Please join us on Tuesday evening, August 5th, 2025 at 6 p.m. at the O’Fallon Historic Preservation Commission’s meeting in the O’Fallon Municipal Center (City Hall) at 100 Main Street. We will be presenting the Historic Preservation Commission of O’Fallon with a brass plaque that designates Sage Chapel Cemetery is a National Landmark. Please email Historic Preservation Commission questions or comments to the recording secretary Amy Harrelson at aharrelson@ofallonmo.gov, or call 636-379-5439.
Missouri entered the Union as a slave state in 1821. In the 1830s hundreds of families would come from Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee bringing their enslaved with them. One of them was named Samuel Kiethly, who “was one of the largest slave owners in St. Charles County according to the U.S. Slave Schedules of 1850 and 1860. Among those who he enslaved were John Rafferty and his sisters Ludy, Elsie and Lizzie according to Mary Stephenson”. See https://stcharlescountyhistory.org/2025/06/30/how-sage-chapel-cemetery-began/ for more information about Sage Chapel Cemetery.
I first became aware of Sage Chapel Cemetery’s history back in about 2012, when I was working as Archivist at the St. Charles County Historical Society. Two O’Fallon Police officers came into the archives, asking for information about Sage Chapel Cemetery on Veterans Memorial Highway next to the VFW Post 5077 in O’Fallon Missouri. At that time, a neighbor had taken the liberty of driving a bobcat through the overgrown weeded graveyard, doing a lot of damage, and they were looking for who needed to press charges. At that time, the cemetery was what is known as unclaimed property, because the church known as Sage Chapel had disappeared many years before.
Since that time, the City of O’Fallon has stepped forward, maintaining the cemetery, and working with the State of Missouri to retain ownership of Sage Chapel Cemetery, with the permission of Mary Stephenson, and others who were descendants of the cemetery. It is now part of the O’Fallon Parks Department, and I would like to recognize my appreciation for them doing that. Also, it became listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018, as one of only a few African American Cemeteries are in the State of Missouri. For more information, you can learn more about Sage Chapel Cemetery on its’ website https://sagechapel.com/ and contact me there as well.
Please join me on August 5th, as we recognize Sage Chapel Cemetery with a brass plaque that shares with the world that now this beautiful historic landmark of St. Charles is on the National Register of Historic Places. I would love for everyone to join me and show their appreciation as well for how WE can preserve our history and how This Place Matters!!
ST. CHARLES COUNTY HISTORY 