ST. CHARLES COUNTY HISTORY

By Dorris Keeven-Franke

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Award winning author, and International speaker. President of the Archer Alexander Memorial Foundation. Member of the Missouri Speakers Bureau and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. President of the Boone’s Lick Road Association. Executive Director of the Missouri Germans Consortium. She has been writing for over 35 years and published several books on local history, German immigration, and other topics. Currently working on To Tell a True Story – Archer Alexander.
  • How Sage Chapel Cemetery began…

    How Sage Chapel Cemetery began…

    In the early 1800s, Samuel Keithly (1789-1870) came from Kentucky, and settled in St. Charles County, bringing his enslaved. The father of a large family with seven children, several step-children, and many grandchildren, the family had other members who owned slaves as well. By the 1840s, the family owned hundreds of acres of land, and had purchased  land near today’s O’Fallon, Missouri where Sage Chapel Cemetery lies. Keithly 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.

    Samuel Keithly didn’t free any of his enslaved. Some histories state that he gave the land that we call Sage Chapel Cemetery to his slaves, where they worshiped in a field of Sage. What we do know was that among Samuel Keithly’s slaves was John Rafferty. According to Mary Stephenson, who is his descendant, John Rafferty and his sisters, Frances, Ludy, Elsie, and Lizzie had been born in Kentucky, and brought to Missouri.

    When John Rafferty (Senior) passed away in 1881, his former enslaver Samuel Keithly (Senior) had already passed away as well. But burials had already been taking place on the former Keithly plantation, on the same land that had been inherited and was by then owned by his daughter  Mahala Keithly Castlio (1817-1896) and her husband Jasper N. Castlio. This was the same land that the enslaved people had been burying on for generations before. And they wanted to keep burying in the same graveyard.

    So in 1881, Samuel Kiethly’s daughter Mahala and her husband Jasper Castlio legally transferred  property that included a small church building of the African Methodist Episcopal Church on “the hill” [today’s Sonderen Avenue] and the cemetery which lay at its southern terminus  to three A.M.E. Trustees. On August 20th, in 1881, Mahala and her husband Jasper, transferred to three Trustees of the African Methodist Church, namely John Rafferty’s close friend Walter Burrel, Joel Patterson and Taylor Harris, for the use of the preachers of the African Methodist Episcopal Conference (headed by St. John’s A.M.E. Church in St. Charles Missouri). They also sold them one acre of land, which became known as Sage Chapel Cemetery, so that burials could continue to take place in the same “black cemetery” that they had been burying in for generations, and then former slaves, like John Rafferty and Charles Letcher could continue to be buried alongside, with their families and where their ancestors had already lain for decades.

    These are among at least 17 burials at Sage Chapel Cemetery that we know experienced Missouri’s Emancipation Day on Missouri’s Emancipation Day on January 11, 1865 or Juneteenth. You won’t see them in the picture of Keithley’s Plantation published in the St. Charles County plat book.

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  • Sage Chapel Cemetery Revisited

    Sage Chapel Cemetery Revisited

    I first wrote about Sage Chapel Cemetery back in 2018.

    Near the center of one of the largest cities in St. Charles County  sits a quiet little plot of ground that transports a visitor to an earlier time when many of its residents were enslaved people. In the early 1800s, Samuel Keithly (1789-1870) came from Kentucky, and settled in St. Charles County, bringing his slaves. The father of a large family with seven children, several step-children, and many grandchildren, the family had other members who owned slaves as well. By the 1840s, the family owned hundreds of acres of land, and had purchased  land near today’s O’Fallon, Missouri where Sage Chapel Cemetery lies. (First published April 27, 2018)

    Not much has changed since then, but their story is more important than ever. For years, the history of the formerly enslaved people of St. Charles County was a story that only they knew, shared among themselves, and passed down to younger generations. Their ancestors were forbidden to learn how to read and write until emancipation. How can we fault people for not having enough documentation about a time and place, then require them in order to recognize it, and not credit their family histories passed down from generation to generation? When I share the story of Sage Chapel Cemetery I want to share not only the “documentation” found in their enslaver’s probate and wills, the legal deeds to purchase the land they built on, and the death certificates that can be found today, online through the Secretary of State’s office, but those family histories that only they can tell. There’s the real heart of the story!

    Charles Letcher, Ancestor of Mary Stephenson

    Oral Histories, as told by their descendants, provide an incredible journey into the past that no deed, will or death certificate can tell. In my research on Sage Chapel Cemetery, I met Mary and Tom Stephenson. Mary shared the same kind of family portraits of her ancestors, hung in the hallway, that I have of mine. However, her stories told me about more about Mr. Keithlys enslaved people who he brought to Missouri. Those are the real stories. Those are the stories that bring Sage Chapel Cemetery to life. And those are the stories that we need to hear. Let’s revisit Sage Chapel, and “the hill” in O’Fallon.

    Daughter of Les Luckett is the first to the left, Nellie Luckett. Photo from the O’Fallon Missouri Historical Society the Mary Stephenson collection and Jim Frain.

    Please note: These stories are difficult and they share history that some consider divisive and unnecessary. But we are instructed to tell stories that educational and inspirational. These are true stories, shared with the permission and the respect of those who have shared them with me.

    Many of the black families who lived in the O’Fallon had large families that married families that can also be found in the St. John’s AME in St. Charles, Grant Chapel A.M.E. in Wentzville, Smith Chapel in Foristell, and Hopewell Baptist Church in Dardenne. If you would like to share family stories of any of them, or any others please contact me on this blog: stcharlescountyhistory.blog

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  • Early French home later used in Civil War

    Early French home later used in Civil War

    At 903 S Main St, Saint Charles, Missouri, 63301 there is the Tiercerot- Krekel house, this two-and one half story home was built, circa 1814-1830 by a French merchant named Gregorie Kircereau who was a nephew of St. Charles’ second Commandant Carlos Tayon.  The beautiful brick building is stucco covered, and still retains its beautiful stone lintels.

    During the Civil War the German born Provost Marshall Arnold Krekel , a Union Army Lt. Colonel used it as his headquarters. It was located across the street from the town’s Mill, which was also used as a Union hospital and a Confederate Prison, and where soldiers kept watch on the riverfront. We’ll save more of that story for another day. The third floor’s “Crow’s Nest” similiar to the crow’s nest of a ship was used by Krekel as a lookout. Missouri was under Martial Law during the Civil War.

    Directly to the rear of this building there is a brick building that served as the kitchen and contains a built in stove with a large open oven. Between Kircereau’s home and his Uncle Tayon’s brick house (see yesterday https://stcharlescountyhistory.org/2025/06/27/the-commandant-and-his-church/) which was directly to the west, was a building that was said to be used by their enslaved.

    Tayon’s

    Prior to 1851, the Boone’s Lick Road started westward, on the north side of the property. When the Plank Road system began, the orientation of the road began on the south side like it does today. Today, you can visit Magpie’s Cafe and enjoy history up close! https://www.magpiesonmain.com/

    Sources: Preservation Journal by Holly Haddox, Historical Saint Charles Missouri by Edna McElhiney Olson 1967, Boone’s Lick Road by Dan A. Rothwell. Also: Historic Main Street Story Map

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