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The Sappington family was one of the largest families in early St. Louis. John Sappington had seventeen children, including Thomas Sappington. Joseph Sappington may have been John's nephew and Thomas' cousin; he was a witness to John's will. Joseph had his log house built in 1816, a few years after Thomas Sappington had his brick house built.The Sappington House Foundation's goal is to relocate and repurpose the 1816 Joseph Sappington Log House. The white clapboard siding will be removed, exposing the log exterior. The house will also be moved to the same property as the Thomas Sappington House.

Proposed Location of the Joseph Sappington House with the siding on.

Joseph Sappington House location on the Thomas Sappington Property

The Joseph Sappington Log House is a two-story log cabin that is thought to have been built in 1816. There are three rooms on the first floor, each room has its own chimney. The interior of these rooms has been restored and the logs are visible from the inside. Currently, the Sappington House Foundation is in negotiation with the city to be relocated to the same property as the Thomas Sappington House.

Joseph Sappington House

Take a tour of the many sites of Historic Saint Louis.

The individuals involved in the organization&nbsp;and direction of the new rural cemetery in St. Louis in 1849 were the cream of the young city's elite, involved in railroads, banking and real estate – businessmen, lawyers, politicians... and more than a few opportunists. Prior to that date, there had been&nbsp;more than twenty informal burial grounds&nbsp;scattered throughout St. Louis, which were in the way of the city's rapid expansion. By&nbsp;that time, St. Louis had existed for exactly 100 years, and the goal of the directors was to see their city compete with the most prestigious metropolises of the eastern U.S., including Philadelphia, Boston and even New York. These older cities had modern cemeteries, and the St. Louis directors wanted one equally modern and refined. (The cemetery was named after&nbsp;Fort Bellefontaine, originally located a few miles&nbsp;north of St. Louis, as well as Bellefontaine Road, which connected the city to the fort.) The need to bury the city's dead had also become more urgent: in 1849 seven percent (one source says 10 percent) of the total population, over 4000 people, succumbed to the cholera epidemic. The directors looked for inspiration to both Europe (Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, the first rural cemetery, opened in 1804) and the East Coast, which boasted, among others, Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery and Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. These new cemeteries have been described as "didactic landscapes, repositories for history and knowledge, showcases for fine art and horticulture, schools for the living."&nbsp;The superintendent of Green-Wood cemetery was a young man named Almerin Hotchkiss (born 1816), who expanded the site's original 178 acres by more than 200 acres. One of the directors from St. Louis came east to hire him, and Hotchkiss moved west soon thereafter. Though he would later plan sites in Illinois as well, including the community of Lake Forest, Bellefontaine became the chief work of his career.&nbsp; Many well-known figures are buried here, including Gen. William Clark (of the famous Lewis &amp; Clark expedition); Thomas Hart Benton, Missouri's first U.S. Senator; Adolphus Busch, founder of the Anheuser-Busch brewery; Brig. Gen. Richard B. Mason, the first military and civil governor of California; Charles Henry Peck, who was both an architect and a railroad and banking baron; and the notorious brewer Ellis Wainwright, whose monument for his wife and himself was designed by legendary architect Louis Sullivan. Many prominent African-American figures are buried here as well including John Berry and Merry Meachum, who&nbsp;taught Black children how to read and write even though that was illegal; Rev. John Anderson, founder of the Second Baptist Church who reportedly helped white abolitionist printer Elijah Lovejoy print ant-slavery pamphlets (Lovejoy was killed by pro-slavery mob and is also buried at the cemetery); and William and Francis Roberson, the inventors of barber scissors that made them wealthy before the Civil War.&nbsp;

Bellefontaine Cemetery was established in 1850, becoming the first designed large-scale rural cemetery west of the Mississippi. The parcel reached its largest size, 336 acres, in 1865, the year the American Civil War ended (it stands at 314 acres today). Its design combines elements of the rural cemetery concept, modeled on Boston's 1831 Mount Auburn Cemetery (which was itself derived from Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris) and the landscape-lawn movement, pioneered by Adolph Strauch in Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery in the 1840s. Designed and originally supervised by Almerin Hotchkiss, the designer of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, the landscape features rolling hills, trees, and man-made lakes, around which many imposing funerary monuments and mausoleums are arranged. Over 87,000 people are interred here, many of them in unmarked gravesites. The cemetery was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in August 2014. The cemetery is also an accredited arboretum, the only one in St. Louis.

