periodical showing Francis Roberson cutting hair. Image courtesy of Bellefontaine Cemetery
Here is what Clamorgan’s book had to say about Francis Roberson:
“... Who has a barbershop under Barnum’s Hotel, is one of the talking barbers and can rattle out more nonsense in ten minutes that any sensible man would believe in a week,” Clamorgan wrote, then added, “He is doing a good business, and is worth about five thousand dollars.”
Winch’s research uncovered that Francis Roberson moved to St. Louis from Virginia in 1848 and operated a shop at 106 North Third Street. By 1857, he had left that pairing and with younger brother William, opened up the shop in the Barnum, at Second and Walnut streets. Later a third brother, Robert, would join the business.
Possibly better at saving money than his older brother, William Roberson was described in a newspaper death notice in February 1878 as “the wealthiest colored man in St. Louis, whose ambition was to own the costliest barber shop in the world ...”
William Roberson also set his sights high when he chose a tall spire of a monument at Bellefontaine, something that Fuller noted was relatively rare for black families buried in predominantly white cemeteries.
“I found numerous cases where black family plots had no markers,” seemingly to draw less attention to their presence, Fuller said.
“I think it was viewed at the time as a bull’s-eye of sorts for anyone who was against black burials” alongside white plots, Fuller said.
William Roberson’s monument is the only one on the plot, which holds the remains of 19 other family members.
From slaves to prominent preachers
Along with buying their own plots, some slaves ended up at Bellefontaine because of the white families that owned them.
“Sometimes, a white family would demand that a person of color be buried in their plot, and the cemetery honored that,” Fuller said.
Nelly Warren is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery. Photo by Austin Steele, asteele@post-dispatch.com
Such was the case with “Aunt Nelly” Warren, an 80-year-old slave who died in 1857 after helping raise the three children of George Collier.
One of those children, Mary, went on to marry Henry Hitchcock, a Union officer who served on the staff of Gen. William Sherman and later founded the law school at Washington University.
Fuller then pointed out that both J.B. Meachum and Anderson are buried in a section of the cemetery known as the “Baptist Ministers Plot,” which is the final physical home for ministers of all races.
John Berry Meachum and his family are buried at Baptist Ministers' Plot of the Bellefontaine Cemtery in the in St. Louis on Wednesday Jan. 24, 2018. Meachum, who founded what became First Baptist Church, and his wife were educators and reformers. Photo by Austin Steele, asteele@post-dispatch.com
Austin Steele • asteele@post-dispatch.com“The remains of J.B. are here, but the inscription for Mary and their children was added later,” Fuller said. “In fact, we’re still trying to find out what did happen to Mary Meachum’s remains; we simply don’t know.”
Mary Meachum. Image courtesy of Bellefontaine Cemetery
As to Anderson, the Second Baptist Church founder and Lovejoy colleague, Fuller said his renown when he died in 1863 was such that “newspapers said 150 carriages took part in the funeral procession, which was a record at the time for any funeral, black or white.”
For Black History Month in February, Fuller will lead two tours about these and other sites at Bellefontaine, from 10 a.m. to noon Feb. 17 and 24 (more info: bellefontainecemetery.org).
He also will be at the Natural Bridge branch of the St. Louis County Library, 7606 Natural Bridge Road, at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 21. to discuss the cemetery’s black history.
“I’m pleased that we can share what is often overlooked history,” Fuller said of the value of cemeteries for researching the past.
“And with African-American history, I’m glad we can be part of the dialogue.”
