CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE CULTURE OF DEATH AND BURIAL:  A CASE STUDY

 I.                    INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Examining one event in detail through time reveals the cultural traditions of those involved.  It explains “how” something happened.  The other need when dealing with material culture is to explain “why” something happened.  By taking one family in the Boonslick and following them from the beginning of settlement through seven generations of burials examines both the cultural similarities and cultural differences of one ethnic group in the Boonslick region through time.  This explains “why” as well as “how.”  A detailed examination shows how ideas and cultural values changed as people reacted to their world view.  Since individuals are included, any case study cannot be purely objective and statistical since individual personality enters the picture, but it can serve as a representative sample.  

Because the University of Missouri celebrates its Sesquicentennial in 1989, there was a concerted effort to find descendants of the original founders of and contributors to the University.  Several families came to light and thus one of these families makes an excellent study group since this family still lives in the Boonslick and has for the past 173 years in the manner of making a living and thus consistency in the lifestyles of the different generations.  

In the sample family, the descent has been through the female line so there is a jumble of last names.  However, there is consistency in the professions and socio-economic status of these seven generations.  Without exception, the families were involved in some phase of education and/or agriculture.  These two occupations are not necessarily sex or tradition related as some men were schoolteachers and most of the women worked in agriculture whether as a paid employee or as the wife of a farmer.  There is remarkable consistency over the past 173 years in the manner of making a living and thus consistency in the lifestyles of the different generations.  

The differences as reflected in funeral practices and in the gravestones erected over the graves of these seven generations of family members must be a reflection of how family members must be a reflection of how family and regional taste changed through time showing how the culture changed this ethnic group since the area, occupation, and lifestyle remained the same.  All the generations of this particular family were white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.  

The following table shows the line of lineage and the date of death of the individuals plus the cemetery number where that person is buried.  The family has lived in Boonslick counties other than Boone, but family members have been returned to Boone County for burial in all cases.    

            The seven generations outlined above exhibit the changes and consistencies of Boonslick cemetery iconography and practices.  They also cover the family and personality characteristics possible and thus represent a broad spectrum of human behavior, not only as individuals, but as people representative of both sexes, every age, and all ranges of the experiences of life who came from the Upland South tradition.  

1. GENERATION #1                        

            In 1816 Absalom and Elizabeth Hicks loaded up their family and headed for the Boonslick region from their home in Christian County, Kentucky.  Probably natives of Virginia, Absalom and Elizabeth had lived for at least two decades on the western frontier moving from Madison County, Kentucky to Christian County around 1805.  Like many other immigrant families, Absalom and Elizabeth Hicks brought all their offspring when they headed west.  Married children and their spouses accompanied the parents and the family came to the Boonslick as a clan.  Upon review of the 1820 and 1830 Boonslick censuses this seems very typical.  Middle-aged parents desired their grown children and grandchildren in a new land and sometimes brothers and sister of the parents came along as well.  For example, widowed Hannah Cole who founded Boonville in Cooper County came west with her brother-in-law and his family.  The Roberts family from Red Top (Disciples of Christ) Christian Church (Chapter 4) in Boone County brought several dozen family members with them in 1816 when they emigrated to the region.  

            In the case of the Hicks family, they were lucky to bring along their son-in-law, Joseph Fountain.  He had married their daughter, Hannah Hicks, in 1812 and both his parents were deceased by the time the family moved to Missouri Territory.  Descended from French Huguenot ministers who fled to England and then the Colonies for religious freedom, his ancestors became the ministerial family at Westover Parish in Virginia and are recorded extensively in the Byrd diaries.  Joseph was several generations removed from Europe and chose to Anglicize the name Fontaine to Fountain. ¹   The name meant fountain in both languages so no nuance was lost.  Joseph “was a great hunter, being remarkably proficient as a marksman.”²    No doubt part of his assignment on the westward trek was to find food for the clan.  Joseph Fountain was not alone in the Boonslick for long with just his wife’s family because by 1821 his brother, Peter Fontaine, and family were also in Boone County.  

            No written record has survived to tell about the trip to the Boonslick, but Boone County land records show the family on Thralls Prairie north of Rocheport by the fall of 1816 and then settling at what is now called Prathersville north of present day Columbia by 1818.  As Thralls Prairie was a New Madrid claim, which had been filed by Taylor Berry of St. Louis who owned most of the Boonslick at one time or another, perhaps the move in 1818 was because of land problems.  

            On November 16, 1820 the founding of Boone County as a territorial county passed the territorial legislature and “John Gray, Jefferson Fulcher, Absalom Hicks, Lawrence Bass, and David Jackson were appointed by the Legislature commissioners to select and establish a permanent county seat.” ³ The appointing of Hicks shows he was held in good esteem as there was a fight in progress among the local citizens over the location of the county seat.  When all the verbal retorts were finished, the five commissioners decided to establish a town called Columbia. ⁴    As Boone County had been part of Howard Territory, the nearest legal office and newspaper was in the western part of the Boonslick at Franklin where on May 21, 1821 the newspaper, the Intelligencer, ran a public notice signed by the five commissioners stating they had selected a site and affixed their signatures to the notice. ⁵   This shows that Absalom Hicks could at least sign his name.  Additionally, the report sent to the Legislature by the five commissioners specifically stated that this site was picked because one of its desirable attributes was that ten acres could be obtained by donation for the location of a State University.  The idea of a university being considered in the picking of the site of the county seat, confirms that the commissioners had a great interest in education.  The ten-acre tract that was to be donated for the University is now the site of the Columbia Cemetery. ⁶    Absalom Hicks became a Justice of the Peace who signed marriage licenses in the newly established county. ⁷   On May 1, 1824, Absalom was still one of the county commissioners since his name is on the public notice for bids for the new country courthouse to be built in Columbia.  This building eventually was erected and stood in front of the present Boone County courthouse in Columbia. ⁸      

            By this time the Hicks family had settled approximately 12 miles north of the new county seat near the Pinnacles, on land reminiscent of Kentucky where the soil could be plowed with their simple plows.  Here on his farm, Absalom Hicks died in 1824.  He managed to write a will dated March 31, 1824, (probably shortly before his death, even though his name is on the courthouse bid notice schedule for opening in May.)  