Bellefontaine Cemetery

In the mid 1850s, the area where the Campbell House is situated
was named Lucas place. It was the first suburban clearly defined wealthy neighborhood,
a very expensive, upscale residential neighborhood with very large homes. 

Built in 1851, the first house in this elegant Lucas Place
neighborhood, the Campbell House was built by &nbsp;John H. Hall (born in 1801 in Kentucky) who,
along with his business partner James F. Donaldson (born about 1800 in
Maryland), owned a hardware, cutlery, and mechanics tools store. Hall sold the property
at 1508 Lucas Place to Cornelia Wilson in April 1853, witch lived here for only
one year. In 1854 Robert Campbell, legendary fur trader and merchant, became
its third owner, and the house remained in his family for more than 80 years, until
1938.

After settling in St. Louis, Campbell began an important
business career which included the fur trade, dry goods, steamboats, banks and
real estate. He also helped develop places like Kansas City and El Paso, Texas.
At the end of this career, Campbell owned the Southern Hotel, the biggest hotel
in St. Louis. When Campbell died in 1879, he was considered the wealthiest man
in Missouri. 

Two of Campbell's sons, Hugh and Hazlett, continued to live
in the house after Robert's death. After Hazlett's death in 1938 the house was
willed to Yale University and it was put it up for sale. The furnishings were
sent to the Selkirk Gallery to be auctioned. Stix, Baer and Fuller, a local
department store, bought the home in 1941 as part of its 50th anniversary
celebration and gave it to the Campbell House Foundation, a group that was
formed to turn the home into a museum. The Foundation raised enough funds to go
to Selkirk Gallery to buy back 90 per cent of the Campbell furnishings. The
house was opened as a museum in 1943 showcasing Victorian furnishings and
decorative arts.

In 1973 an important album of 60 photographs was donated to
the Museum. The photos, dating from about 1885, show the house interior, exterior
and surrounding neighborhood. The discovery of the Campbell House photo album
allowed for accurate restoration of the interior of the rooms and after the exterior
in 2005, returning the building to its opulent 1880s appearance. 

The house was one of the centers of St. Louis society,
hosting notable Americans as President Ulysses S. Grant, General William
Tecumseh Sherman and Sioux Chieftain Red Cloud. It is the only surviving
building from the Lucas Place neighborhood.

Since opening in 1943, the Campbell House Museum has served the greater St. Louis area as one of the nation’s premier historic property museums.
The house served as a family home of Robert Campbell from 1851 to 1938. The Museum preserves not only the Campbell’s house, the family home of Robert Campbell—a prominent figure in the history of St. Louis and of the American West— but also the family’s collection of original furniture, fixtures, paintings,  letters, objects , thousands of pages of family documents, and unique album of 60 interior photographs taken in the mid-1880s. 
In 2000, the Museum began a meticulous restoration project that returned the building to its opulent 1880s appearance, when the house was one of the centers of St. Louis society. The museum  is considered to be one of the best preserved mid-Victorian house museums in the United States.

