| Ghosts & Haunts In Missouri St. Joseph City Cemetery Stories I pulled out my old file from college. What follows is the text from the article written by myself -- I'm Jeanette Browning -- and Nichola Sollars for The Griffon News Halloween Edition, October 1998. The text is copywritten to The Griffon News, Missouri Western State College. The information came from the St. Joseph News-Press, Gazette and Telegraph, the Buchanan County Historical Society, St. Joseph City Directory and first-hand interviews: City Cemetery: The nearly abandoned St. Joseph City Cemetery hasn't seen a burial for many years, but the memory of past burials still haunts it. The cemetery on Amazonia Road in North St. Joseph was started in 1857 as a burying ground for the poor of the city and the surrounding area. Over the years, not only the poor have been buried there, but also unidentified bodies killed on the railroads or found in the Missouri River have found their final resting places there. A Black man who was lynched by an angry mob in downtown St. Joseph in 1933 for allegedly raping and murdering a white woman is buried there also. Records of who is buried there have long ago disappeared, and there are very few grave markers of any sort. The poor marked loved one's graves with bricks, wooden boards and even chunks of concrete from buildings. The city discontinued use of this potter's field in 1993 and tore down the caretaker's home and shed. If any place would be perfect for hauntings it would surely be this forgotten place -- and according to a St. Joseph News-Press article from the 1940s it is. Farmers driving into town early in the mornings would see a shadowy female figure walking from grave to grave reading the tombstones. Legend says she is the ghost of a woman who murdered her lover and then died herself. Because she never had the opportunity to repent her sin, she walks the cemetery searching for the grave of the man she murdered to ask his forgiveness. Anyone with information about the history of this site please e-mail us. Page Back |