The will stated:  

            “In the name of God, Amen.  I, Absalom Hicks of the County of Boone and the State of Missouri being very sick and weak in body, but of perfect mind and memory thanks be given unto God, calling upon mind the mortality of my body; and knowing that it is appointed for all men once to die; do make and ordain this my last will and testament that is to say; principally and first of all I give and commend my soul unto the hand of Almighty God that gave it, and my body I recommend to the earth to be buried in decent Christian burial; at the direction of my Executors nothing doubting but at the general resurrection I shall receive the same again by the might power of God.” ⁹     

            The family buried him on a gentle slope at the southern end of the farm (B18), but not at the top of the hill as was usual in the Upland Southern tradition from which he came.  The present boundary of the farm is not at the crest and probably the configuration was the same so the cemetery was placed as far toward the crest of the hill as possible and still be on Hicks land.  Begun as a family burial ground, it soon expanded to cover the entire neighborhood for a period of 50 years or more.  Probate records confirms that the death was not expected as the family had to purchase “planks for coffin for A. Hicks” from Peter Stice, a charter member of Red Top Church discussed in Chapter 4, who billed them 7 ½ cents. ¹⁰    L. Brink then made the coffin for $3.00.¹¹    If a native stone was placed over the grave, it has not survived the ravages of time and the probate records do not mention payment for any type of stone.¹²    Nothing now remains to show where Absalom Hicks was actually buried and only assumptions can be made by looking at the center of the burial ground which is empty of markers and is surrounded by burials of the family of his son, Young E. Hicks, a Santa Fe Trader who continued to own the property.  The merchant and economic side of Boonslick life at this time shows not only in the son, but also in Absalom who had loaned money at a good rate of interest to twelve people as shown in the appraisal of his estate.¹³    The Hicks family also evidently kept an interest in their Kentucky lands as the estate ended up in a lawsuit which required Young E. Hicks to return to Christian County, Kentucky in 1829 to settle the mess. ¹⁴   The county service done by Absalom confirms that he must have had a fair amount of education while the estate records reveal that Elizabeth Hicks, his wife, could at least sign her own name.  The appraisal of his estate shows “a digest, 2 small histories, plus 60 windows panes, 4,800 shingles and 34,452 bricks.” ¹⁵    The glass window panes, the bricks and shingles must have been bought or locally made for a house never built, probably because Absalom died.  When the county commissioners presented their bills for reimbursement for 1824, no money was given to the Hicks estate and none shows up in the probate records of Boone County.  The five county commissioners were supposed to open their term in May at the bid opening for the courthouse; Absalom Hicks probably had died by then and there were no expenses.¹⁶  

                Left a widow with several children, four of them still minors, Elizabeth Hicks (Illustration 282) settled down to farm the family lands which she did successfully for the next 40 years until her own death in the 1860’s, at about age 90 from the complications of old age.  She was buried next to her husband.  Like Absalom, if there was a gravestone, it has been lost through time.  Given the ruin of this burial ground that is possible, but it also might well be that no gravestone was ever erected because everything seems to be present, just no longer in the proper place.  A half-mile to the north of the farm is a large river bluff with stones above Rocky Fork Creek that would work perfectly for a gravestone.  The lack of a gravestone for Elizabeth Hicks is especially puzzling since she lived well into the time period when imported marble gravestones were being extensively used in the Boonslick region.  Her deceased son-in-law, Joseph Fountain, who died in 1849, surely had a marble gravestone by the time Elizabeth Hicks died.  Not wealthy, but financially secure, the money was available to place such a gravestone if it was thought desirable.  She lived long enough to have a daguerreotype taken (Illustration 282) and was a relative to Missouri Confederate General Sterling Price as well as being the great-grandmother of the Unionist Memorial Day founder, Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan.  Thus, the family cultural bias was socio-economically secure enough that a tombstone would seem to be desirable.¹⁷   The lack of a stone must mean Elizabeth Hicks requested that none be placed on her grave and must be a reflection of her generation and cultural beliefs that this was not necessary or desirable.  

            Absalom’s 1824 will discusses the corrupt nature of the physical body and the hope that at the day of Resurrection it would be fit enough to rise and live again.  This conforms to the New England idea of heavenly redemption being more important than the physical remains.¹⁸    Thus, these first burials show only mounds of dirt and no gravestones.  Even the mounds are now fescue grass and cattle rub their backs on the few gravestones still standing in place.  

            A mile away from the grave of the Hicks family is the Kinkaid Cemetery (B16).  About 1842 Radford McCargo was buried in this cemetery, a Revolutionary War veteran who died of old age.  Born in Virginia to John and Mary Radford McCargo, he was given his mother’s maiden name and was just old enough to enroll as a soldier in the Revolutionary War in that colony.  He married Lucy Morton in Prince Edward Co., Virginia in 1786 and by 1787 they were in Kentucky where he signed a petition to the legislature asking permission to use tobacco to pay taxes instead of hard currency.¹⁹    In 1794 following the birth of Mary R. “Polly” McCargo, his wife, Lucy Morton McCargo, died.  As was common, Radford remarried within six months, taking a wife named Eleanor from the neighboring Angell family.²⁰     Thus, it is no surprise that in a few decades Mary RT. “Polly” McCargo married Willis H. Angell and in 1828 the Angell clan came to Missouri as a family unit, this group being composed of Willis H. and Mary R. “Polly” McCargo Angell, his two brothers and their families.²¹   Once again a widower with his own aged parents still alive in Virginia, Radford McCargo chose to come to the new state as well, rather than returning to Virginia or remaining in Kentucky.  The family was attracted to the northern part of Boone County by the easily tilled soil along Rocky Fork Creek, and soon were neighbors of the Hicks/Fountain clan.  

