Mount Mora Cemetery

On April 1, 1846, Simeon Kemper obtained a United States government patent for one hundred sixty acres at $1.25 per acre. Four years later, Kemper took two partners, Israel Landis and Reuben Middleton, who paid him almost $200 per acre for their share of 20 acres destined to become a cemetery. On February 22, 1851, the men received approval of the Articles of Incorporation for Mount Mora Cemetery; four days later, they announced plans to establish a cemetery on the northwest corner of Kemper's farm within one mile of the courthouse, with blocks and lots of various sizes, a board fence, and other improvements. In 1873, W. Angelo Powell laid out Mount Mora Cemetery for $5,000. A prominent architect of the time, Powell used the Rural Garden Cemetery design, a form new to the United States in 1831, reflected in the planned landscaping, mausoleums, the design of Mausoleum Row, and curvilinear roads following the land's natural contours. Among the thousands buried there are leaders of Saint Joseph commerce and industry, three Missouri governors, veterans of multiple wars, Pony Express riders, an English baronet, and people who strongly influenced the westward movement of the United States of America.

St. Joseph, Missouri · United States