Campbell House Museum

In recent years, the museum's programs and exhibits have focused on Roswell Field, son of the children's author and an attorney who brought into federal court the freedom suit of Dred Scott. The trial took place in 1847 and brought national attention to the issue of slavery and the growing division between states that continued to practice slavery. While the Scott family had several attorneys during their battle for freedom, without Roswell Field’s creative legal strategy, the Supreme Court would have likely not been compelled to hear the case. While Scott and his attorneys emphasized that he had lived in states where slavery was illegal and should, therefore, be freed from bondage, the Court declared that no enslaved person could be a U.S. citizen or seek legal protection provided to citizens through the nation's courts. The decision anger abolitionists as well as those who defended the rights of Northern states to prevent slaveholders from bringing enslaved people into their state as property in violation of their laws. The decision also widened the political gap between those who hoped to extend slavery into the West and those who sought to contain it to the Southern states. Roswell Field's father, Eugene Field, was an American writer best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. At the time this home became a museum, Eugene Field was the focus of exhibits and the museum collection centered on literature, toys, and other items related to childhood. Field's career spanned multiple genres, but he was best known as the author of many poems and short stories for children. His most famous poems are “Winken, Blinken, and Nod” and "The Duel", to name but a few. Field first started publishing poetry in 1879, when his poem "Christmas Treasures" appeared in A Little Book of Western Verse. He died in Chicago of a heart attack at the age of 45.The land on which Field House was built was once owned by Pierre Laclede, a man widely recognized as a leading founder of St. Louis. After he died, Laclede’s estate sold the property to Auguste Chouteau, Laclede’s associate. Following Chouteau’s death in 1820, the land was conveyed to the City of St. Louis with the provision that revenue from its use be spent for public schools. The Field House was one in a series of roadhouses within a fashionable residential neighborhood known as Walsh’s Row. Developed in the 1840s by Edward Walsh, it comprised twelve identical three-story row houses, including this last-surviving remnant of Walsh’s Row. In 1934, when Walsh's row was about to be torn down, Irving Dilliard wrote a spirited editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch decrying the destruction of Eugene Field's birthplace. Insurance agents Jesse P. Henry and Carl formed a committee to save the house, and the Board of Education took possession, preserving that single unit of Walsh's Row. Under Henry’s leadership, the building was restored and opened as a museum in December of 1936. The Board of Education maintained the house until 1968 when it transferred that function to the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc., who oversaw the house until 1981 when the Eugene Field House Foundation took over. In March of 2007 the Eugene Field House was designated as a National Historic Landmark by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

This museum is located in the birthplace and early childhood residence of Eugene Field *1850-1895), a popular author of children’s literature in the 19th century. Field's poems for children led to his rise in the literary world, and when he passed away at age 45, he was known as "the Children's Poet." In 1902, Mark Twain unveiled a plaque honoring Field that recognized this rowhouse as Field's birthplace. The remaining rowhomes was so well-known that In recent years, there has been greater emphasis on the life of Eugene's son Roswell Field, the attorney who formulated the legal strategy for Dred Scott's lawsuit for freedom before the Supreme Court. The house is a museum with a vast collection of historic toys, and it also serves as a place where visitors can learn about the Dred Scot case. The museum includes artifacts and items related to the era in which Roswell, Frances, and Eugene Field lived within its walls. The house features special exhibits, workshops, and conferences on civil rights, law and social justice. The museum was also offers displays related to Eugene Field's career and historic toys. Eugene Field came to be known as the “Children’s Poet” for his stories and poems, which include “Little Boy Blue” and “Wynken, Blynken and Nod.” The house was saved from demolition in 1934 due to its significance as the early boyhood home of Eugene Field, the “Children’s Poet” and Roswell Field’s son.

Field House Museum

Henri Chatillon, guide and hunter for the American Fur
Company of St. Louis, built the first section of the house, a four-room brick
farmhouse, in 1849. The house was a simple, two storied brick structure with
four rooms. 

For some reason, in 1856, Chatillon sold the house to
Nicholas DeMenil and his business partner Eugene Miltenberger. Nicholas DeMenil
was a wealthy French physician, married with Emilie Sophie Chouteau, who was a
descendant of St. Louis’ founding family. In 1861, the DeMenil family hired
English architect Henry Pitcher to turn the farmhouse into a Greek Revival
Mansion. Work was completed in 1863, at which time the DeMenil family moved
into the house. Dr. DeMenil died in 1882 and his only child, Alexander,
inherited the entire estate. After Alexander’s death in 1928, the Mansion was
maintained by caretakers, Edwin and Jennie Kaiser. 

