Sunset Hills Cemetery

Name:  Methodist Burying Grounds, Sunset Hills Cemetery, City Cemetery

Location:  South end of 3rd Street

Founded:  1841 purchased by Boonville

      No one knows when burials began at Sunset Hills, but the earliest stones date to 1818. In February 1841 Jacob Wyan donated the "Methodist Burial Ground" to the city. While the cemetery was a private burial ground, other burials were permitted.  It has a distinct slave area. In 1842 the city purchased ground adjoining the cemetery. In the early 1850s some bodies were exhumed and moved to Walnut Hills Cemetery--including the body of David Barton, one of Missouri's first U. S. senators. The city renamed the cemetery Sunset Hills. It also is known as the City Cemetery. Burials continue,  but plots are no longer available. Most burials since 1950 have been of African-Americans. no Caucasian has been buried in Sunset Hills since at least 1980.

       Many Boonville veterans are buried at Sunset hills. It has veterans from the Indian Wars, Revolutionary War to the Vietnam Conflict.

    Among notables buried at Sunset Hills are  John Sites, the gun maker. Richard Brown, a late Boonville City Council member is among the notable African-Americans buried at Sunset Hills.

Thanks to Judy Shields for providing additional information for this page.

      To learn more about Sunset Hills and  other Boonslick cemeteries, go to

  "Reflections of Change: Death and Cemeteries in the Boonslick Region of Missouri."

This page was created by: Amanda Dodson

This page was funded through a grant from Boonville Tourism Commission