Calvary Cemetery (St. Louis)

SITE

5239 West Florissant Avenue
Saint Louis, Missouri 63115

William T. Sherman - Section 17, Lot 8

Dred Scott - Section 1, Lot 77

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HISTORY

Sherman

After the war's end, Major-General William T. Sherman returned to St. Louis as the commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, returning to St. Louis in July of 1865. Sherman did not remain in St. Louis for long. In 1869, after Grant was inaugurated as the 18th President of the United States, Sherman was appointed as the General of the Army. In 1874, Sherman received permission from President Grant to move his headquarters from Washington to St. Louis, which he did in October. Sherman would retire from the army to St. Louis on November 1, 1883. William T. Sherman is buried next to his wife, Eleanor “Ellen” Boyle Ewing Sherman, in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Scott

Following the ruling, the Chaffees deeded the Scott family to Republican Congressman Taylor Blow, who manumitted them on May 26, 1857. Scott worked as a porter in a St. Louis hotel, but his freedom was short-lived; he died from tuberculosis in September 1858. He was survived by his wife and his two daughters. Scott was originally interred in Wesleyan Cemetery in St. Louis. When this cemetery was closed nine years later, Taylor Blow transferred Scott's coffin to an unmarked plot in the nearby Catholic Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, which permitted burial of non-Catholic slaves by Catholic owners. Some of Scott's family members have claimed that he was a Catholic. A local tradition later developed of placing Lincoln pennies on top of Scott's gravestone for good luck.

Harriet Scott was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale, Missouri. She outlived her husband by 18 years, dying on June 17, 1876. Their daughter, Eliza, married and had two sons. Their other daughter, Lizzie, never married but, following Eliza's early death, helped raise Eliza's sons (Lizzie's nephews). One of Eliza's sons died young, but the other married and has descendants, some of whom still live in St. Louis as of 2023, including Lynne M. Jackson, Scott's great-great-granddaughter, who led the successful effort to install a new towering memorial at Dred Scott's grave at Calvary Cemetery on September 30, 2023.