Shady Grove Cemetery

In 1891, a cemetery was deeded to three trustees at the junction of two of the largest slaveholding estates in Cape Girardeau County, near present-day Dutchtown. Here, much of Cape Girardeau County’s Black population took control of their burial rituals and their children’s education in post-Civil War Missouri. That place still exists: Shady Grove.

It’s at the end of a county road, near the former (white) Pecan Grove one-room school. Shady Grove’s school served a population of Black children, many of whose parents lived and farmed in southern Cape Girardeau County: the area around Allenville, Cousinville, Delta, Blomeyer, Whitewater and more small communities that have largely vanished today.

The cemetery is about one acre of land, though there are burials outside of those boundaries. There’s a sign and approximately 116 marked burials, but only approximately 50 of those burials have headstones with names. The rest are marked with stones or metal spikes — common to Black cemeteries of the time period.

The cemetery was active until the 1960s and has fallen into disrepair in more recent years. The late Elroy Kinder made efforts to preserve the cemetery, but the school building — where church services were also sometimes held — had been demolished, and with any cemetery, it takes only one growing season of neglect for a lot of damage to be done. Elroy worked with Dr. Frank Nickell and the late Louise Cardwell Duncan, whose father and grandfather had been caretakers at the cemetery, not trustees. After Louise’s father died, efforts were made over the years, but no concerted effort.

That’s where the Shady Grove Heritage and Preservation Organization (SGHAPO) comes in.

This group of direct descendants of people buried at Shady Grove is working to secure and eventually restore the cemetery. Their first move was to hire historian Robert Blythe to complete a nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places in 2021, which was successful in 2022. I helped with that research process, as did several other research sites in Cape Girardeau County. Between cemetery records on file at the Archive Center and a 1998 book by Sharon K. Sanders and Diana Steele, probate records for one of the original trustees, deed information from the County Recorder of Deeds’ Office and other information, we were able to provide excellent background on this important site, so it’s now recognized nationally.

The SGHAPO also put in a bid for trusteeship earlier this year, and in April, the Court granted the group’s request. I had conducted a search for possible descendants of the original trustees to see if we could find any information about possible successor trustees, but turned up nothing, even after reviewing estate papers and city directories.

I filed an affidavit to that effect, but the real credit goes to the SGHAPO for first organizing, then pushing for this cemetery to have status and appropriate representation.

An updated version of the 1998 book is available on Amazon as of June 1.

Shady Grove is a vital site to get a glimpse of Cape Girardeau County history, and the records and narratives that go along with it can help us all to better understand where we came from, so we can better understand how to move forward.

Marybeth Niederkorn is the director of the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center in Jackson and holds various leadership positions dedicated to preserving and furthering the county’s rich history.