Auntie Jen's Family Trees: February 2025

It's a new year! Time for new adventures. I have been invited to give a lecture for the Local History Lecture Series at the East Central College here in Union. My topic is the Grand Army of the Republic in Franklin County, Missouri. In preparation for my lecture, I've been scouring newspaper articles and history books, which led me to an article about the first Decoration Day, or Memorial Day as we know it today, held in Union in 1888. This article listed the graves of Civil War veterans they visited and decorated. I was drawn to the group of names at the bottom of the article: Colored Soldiers. I was so happy to see they included a few of the local colored soldiers who fought bravely in the Civil War. (See the Article Below)

Post 344 observed Memorial Day - 3
Article from May 31, 1888 Union Record (Union, Missouri) Gar, Franklin county history

In honor of Black History Month, I decided today to take a trip to the cemetery where those colored soldiers were buried to pay my respects. This cemetery has been in use since the town was founded in the 1820s. The cemetery has been called by a few different names over the past years. In the newspaper, it was called "Old Cemetery". Locally, it was known as First (or Old) Union Cemetery, since it was the first cemetery. Then in 1848, the cemetery was transferred from Dr. Elijah McClean to John G. Chiles. It was sometime after that when it became known as Chiles Cemetery. There is now a sign at the entrance to the cemetery that says "Chiles Cemetery", but most locals still know it as Old Union Cemetery.

Chile's Cemetery 17 Feb 1955, Thu Franklin County Tribune (Union, Missouri) Newspapers.com

The cemetery is divided into two sections: the colored section, which is still in use today, and the white section, which supposedly hasn't been used since around the 1870s when John Buck purchased land to be used as Odd Fellows Cemetery, which is now known as the current Union Cemetery.

Chiles Cemetery
Image from Google Maps

I had never been to this cemetery before so I brought the President of the Franklin County Historical Society, Lynn Wagner with me. To my surprise, when we arrived I barely saw any headstones. When I looked up information on Find a Grave for this cemetery, it claimed they had almost 200 burials. Lynn and I saw maybe 20-25 headstones, and the majority of the older ones were completely unreadable. I was so disappointed. If I had more time, I would research the interments at this cemetery. That will have to wait.

I also talked with Kara, another Franklin County Historical Society member. She grew up in the area and was familiar with the cemetery. She said the part closer to the road was the colored cemetery, and the area further back was the white Cemetery. She also told me there were probably more headstones in the wooded area behind the cemetery, which doesn't surprise me. As Lynn and I looked around, some headstones were right on the tree line and we had speculated the same thing. Another local historian, Frank Jenny, also provided information about the transfer of the cemetery from Dr. McClean to Mr. Chiles.

As you can tell my pursuit of these graves was unsuccessful. I plan to contact the Franklin County Cemetery Association for information regarding some headstones damaged by a tree trimming incident. For now, I will move on to the next cemetery on my list: Union Cemetery also known as Odd Fellows Cemetery on Washington.

Below are some of the photos Lynn and I took at Chiles Cemetery. The links to the Find a Grave Cemetery Listings are also provided.

Can you identify any names?