The house remained in the hands of custodians until 1945
when it was sold to Lee Hess, a pharmaceutical manufacturer. An accidental
discovery made by Hess gives an added dimension to the house's history. &nbsp;The area around the house is inter laced with
caves. One cave, the Cherokee Cave (which runs into the Minnehaha Cave), has
its entrance near to the house. Hess developed a popular tourist attraction,
Cherokee Cave Museum, which operated from 1950 to the early 1960s. Planning of
the route for the Ozark Expressway, forced the closure of the caves and
threatened demolition of the DeMenil house. 

Intervention from the newly organized Landmarks Association
of St. Louis rescued the house through Union Electric's gift of the $40,000
purchase price. Restoration work began in 1964; formal dedication took place in
May, 1965 when the house was turned over to the Chatillon-DeMenil House
Foundation, which still owns and runs the house. 

Architecturally, the house today largely retains its
appearance chiefly from its years of occupation by the DeMenils. In 1966, the
American Institute of Interior Designers restored and decorated the rooms. All
of the ceiling medallions and marble mantelpieces, as well as the parquet floor
and chandelier in the foyer, are original to the house. The furniture and
accessories, some of which came from the DeMenil family, are authentic pieces
dating from 1830 to 1870. Built of brick, in the Greek Revival style, two-story
porch with fluted Ionic columnns supporting a pediment, rise the full height of
the building eastern facade. The strength of the porch is carried out through
the wall behind it. Doric pilasters divide the wall into sections which
correspond to the porch. The Ionic order is also employed in the design of the
gallery-type porch on the western facade, but slimmer columnns and the use of a
balustrade rather than a pediment give a more informal effect.&nbsp;

The Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion, built in 1848 in the historic Benton Park neighborhood and one of the few remaining examples of Greek Revival architecture in St. Louis, provides an in-depth glimpse into the lives of two French families. The construction of the house spans two building programs undertaken by families of very different styles of living, yet each reflecting significant aspects of St. Louis' French cultural heritage. The house today serves as a house museum. Although many other houses were built throughout the city in the grand antebellum manner, the DeMenil House is the only remaining Greek Revival house of such monumental proportions in the City of St. Louis. 

Chatillon-DeMenil House

Benoist, of French descent and the son of a successful Canadian trader, was born in St. Louis when it existed as part of French Louisiana (before the "Louisiana Purchase."). He spent his early adult years studying medicine before choosing to practice law. However, after taking a trip to Franch to settle his grandfather's inheritance, Benoist (after surviving a shipwreck north of Spain) returned to the U.S. and decided to forgo his legal practice and delve into financial matters, notably brokering and real estate. Benoist built a thriving banking business in the 1830s that operated in St. Louis and New Orleans, even surviving the financial difficulties tied to the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1857, and the U.S. Civil War. While traveling through Cuba in 1867, Benoist contracted cholera and died. He left an estate that exceeded $5 million, if not more (valued at more than $100 million in the 2020s.) Between 1850 and 1867, Benoist acquired land in several stages, which he intended to use as a working farm and summer home to enjoy with family and friends. In 1853, Benoist commissioned George Ingrahm Barnett to build an estate on the land for himself and his third wife, Sarah Elizabeth (they married in 1849). Benoist became acquainted with Barnett after he designed the Tower Grove home four years earlier for entrepreneur and Missouri Botanical Garden founder Henry Shaw, a close friend of Benoist. Barnett's reputation and social standing allowed him to work closely with many prominent (wealthy) members of St. Louis' bourgeois society. Indeed, During Barnett's career, he designed numerous lavish homes and the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City. The Oakland House exterior consisted of white limestone quarried on the property, a luxurious interior, a fireplace in every room, and a prominent watch tower feature. The grounds included gardens, orchards, stables, bars, a four-acre lake, a boat house, and a smokehouse; Henry Shaw designed the landscaping. The house sat on the high point of Benoist's property, which eventually spanned 476.43 acres. The abundance of Burr Oak Trees and rolling land on the property led Benoist to name his land "Oakland Farms." The landmark home now operates as the Oakland House Museum.