            Radford McCargo moved his residence from his daughter to various grandchildren as they matured and as space was available for him to stay.  Plus, no doubt, he helped as much as his health would allow; his health must have good for he lived into his 80’s and finally died of old age at the home of his granddaughter, Lucy Ann Angell Fountain, and her family about 1842.  As was true for Absalom Hicks and would be true for Elizabeth Hicks, no tombstone was erected over his grave in the Kinkaid burial ground (B16).  This burial ground was only a mile west of the Hicks burial ground which was in active use during this decade and the families had already intermarried, so the choice of this plot has to be related to the proximity of this burial ground to Lucy Ann Angell Fountain’s house.  Once again, if the grave was mounded no evidence remains as it is on a gently rolling knoll in what was a cow pasture for many years.    At the turn of the century, the Boone County Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR) marked Radford’s grave with a standard marker (Illustration 283) and enrolled his name on a plaque in the Boone County Courthouse.  ²²  

III.  GENERATION #2 

            If the first generation did desire an inscribed tombstone, they do not appear to have placed it high on their list, paying more attention instead to the need for a “Christian burial.”  This does not continue in the next generation.  Hannah Hicks had already married Joseph Fountain before the trek to Missouri.  In fact, they were the parents of two children by the time they left for the Boonslick and would eventually be the parents of thirteen.  After the death of Absalom Hicks, the couple homesteaded several farms in the general vicinity of Absalom’s grave with money from his estate.  In 1848, the couple made their payment to the government for the farm on which they were living when Joseph died on July 22, 1949, “in peace with all mankind.”²³  

            The family buried him behind his house in what was to become a small family burial ground (B8).  He left an estate consisting of six slaves, several hundred acres of land, horses, geese, sheep, cattle, hogs and all the equipment for such a farm.  His will does not state that he desires a “Christian burial,” nor is there any mention of any type of funeral arrangements.²⁴   Additionally, the appraisal does not list any books as in the appraisal of Absalom Hicks in 1824 (this may show that books were more common by 1849), but seems to pick out what was considered the more uncommon household items for inclusion.  Joseph’s name appears on the honor list of 900 Boone County families who gave money in support of the establishment of the University of Missouri in 1839.²⁵    Certainly, the couple came from educated families and Hannah Hicks Fountain, the wife, signed all the probate papers for Joseph’s estate so she could at least write.  

            Although 62 years old at death, Joseph must not have been ill for long as the bill from the first physician consulted dates a week before his death.  The second attending physician, Dr. John McCargo Angell, had graduated two months previously from the same University of Missouri that Joseph had financially helped to start in 1839.  Perhaps the youth of the latter doctor scared off the family until Joseph was so ill that a second opinion was sought.  By the time Joseph Fountain died in 1849, Dr. John McCargo Angell’s sister, Lucy Ann Angell, had been married to Joseph’s son, Absalom Fountain, for 13 years.²⁶    To Joseph and Hannah Hicks Fountain the newly graduated Dr. Angell probably appeared as a mere boy and not old enough to administer life or death care.  Dr. Angell gave Joseph Fountain powders and other medicines showing that he was familiar with Dr. John Sappington’s quinine pills.  Sappington lived in eastern Saline County near Arrow Rock at the western terminus of the Boonslick; he had opened the region for settlement with this medicine for malaria, but his treatment was still controversial and was just being accepted by the medical profession. ²⁷  Dr. Angell surely had learned about quinine while a college student.  Dr. James Dye, the first physician called, administered blood letting which certainly had weakened the patient.²⁸  

For whatever reason Dr. Angell was not consulted first, it must have been obvious that Joseph was going to die because the day before his death, July 21, 1849, Hannah Hicks Fountain ordered seven yards of Jaconet fabric from the nearest general store, a package of needles, a pair of silk gloves, and a pair of half hose.  She also purchased four gallons of whiskey, ten pounds of coffee, twenty four pounds of sugar and a dozen screws.²⁹     Coffin-lids were screwed into place and no doubt the other staples were ordered in expectation of the large quantity of people to house and feed for the funeral.  Neighbor Willis H. Angell (the father of Dr. John McCargo Angell and also a man who shared common grandchildren with  Joseph Fountain as their children married each other) made the coffin and charged $3.00.³⁰   Seven yards of Jaconet fabric, a type of hard fabric much like cotton, is not much material since the bolt of cloth was not as wide as modern fabric but it would be approximately the correct amount to use to make a burial shroud for Joseph Fountain.  The silk gloves were no doubt for the widow as it was considered improper for flesh to touch flesh and she would be shaking lots of hands during the funeral time.  Joseph’s imminent demise was evident.  

Hannah Hicks Fountain lived until October 27, 1871, when she died at the age of 75 and was buried next to her husband in the family burial ground (B8).  Joseph’s grave is marked with a marble gravestone with a weeping willow motif, but no signature (Illustration 284).  Hannah’s gravestone is so broken that nothing can be authentically identified (Illustration 285).  Her name appears to have been in an arch near the top, but there probably was room for some decorative motif.  If footstones were originally present, they have long since disappeared.  No other white family members were buried with this couple, but oral tradition says there were more graves in the area.  Tucker School was across the road to the south for many years and the children often played in the burial ground during recess.  From the perspective of 70 years later, one senior citizen talked about the cemetery and “all the graves.” ³¹   It is known that no other family members are buried in this ground and since the family owned between six and ten slaves at all times, no doubt these other graves are the adjacent slave cemetery.  

            Just a mile west of the Fountain farm, Willis H. and Mary R. “Polly” McCargo Angell were also farming identically to the rest of the Boonslick.  Like the Fountains, they raised most of their own food; and like the Fountains/Hicks clan, they were slave owners.  Parents of eight children that survived to adulthood, the family first appears in Boone County chronicles as being participants in a blood fight with fists and knives in a general store and saloon about five miles north of their farm, not a very notable way to enter the history books.³²    In 1838 their eldest child, Lucy Ann Angell, married the neighbor boy, Absalom Fountain, and the Angell parents gave the newlyweds a slave named Joseph as a wedding present.³³    The wedding ceremony was solemnized by the groom’s uncle, Santa Fe Trader Younger E. Hicks, who had replaced his father as Justice of the Peace.  

