Oldest Business

Cindy Mustard, a member of the Columbia Cemetery Association Board of Trustees, identifies the graves of Mary Jane Todd, daughter of David and Eliza Todd, who died at age 9 in 1824. The grave is the oldest identifiable grave in the nearly 200-year-old cemetery. [PHOTOS BY DON SHRUBSHELL/TRIBUNE]

A grave legacy BY PHILIP JOENS Columbia Daily Tribune

Wander through the maze of roads and graves in Columbia Cemetery for long enough, and eventually you’ll find the spot near the corner of Bowling and Prewitt streets where a stone plaque marks the grave of nine-year-old Mary Jane Todd.

The Todd family buried Mary Jane Todd in 1824, four years after the Columbia Cemetery opened and three years after early settlers incorporated the city about a half mile away near the Flat Branch Creek. Columbia’s first business, the not-for-profit Columbia Cemetery Association, remains one of two businesses from around the town’s founding to still be in operation.

Today, Mary Jane Todd's grave is the oldest, still identifiable grave in the cemetery, said Columbia Cemetery Superintendent Tanja Patton. From Mary Jane Todd’s Grave, visitors can see the town below them to the east. Crucially, graves on the spot also face the rising sun, as is the Christian tradition. The early settlers of Smithton opened the cemetery on the site of an existing cemetery on the farm, just to the south of Mary Jane Todd’s grave, Patton said.

“This was the high point,” Patton said. “Cemeteries were generally put on the highest point near a city up on a hill.”

The headstone of Mary Jane Todd and her family members in the Columbia Cemetery was refurbished by the Columbia Cemetery Association.

Before the cemetery opened, the Todd family farmed the land near Mary Jane Todd’s gave. Legend holds that Abraham Lincoln visited his future wife Mary Todd at the home of David and Eliza Todd, Mary Jane Todd’s parents, in the summer of 1840. Walgreens at 222 E. Broadway sits adjacent to the cemetery and sits on the site of the home.

In 1818, early settlers settled the early town of Smithton near the farm. Almost 200 years into its history, the 34-acre cemetery still has almost 10,000 graves open. With cremation becoming more popular, Patton says it likely never will be full.

“It will always be here,” Patton said. “We’ll not ever run out of room.”

When Smithton was platted, a 1.5 acre cemetery opened on the site. For a period, the city of Columbia briefly owned the cemetery, said Cindy Mustard, a member of the Columbia Cemetery Association Board of Trustees. Under municipal leadership, the cemetery fell into disrepair, Mustard and Patton said.

So, James Rollins, William Switzler, Jefferson Garth and other businessmen formed the Columbia Cemetery Association in 1853, and began operating the cemetery.

Municipalities run most cemeteries, Patton said. She takes pride in the association’s work over the decades to maintain the space for the community.

“Their main objective is to maintain this beautiful cemetery for future generations,” Patton said. "That’s what makes it different, and I don’t think people realize that.”

Over the years, the site has been a gathering place for community members. The vast space contains large swaths of green space unoccupied by the dead. For long periods of the city’s history, the city had no parks, Mustard said.

So, community members used the cemetery in a Victorian way, and had picnics, played baseball and even raced horses within its grounds.

“It’s modeled off the English country type of cemetery,” Mustard said.

At one point the cemetery even had a band shell, Mustard said. Today the band shell’s base remains visible. Often, as a kid, Mustard would meet friends at the cemetery.

“The cemetery was our playground,” Mustard said. “It was a great place to hang out.”

Chris Campbell, Boone County History and Culture Center executive director, said the only other business remaining from around that time period is the University of Missouri, which was founded 19 years after the cemetery in 1839.

Three businesses opened in 1822, according to the 1882 book “The History of Boone County” by William Switzler, Campbell said.

Charles Hardin opened a tanning yard on Flat Branch Creek near the current site of the Walton Building at 300 S. Providence Road, Campbell said. Samuel Scott also had a blacksmith shop which opened in the first three or four blocks of Broadway.

John Van Horn was a cabinet maker, but the book did not list a location for his shop, Campbell said.

The town of Smithton was founded near the cemetery site because it also provided early settlers, like the Todd family, protection from Native Americans, Campbell said. After two years, when residents realized they did not have adequate access to water, the town moved down to the banks of the creek and became Columbia.

Business may have played a role in this decision, Campbell said. Tanning hides requires large amounts of water, Campbell said. After Hardin opened his tannery, the town’s first marketplace sprang up on the site of the present day Flat Branch Park.

“Back then, it would be people buying saddles, furs, everything you need,” Campbell said. “That need for water is probably why the whole town got replatted in the spring of 1821. Had they started there, the cemetery might be somewhere else entirely.”

Two Revolutionary War veterans lie in the Columbia Cemetery, as do veterans of every American war since, Mustard said.

With the way the cemetery’s site shaped Columbia’s history, Mustard hopes the cemetery will teach students at nearby Grant Elementary School, and others, for generations to come.

“The cemetery reflects a lot of the pioneers of the early years of Columbia,” Mustard said. “It’s also a teaching place.”