Designed by St. Louis architect George Ingham Barnett and built from 1850 to 1851, this two-story Italianate-style house includes a unique four-story watch tower and was built for layer and banker Louis Auguste Benoist. Benoist lived from 1803 to 1867 and built this home towards the final years of his life which was on the high point of his land which spanned more than 475 acres and he named Oakland Farms. Architect George Barnett also designed the historic Tower Grove House (1849) for Henry Shaw, Missouri Botanical Garden founder, and the Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City. The house now operates as the Oakland House Museum and serves as the home to the Affton Historical Society. It's also a popular spot for weddings and events.

Louis Auguste Benoist House (The Oakland House Museum)

The property was later transferred to William Vanderbilt to satisfy Grant's debt. Adolphus Busch later acquired the property and operated an animal reserve on the estate. The National Park Service offers free tours of the property and a number of exhibits.

Since 1989, this historic plantation home known as White Haven has been managed by the National Park Service which offers exhibits and interpretive tours of the property. The ten-acre historic site includes the birth home of Julia Dent Grant as well as the home where she lived with her husband, Ulysses S. Grant. The property was owned by Colonel Frederick Dent who gifted a small portion of land to the Grants after their marriage. In recent years, interpretive efforts have focussed on the people who were enslaved by the Dent family, in addition to the estate and acreage that became the property of the future president upon his marriage. The couple moved to White Haven in 1854 and lived here until 1859. The outbreak of the Civil War led to Grant's appointment as a commander in the West, and his violent but successful military campaigns against Confederate forces led to his promotion to commanding general of Union forces at the end of 1863. Grant won election to the Presidency of the United States in 1868 and was reelected in 1872.

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site

Henry Mudd moved to Missouri in 1819 from Maysville, Kentucky, at age one. In 1833, after his father's death, the family moved across the river to the Illinois side (Pike County), where the young Henry eventually purchased a farm and, from 1843 - 1847, served as Clerk of the County Council. However, he had little money when he moved to Kirkwood in 1859. When Mudd acquired the property and home sometime in the early 1860s, it is likely that the home's builder, John Hoffman, helped finance the house for him. The historic building gets its name from the Mudd family, but the home's builder, John Hoffman, also played a role in Kirkwood's early history. Hoffman purchased and sold numerous properties in and around Kirkwood during its early years (the town's establishment occurred in 1853). He sold one tract to the School District for their first schoolhouse, and Hoffman also helped found a private girls' school known as Kirkwood Seminary.In Kirkwood, Mudd's financial situation changed after he got involved in the land trading business, eventually becoming president of the Ozark Land Company; he owned land in Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, and Texas counties at the time of his death. As his financial situation matured, he gained a better social standing, which allowed him to work in several public offices. From 1859 to 1865, he served as auditor of St. Louis County, and then as trustee of the town of Kirkwood from its chartering in 1865 to 1868, as a member of the board of the Kirkwood School District from 1865 (its founding) to 1872 and 1878 to 1882. He was also president of the county Board of Assessors in 1870 and served as a Missouri state legislator twice, from 1872 to 1874 and again in 1879. As a state legislator, he played a pivotal role in protecting fish and game, an early example of conservation. In 1875 Mudd was a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention. He was the first to advocate the separation of the city of St. Louis from its county, which became part of Missouri's constitution. Officials appointed Mudd as one of the thirteen Freeholders charged with devising a separation plan. As a result, St. Louis became the nation's first independent city, a status debated as a positive or a negative for years. In addition to protecting fish and game as a legislator, Mudd served as president of the state agricultural board and president of the State Horticultural Society from 1859 to 1868, keeping it afloat during the Civil War. Mudd, an active Mason, also organized the Kirkwood Masonic Lodge in 1873 and was the state university curator.Early in 1882, the year before his wife died, Mudd sold his now-historic Kirkwood home and moved back to St. Louis. Two of his children, Dr. Henry Hodgen Mudd (1844-1899) and Dr. Harver Gilmer Mudd (1857-1933) became renowned surgeons associated with St. Louis Medical College. Meanwhile, Seeley Wintersmith Mudd (1861-1926), a mining engineer, grew wealthy by advising on the mining of copper and sulfur in Leadville, Colorado, and Los Angeles. Seely's son, Dr. Seely G. Mudd, who lived in New York, became a nationally known benefactor of colleges and universities.