Willis H. and Mary R. “Polly” McCargo Angell were also interested in education.  As noted in the discussion about Joseph Fountain, Dr. John McCargo Angell, their son, attended the University of Missouri almost immediately upon its establishment.  The 1878 University of Missouri Catalogue states that the “first MD degree in 1849 was given to John M. Angell.” ³⁴   Thus, one of his first patients after obtaining his degree had to be Joseph Fountain.  He had practiced as a doctor even before graduation, according to his ledger.³⁵   

                Willis H. Angell died on March 28, 1857, after making a will and was buried on his farm in a family burial ground (B9) with a plain marble headstone and footstone erected to his memory (Illustration 286).  He had lived to the ripe old age of 59.  On July 22, 1864, Dr. John McCargo Angell was killed by Federal troops as he approached the yard gate of the neighboring Williams family.   Believing that Dr. Angell was a Confederate spy or Bushwhacker, the Union soldiers refused to believe the Williams family that he was the family doctor.³⁶    He was also buried in the family cemetery (B9) and eventually his wife, Amanda, was buried next to him in 1882 (Illustration 287 and Illustration 288).  Less than two months after Dr. Angell’s tragic death, the father and son were joined in the cemetery on September 11, 1864, by 67 year old Mary R. “Polly” McCargo Angell (Illustration 289).  The probate records, which include her doctor bill, show that since the murder of her son she had been ill.  That sad event overpowered her.  The family paid $46.00 to Daniel Francis and Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, for a carved, marble headstone with a weeping willow tree and curvilinear scrollwork.³⁷   The stone itself is unsigned, but the bill to Mary’s estate remains in the probate records (Illustration 290).  An initialed footstone, not included in this bill, surely came from the same establishment.  

            Gravestone carvers and sculptors were crafting gravestones in marble in the Boonslick by this time period so the choice of a St. Louis company is interesting and shows that this middle class family still felt the necessity of going to a metropolitan area for a gravestone.  Whether shipped to the Boonslick by steamboat or by steam railroad, either method of delivery meant a trek with a wagon of approximately twenty miles from the Angell farm, albeit in different directions.  By the Fall of 1988, all four gravestones in the burial ground had been so totally destroyed that not enough could be found to photograph.  Photographs taken in 1970 are not clear enough to make any kind of art historical judgment although they give the general concept of the gravestones.  These gravestones would have been excellent to artistically study, especially since the receipt is still in existence providing written evidence for them.  The gravestones to Dr. John McCargo Angell was of the same quality and probably came from the same firms, although the probate records for his estate do not record the information.  The gravestone to Willis H. Angell was not nearly as elaborate as the two above and the gravestone to Amanda Angell, although 14 years later, is also much simpler.³⁸   

            This ends the white graves, all of which were originally marked by marble headstones and initialed footstones.  At the foot of these gravestones (to the east) were four rocks.  They were not formed into slabs and were merely large rocks marking the graves of family slaves.  Although this information did survive in the oral tradition of the Angell family, no names, dates or sexes of these people survived the intervening century.  The will of Willis H. Angell states, “I wish my son, John M. Angell to have Eliza and Sarah, with the injunction that he shall take care of Eliza, during her lifetime….” ³⁹   John’s profession as a doctor surely had something to do with this request, since the other heirs were not given the same responsibility.  Perhaps Eliza is one of the burials.  

IV.   GENERATION # 

                No gravestones is the prevalent theme for graves from 1824 to 1842.  Marble was the common medium for gravestones in the late 1850’s through the 1880’s.  The decade between, from 1842 to 1857, can best be shown by a gravestone from the next chronological (third) generation of a man who died too young.  

            The Hicks/Fountain clan joined the McCargo/Angell tribe in 1838 when Absalom Fountain married Lucy Ann Angell.  Continuing the tradition of the first two generations, the young couple became farmers in the neighborhood, acquiring slaves and material possessions.  Lucy’s maternal grandfather, Radford McCargo, was living with them when he died about 1842, a fact that becomes important about a decade later.  By 1852, the couple had six children when Absalom became ill with some sort of “long and lingering illness.” ⁴⁰   Since cancer was the major cause of death of his descendants and still plagues the family, it is tempting to assign this as the cause of death for a man of 39.  This is mere conjecture.  An old family letter states that pneumonia was the final disease, no doubt a secondary infection that finally killed him.  Whatever the disease, Absalom could not be saved, even by his university educated brother-in-law, Dr. John McCargo Angell, who came every day according to the probate records.⁴¹     Absalom died soon after making a will on March 20, 1852.  By that time he was too weak to even sign his name and merely made an X.  He named his father-in-law, Willis H. Angell, the executor of his estate.⁴²     The family buried him in the Kinkaid burial ground (B16) next to his wife’s maternal grandfather, Radford McCargo, instead of taking him to the family burial grounds of his parents or grandparents, both of which were several miles away.  

            But for Absalom Fountain, one further step was taken.  A slab was carved from the nearby Rocky Fork Creek bluff and erected as a headstone over his grave.  This crude slab (Illustration 291) had a triangular point, but no lettering.  If there was a footstone it long ago vanished.  In Absalom’s will no mention is made of funeral arrangements, but since he died a “slow, lingering death” no doubt burial plans had already been made.  

            The culture had changed since Absalom’s maternal grandfather, Absalom Hicks, and his wife’s grandfather, Radford McCargo, had been buried without gravestones.  Now something to commemorate Absalom Fountain was deemed necessary, even if it was only a plain slab with no inscription.  Yet, it marked the site of his grave.  Absalom died before his in-laws and before his own mother, but his father was already deceased.  The availability of marble must have been problematic in this Boonslick region in 1852 and the marble tombstone to Joseph Fountain likely had not been erected.  

            Most of the marble gravestones appear to date after 1855, as if in that year the area suddenly exploded with discretionary income.  Numerous, large plantation houses were also constructed during the 1855-1860 period in the Boonslick.⁴³   Examination of the list of signed gravestones carved by Boonslick gravestone carvers reveals that few date to the early 1850’s or before; those that do are highly suspect in terms of being immediately carved following the death of the person immortalized by the gravestone.  The few that do date before 1855 come from urban Eastern areas (invariably St. Louis), and are found in cemeteries with Missouri River access.  As noted in the discussion concerning the second generation to be buried in the Boonslick, northern Boone County was about 20 miles northeast of Rocheport, the nearest port on the Missouri River, and the terrain between is hilly and rough.  A lot of effort was required to bring a gravestone to a northern county cemetery.  A professionally carved gravestone had to be deemed essential before that type of effort would be expended.  The first railroad went through northern Boone County in 1857 when the town of Centralia was established as a stop for water for the steam railroad engine so when Absalom Fountain died in 1852 this was not yet an option.⁴⁴   

                Obviously, there was money to purchase a gravestone if Absalom and Lucy had thought it necessary.  Lucy’s father, Willis H. Angell, handled all the finances and the will clearly shows that the couple had tangible assets of slaves, land, livestock and household goods.  Absalom’s mother, Hannah Hicks Fountain, and his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Hicks, were both alive and had plenty of money to purchase a gravestone for him if that was a problem.  By 1857 when Willis H. Angell died (five years later), the cultural milieu had changed enough that the family purchased a gravestone for him.  By then, the signatures of the carvers working in the Boonslick and making a living doing gravestone carving, shows that more and more people were reacting the same way.  Part of the reason for only Willis H. Angell to have a gravestone, might be that he had reared all his children and thus there was some disposable money, while Absalom Fountain died with offspring and a widow who might need every penny at some future point.  The future appeared more important than memorializing the past if a large quantity of money was required.  

            By the late 1850’s , there were local Boonslick monument companies with trained owners who could professionally carve gravestones and in comparing the gravestone of Willis H. Angell to the gravestones of Mary R. Angell and Dr. John McCargo Angell, a good case can be built for the gravestone to William H. Angell being carved in the Boonslick since it has no decorative motif and contains only his name, date of death, and age.  Before the rise of gravestone carvers sculpting in the Boonslick, the average, carved, gravestone looked aesthetically similar to the plain, gravestone slab.  As in the case of saving money for future needs, no doubt many people felt it was not worth the money to purchase a marble gravestone with only an inscription when a slab from a bluff was so close.  

            The establishment of local monument companies was possible because of a marketable skill and the demand for the product of marble gravestones.  People were willing to pay money for a product they perceived as an improvement over gravestones made of local stone.  The fourth step in this cultural chronology was the introduction of granite as the preferred medium for gravestones rather than marble.  Weathering of the marble gravestones became apparent almost immediately.  Granite is much harder, but is not as easily manipulated in a local, monument shop with chisel and hammer.  Thus the role of the local gravestone carver as both a salesman and a carver died out after one generation.  As the list for the signed gravestones in the Boonslick reveals, the era encompassed the life of one generation of men, many of whom were immigrants from Europe.  It also encompassed the generation of men and women buying gravestones who were steeped in the Romantic tradition.  

            Lucy Ann Angell Fountain transcends these times and her grave features a granite gravestone (Illustration 292).  She remarried six years after Absalom died, 1858, and became the mother of three more children. A second marriage for both, when her second husband, Thomas Sweeney, died, she wanted to raise his orphaned children from his first marriage, but the first wife’s family wanted them returned to Kentucky.  So Lucy Ann Angell Fountain Sweeney reared only nine children alone.⁴⁵   She managed capably, farming the land and when her children were finally grown, doing volunteer social work.  She illegally taught her slaves to read and write when she saw that the South would lose the War Between the States because she feared others would take advantage of them.  Her commitment to her slaves was so strong that after emancipation, Joseph (a wedding present to Lucy Ann from her parents when she married Absalom Fountain, her first husband in 1838) refused to leave.  He stayed and took care of “the misses” as long as she lived. ⁴⁶    This is mentioned here because no slave burial ground is apparent or known in the Kinkaid burial ground (B16) where Absalom Fountain is buried.  Yet, surely Absalom and Lucy Ann Angell Fountain lost slaves to death.  

            Lucy Ann was not buried with Absalom Fountain, her first husband, nor with Thomas Sweeney, her second spouse, whose body was returned to Kentucky to be buried with his first wife.  A devout Protestant and determined religious worker, she believed in missionary work with a passion.  As written in the Angell/Fountain family memoirs by her granddaughter:  

            “She was a staunch Baptist, it was in the days when no woman ever spoke out in meeting.  But Lucy Ann was almost thrown out of the church because she spoke out.  The church at Riggs had 2 groups of Baptist, Hard Shells (Primitive now) and Missionary.  Lucy Ann was dipped and died Missionary.  It was decided all who wanted to believe in missions to step out in the church yard.  Lucy Ann led the group–only a few remained that did not believe go ye into all the world.”⁴⁷  

            Probably this accounts for Lucy’s burial at Riggs (B11) in January 1894, since she had been such a staunch supporter of this church.  By her death, she had been Absalom’s widow for 42 years, far longer than she had been his wife.  No doubt her church and her religion were the central theme in her life.  The memoirs continue, “Lucy Ann, she and her old mare, Bird, were sent for births, deaths, weddings and to see no one spiked the cider.”⁴⁸  

                A granite gravestone was placed over her grave with no footstone, another new convention (Illustration 293).  The inscription on Lucy’s gravestone also faces west while her actual grave runs to the east of the marker.  This was a new concept in Boonslick cemeteries as most of the earlier burials had the inscription to the east.  The anthropomorphic gravestones to Thomas and Elizabeth Roberts in Chapter 4 are excellent examples of this placement.  This continues in rural, park-like cemeteries during the Romantic movement.  The footstone was east of the headstone so that to closely read the headstone inscription meant standing upon the actual grave.  Even in the 1980’s, senior citizens who are Boonslick natives can be heard to remark how terrible it is that flowers on Memorial Day are placed under the names on the gravestones or on the west side of the gravestones.  This is terrible because the flowers do not rest over the actual graves which are on the eastern side of the gravestones and thus, this placement of the flowers is viewed as satirical, not an act of respect.  

V.        GENERATION #4     

Absalom and Lucy Ann Angell Fountain lived and died in the northwestern Boone County, in what the twentieth century views as the worst agricultural part of the entire county.  By the time their daughter, Hannah (named for her paternal grandmother), married her second cousin, James Madison Angell, in September 1857, agricultural changes because of the Industrial Revolution were already in progress.  The War Between the States was also brewing as an agrarian society conflicted with philosophically and materially with an industrial culture.  The Boonslick was in the middle of the conflict.  The Hicks/Fountain/Angell clan was fairly evenly split and by the time the guns were shot at Fort Sumpter, James Madison Angell was a father with small children and was not anxious for a fight.  He had attended the University of Missouri during the 1850’s and thus had educational credentials.⁴⁹    Leaving seemed the most logical course of action.  James Madison and Hannah Fountain Angell approached her cousin, Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan, who later started Memorial Day and who was then living in Murphysboro, Illinois.  With James’ credential, Mary had no trouble in securing a teaching position for him.  

Being gone to Illinois for several years helped loosen the ties to old farms and upon the couple’s return to the Boonslick they felt free to pursue their dreams.  Taking $1,900 inherited from the estate of Hannah’s father, Absalom Fountain, they purchased prairie land west of the newly established railroad town of Centralia in 1867.  Here the couple farmed many years, paying $25 an acre for the farm which is still owned by their great-grandson.⁵⁰    The prairie contained a clay pan underneath and the newer, industrially produced plows allowed the settlement of this area because they could break through the tough sod.  No doubt the railroad played a big part as well in the decision to migrate to the eastern part of the country.  

After may years, the couple moved into Centralia where James Madison Angell became president of one of the local banks while continuing his farming operation.⁵¹   Hannah Fountain Angell evidently did most of the farm managing as other family members relied upon her judgment.  

“Aunt Hannah, she was one of much wisdom—once a year I drove into town before we shipped our fat cattle in the fall.  I would hook up my old nag Dinah to the buggy to bring Aunt Hannah out to spend the day and go with my husband, Ben, after dinner and she’d pick out his rump fat steers that would top the market; she knew livestock and how to stretch a quarter to go as far as my dollars.”⁵²  

            The parents of six children, the Angells managed to send to college the five who lived to adulthood, only to have the eldest girl, Martha or “Mittie”, die at college in 1870.  James Madison and Hannah Fountain Angell blamed college for her long decline in health, but she had been thrown down the stairs when about a year old by a rebellious slave girl in a fit of anger.  Martha never walked and never was really healthy.⁵³   Family tradition does not record what happened to the slave.  Her death would have occurred no matter where she was staying.  

            A look at the Boone County Probate Records shows modernization produced by the Industrial Revolution touched every aspect of life, even funerals, and probably included the funeral of Martha “Mittie” Angell. She was buried next to her deceased, baby brother (Illustration 294) at Red Top (Disciples of Christ) Christian Church Graveyard (B20) near Hallsville which was discussed in Chapter 4.  Her baby brother, Radford McCargo Angell, had burned to death in 1867, at age one, from catching his baby clothes on fire crawling near the fireplace (Illustration 295).  Red Top was the nearest church cemetery at the time Radford burned to death since James Madison and Hannah Fountain Angell had just moved to the Centralia prairie, showing the importance of church cemeteries as it was about six miles from the family homestead.  

            Since no probate was needed for an eighteen year old, single female, the exact costs for the funeral of Martha “Mittie” cannot be ascertained.  However, in 1876 Overton Sappington died  (Illustration 296).  He had been one of the appraisers for the estate of Mary R. “Polly” McCargo Angell in 1864.  Probate records reveal that his family paid $40.00 for a coffin.⁵⁴     This price must mean that he was also embalmed which rose into common practice during this decade following the practice of embalming soldiers in the recent war.  Also coffins were better constructed and attempted to be more than mere boxes.  

            This emphasis upon material possessions and concern for status by people of this generation is exemplified by James Madison and Hannah Fountain Angell.  Their search for both must come out of the uncertainties of their youth and young adulthood.  As stated in the Memoirs of the Hicks/Fountain/Angell family:  

“I must not leave out Judge Angell—he was a sweet one, tall very straight, he had whiskers, when he walked down the street, people would say ‘good morning Judge’ and he’d return the salute with a kindly word.  In that day to be elected Judge of Boone County you really stood out ‘special’—they seldom had occasion to serve-but sessions all held in Boone County House—one elected from each township, after they served their time, henceforth they carried the worthy title till death like Judge Angell.”⁵⁵        

In terms of gravestones and burial practices, this search for status and material possessions in a home led to the almost universal belief of families being together in Heaven as they were in this life.  Novels and fictional, short stories in magazines featured such titles as “The Gates Ajar” by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.  This writer helped popularize the idea of families being together in the cemetery, “in death,” as in the family house in this life.  Only death made it a different house.  Thus, it was the family unit that mattered and at every appropriate chance this emphasis should be proclaimed.⁵⁶  

            Biographical histories such as the ones used extensively in the course of this dissertation proclaimed their information from the family point of view with a patriarch in charge, (even though it was often the matriarch who truly held the reins of power and wrote the biographical piece.)  The cemetery lots became marked with granite corner markers, often with the initials of the buying male found inscribed in them and gravestones themselves underwent another modification.  

            They became memorials to more than one person.  Now a married couple shared a common marker just as they shared a common home.  Gone were the gravestones to individuals.  Instead, the family unit was emphasized.  Offspring might be inscribed on the same gravestone as their parents if they died young.  Small, individual markers at the heads of the actual graves replaced the earlier footstones while the large, family marker dominated the center of the lot.  Together in life, a family remained together in death.  

            The Angell family conformed to this model and even had a professional, family photograph taken in 1906 when it was obvious that Judge James Madison Angell was ill (Illustration 297).  On January 18, 1907, James Madison Angell “with Spartan courage approached the end like one who wrapped the drapery of his couch about and lies down to pleasant dreams.”⁵⁷      The diagnosis was stomach caner.  The family immediately purchased a cemetery lot in the Centralia Cemetery (B2) big enough for the entire group excluding the two children who had already died and been buried in the Red Top (Disciples of Christ) Christian Church Graveyard (B20) near Hallsville.  Many Boonslick families chose to move deceased children, but James Madison and Hannah Fountain Angell left well enough alone.  They had been buried in another cemetery as they died before the family was permanently established in the Centralia vicinity.⁵⁸    Masonic services were held for James Madison Angell, another departure from convention as previous generations had allowed only religious services.  As soon as possible, the widow, Hannah Fountain Angell, purchased a granite gravestone for $260.00 and then paid $7.25 for the cemetery lot and the work done to smooth the grave⁵⁹  (Illustration 298).  

            The older Upland South Cemetery conventions are being quickly forgotten and broken at the beginning of the twentieth century.  The grave is not mounded, there are not individual gravestones for burials and the emphasis is upon the family unit, rather than one person and their virtues or lack of such.  The practices of funerals now included notices and acknowledgments in the local newspaper plus the obituary and the public notices associated with the estate.  In the case of James Madison Angell, the family paid $5.25 for the necessary obituaries, cards, and other assorted needs associated with the funeral before the actual estate was opened and the costs were paid for that legal work.⁶⁰  

                When Hannah Fountain Angell died of pneumonia combined with a broken hip in 1927, the family unit so strongly desired and urged deteriorated and then disintegrated.  Her heirs squabbled over not only her estate assets, but assets they felt she had wrongfully distributed as executor of the estate of James Madison Angell, her husband, twenty years earlier.  One daughter, Lucy Ellen Angell Sappington, had just been through a scandalous divorce in 1907 when James Madison Angell died, and some family members felt that Hannah had given this daughter and her four living children more than their rightful share.  A lawsuit resulted claiming that these four living heirs of Lucy Ellen Angell Sappington (she died in 1915) should not receive 25% of Hannah’s estate and the fight broke up family relations forever, producing such hard feelings that even flowers put upon James and Hannah’s graves by other family members through the 1950’s were thrown away by their youngest daughter, Alberta, who was on the opposite side of the lawsuit from most of the other relatives in Centralia.⁶¹  

VI.     GENERATION #5                        

            The fifth generation features Lucy Ellen Angell Sappington, the second child of James Madison and Hannah Fountain Angell.  Since the oldest daughter, “Mittie’ or Martha, was handicapped and her health steadily deteriorated in college, the parents determined that Lucy Ellen should attend a college where “in locus parentis” was really part of the curriculum.   Accordingly and since they were Methodists, Lucy Ellen was sent to Howard Female College (now part of Central Methodist College) in Fayette, Missouri (Illustration 299).  She repaid her parents for their concern by eloping near the end of her freshman year with one of her professors, Frederick Sogrande Sappington.  Perhaps she had already known Fred, as the groom was commonly called, from her youth.  His father was Overton Sappington, one of the appraisers for the estate of Lucy’s maternal grandmother, Mary R. “Polly” McCargo Angell.⁶²       Usually people well known by the family were chosen for this task as they were more likely to produce a favorable appraisal.  Whether they had known each other previously or not, Lucy Ellen was expelled from the college, Fred was fired, and the Angell family sent the rest of the offspring to James Madison Angell’s alma mater, the University of Missouri.⁶³      The third daughter also eloped.  

            The newlyweds moved to Centralia where they ran a dairy and eventually parented a family of six children over the course of the next thirty years (Illustration 300).  The family planned a 4^th of July part in 1903 and the elder son, James Angell Sappington, was instructed to mow the lawn for that event.  

“He used his knife to open a carbuncle on top of his hand, in a few days he passed away with blood poisoning.  Such a fine person, engaged to his school mate, Mayme Peneil.”⁶⁴        

The family formally announced his death with announcements edged in black mailed in envelopes edged in black (Illustration 301).  He was buried in the Centralia Cemetery (B2) next to a brother, Overton (named for his paternal grandfather), who died as an infant from pneumonia.  This fits with the ideal of the entire family being together.  A Woodman of the World marker was placed over his grave (Illustration 302).  This fraternity also had charge of the grave services.  Their unique gravestones were a hallmark of their group, but James Angell Sappington was given a conservative gravestone with the Woodman insignia in the middle.  The gravestone gives the appearance of a log sawed through the ring section rather than a tall tree.  His fiancée was not mentioned in any of the obituaries or evidently included in any of the funeral plans since she was not yet actually part of the family, only engaged to him.  According to the mores of the time, since the wedding had not taken place she would be a virgin with no claim.  

            The death of James Angell Sappington was the final wedge in his parents’ marriage which was already floundering.  Fred was caught in the neighbor’s haymow with the neighbor’s wife; Fred and Lucy separated sometime between 1903 and 1906 when Fred was not included in the Angell family portrait with Lucy and the children (Illustration 297).  As chronicled in the Hicks/Fountain/Angell memoirs by a relative:  

“After she and Uncle Fred separated, he lived up over the rooms of Cox clothing---your grandmother (Lucy—ed.) would send clean bedding and Jennie and I had to go clean his room---once he had a carbuncle on his hand and she sent oats cooked so he could stay in bed, nary a time I ever knew a word passed between them.  She never wanted a divorce.  But the Judge told her unless she did, her father’s (James Madison Angell who died in 1907-ed.) estate could be a share of his—she wanted it all to go to her children and secured one.”⁶⁵  

            By 1911, Fred had remarried and moved to Arkansas where he became a veterinarian, the profession of his father and one of his brothers.⁶⁶      In spite of the family trauma and the broken marriage, the concept of a family unit and a person being married until death was so strong that when Lucy Ellen lay upon her deathbed with breast cancer in 1915, some of the family wanted to send for Fred saying he ought to come, even though he had a different wife, a new baby, and a new life.⁶⁷    Thankfully, better heads prevailed and he was not called.  

            After Lucy’s death and burial next to her two deceased sons in the Centralia Cemetery (B2), her will revealed that “After the payment of my just debts and the erection of a suitable monument to my grave, I give, devise and bequeath my estate and property as follows:.”⁶⁸     This is the first will in five generations of the same Boonslick family that discusses a gravestone, showing the importance now placed upon this gravestone as a remembrance of the deceased.  By 1915 the emphasis had changed from 1824 when Lucy’s great-great-grandfather, Absalom Hicks, merely desired a Christian burial.  Now the physical body assumed an identify all its own as can be seen not only in the importance of erecting a gravestone at the actual site of the interment, but the cost and elaborateness of the funerals as compared to a half century earlier.  Gone are the 7 ½ cent coffin planks.  Instead, the undertaking bill for Lucy reveals that the local undertaker, M. S. Bush, (also a furniture salesman as was common throughout the country) received $185.25 for the casket, the vault, embalming, shoes, a funeral hearse, funeral announcements in the paper, and the fee for the men who dug the grave by hand (Illustration 303).⁶⁹   The granite gravestone (Illustration 304) cost another $165.00.⁷⁰  

VII.   GENERATION  #6      

            Lucy was survived by three daughters and one son.  Her third daughter was named for Frances Cleveland, the popular First Lady when she was born.  Mrs. Cleveland had campaigned in Centralia the week before the baby was born and Lucy Ellen Angell Sappington had scandalized the local citizenry by going to the train station to hear the First Lady when she was nine months pregnant.  Thus, the baby was named Frances Cleveland Sappington (Illustration 305).  Frances or “Frankie” as family members called her, married Franklin Marion Harshbarger “Frank” (Illustration 306) on March 21, 1915.⁷¹  

Frank was the son of a Confederate cavalryman from Virginia who came west with his brother in 1870, seeking his fortune.  Getting off the train in Centralia while the train took on water, the brothers met John Harrison Doling who was looking for hired hands.  They went home with Doling and eventually married two of his daughters.⁷²     Thus they remained in the region and in the spring of 1915, Frank’s father was bedfast with diabetes and Lucy Ellen Angell Sappington was also ill with her breast cancer.  Death was expected shortly for both or either one.  Frank and Frances decided to marry immediately so they could not be censured for marrying too quickly after a death in the family.⁷³    The rites of mourning were still closely followed in the Boonslick in 1915.  

 “Some years later Frances called ‘meet me at the Baptist church this A.M.  I am getting married to Frank Harshbarger.’”⁷⁴  

Less than a month later, Frank’s father died.  

            The newlyweds moved to a farm a mile north of Frank’s parents and began their lifelong occupation with agriculture.   

Frank was intensely, interest in agricultural politics and the mechanization of agriculture while Frances had been a teacher before her marriage, continuing the family commitment to education.  

“Then Marjorie was born-when small she had a burst appendix after a tummy ache—so sudden and such a sweet cherub.  Mr. Bush was our undertaker, he br’ot (sic) out a sweet little white casket, I helped him embalm her, my 1^st time—sad experience.”⁷⁵  

Lucy America Fountain Morris was the favorite cousin of Frances Cleveland Sappington Harshbarger.  Lucy writes:  

“Where Frank and Frankie lived and we did, was quite a distance horse and buggy days and sometimes hub deep mud and big ruts—so we did not see them often, but the day the little girl had her ruptured appendix, they called for me to come—I arrived just as Dr. Hickerson holding her little hand, said she’s gone.  

“We did not have funeral homes—Mr. Bush our furniture man, sold caskets and cared for the corpse.  I learned how to be his helper-he’d pump out a bottle of Blood then in another bottle of foremaldye he would replace the blood.  Sp?  Then he’d hand me a small bottle of what I can’t spell, keep a cloth soaked with this solution on the face and hands, he passed 2 one cent coppers to hold the eyes closed.  All memorial services, as a rule was held in the home.  Times and methods have changed, but our faith in God and our fellowmen remains the same.”⁷⁶      

Writing about the same death, Lucy America Fountain Morris in a third letter states:  

“They had a sweet little tot about 4 yrs. old—guess she had a ruptured appendix, they phoned me and Mr. M. S. Bush—my first time to assist in embalming—no funeral homes, so all the folks was they said laid out.  Neighbors shared and assisted by setting up with dead.  Neighbors volunteered.  Once I heard said Fred Sames and Radford Fountain had the most requests to sit up with the dead.  ‘Best part they never refused.’  Our methods of the old days was erased with the coming of our funeral homes.” ⁷⁷   

            Marjorie Louise Harshbarger (Illustration 307) was buried in the Centralia Cemetery (B2) in a newly purchased lot.  Her grave was marked with a simple headstone with no Victorian epitaph so often found on the graves of children or any allegorical statue (Illustration 308).  The weeping had passed from the public spectacle at the grave to the private terror of the heart.  When Marjorie’s mother died 48 years later, Marjorie’s shoes were found in her dresser drawer on top of her wedding license.⁷⁸  

            The next 45 years passed without a death in the immediate family of Frank and Frances.  The world underwent rapid changes with the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and World War II.  In spite of the quickening pace of lifestyles, funerals and burials remained extremely conservative with the base of family and home still at the center.  In January 1940, Frank Harshbarger’s brother-in-law, Leo Philip Kuntz, (Illustration 309) died of a cerebral hemorrhage.⁷⁹  He had gone to Kansas City seeking medical treatment and died the day one of the worst blizzards ever recorded struck mid-Missouri.  Since Leo’s farm was twelve miles north of Centralia and he attended a country church about ten miles north of Centralia, earnest telephone discussion was held by the neighborhood over how to proceed.  Ordinarily, the body was “laid out” in the living room or parlor of the deceased’s home until time for the funeral which was either at the home or at the deceased’s church.  The neighbors decided that the only proper way to bury Leo Kuntz was to bring his body to his house for “the visitation.”  (That was when the family met friends and relatives and everybody viewed the corpse).  So, the neighborhood men took hand scoops and by hand shoveled the road the ten miles to town so the funeral hearse could get the body to the house.  The visitation evidently went as planned, but during the night the blizzard picked up force, and by morning every road in every direction was block with snow.  

Once again, the neighborhood men got out scoop shovels and mules with blades (the snow was now too deep for the tractors) and scooped the same road they had cleared the previous day and then scooped a two mile side road to Friendship (Disciples of Christ) Christian Church (Illustration 310) so the fun