Constructed in 1859-1860, this Greek Revival home got its name, "Mudd's Grove," from one of its first residents, Sarah Elizabeth and Henry T. Mudd. The couple lived in the home from 1865 to 1882, and they had seven children. Henry Mudd worked as a farmer but also served as county auditor, member of the Town Board of Kirkwood, curator of the University of Missouri, and in the Missouri State Legislature where he helped frame the state Constitution.

Mudd's Grove

The Virginia-born Frederick Bates moved from Michigan to Missouri in 1807 when President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Secretary of the Louisiana Territory; Bates had previously served in the territorial government in Detroit. Bates' appointment is often attributed to Jefferson's desire to have a trusted man in the position because he feared hostile political developments in the West owing to the actions of rivals like Aaron Burr. Jefferson eventually accused Burr of treason, and while Bates succeeded Burr's brother-in-law, Secretary Joseph Browne, the genuine political rift in Missouri occurred not between Burr and Jefferson but between Bates and territorial governor Meriwether Lewis of the "Lewis and Clark Expedition." Lewis spent most of his time in the East, away from Missouri, allowing Bates to act as governor, ultimately undermining Lewis' power. Bates established trading and mining regulations, authorized land claims, and appointed friends to government jobs. Bates frequently wrote letters to President Jefferson with opinions about Lewis' inability to administer the new territory and accused Lewis of using government money for personal gain so it is no surprise that the two men clashed when Lewis arrived in St. Louis. When Congress established the Territory of Missouri in 1812, Bates maintained the Secretary position and, just as he had done with Lewis, became acting governor during the frequent absences of Lewis' expedition partner, William Clark, who officially held the title of Missouri Territorial Governor. As a result, Bates continued to become a political force in Missouri. In 1824, a few years after Missouri became a state (1821), Bates defeated Lt. Governor William Henry Ashley in the gubernatorial race to become the state's second governor; he won with fifty-seven percent of the vote.Bates purchased land near modern-day Chesterfield, Missouri in 1808 and, during the 1810s, Bates continued to add to his property. He eventually built the historic home on the property in 1819, and records note that he purchased slaves several times from 1812 to 1824 to support the farm that grew to around 1,000 acres by the 1820s. As governor, he split his time between St. Louis (at the Capitol) and his Thornhill home. However, his time as governor proved short as he died in 1825 from pleurisy, having served only nine months as governor.  The family buried Bates in the family cemetery on the Thornhill estate. The home remained in the family until 1884, when Bates' son, Lucas Lee, sold his portion of the land (ninety-eight acres) and the historic house. In 1930, beer magnate Adolphus Busch's grandson, Leicester Busch Faust, purchased the ninety-eight acres of land and home, which he kept until 1968 when he donated the hose and property to St. Louis County for use as a park and historic site, which remains its function today.

Erected in 1819, Thornhill is the oldest home of a former Missouri governor in the state. The estate was the home of Frederick Bates who served as Missouri's second governor (1825) and territorial secretary for both the Louisiana and Missouri Territory. Bates also had two brothers in public service: Edward, who served as Abraham Lincoln's Attorney General, and James, Territorial Senator to the Arkansas Territory. From 1808 until 1824, Bates purchased land in the area along with enslaved persons whose labor enriched Bates and allowed him to expand his property to include the 1,000-acre farm known as Thornhill. The property was later occupied by the grandson of beer baron Adolphus Busch who donated the property to St. Louis County for use as a park and historic site.

Historic Saint Louis Member Sites

Joseph Sappington House

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources