On July 5th, 1836, Andrew Hixon and wife, Ann, conveyed by Warranty Deed to the "Town of Liberty" Trustees for $30, one acre, "for the purpose of a public burying ground". Used as such before the 1825 settlement of Liberty. "The Old Graveyard", on one of the highest crests in Clay County, became Mt. Memorial, its first cemetery, with its first burial in 1827. As reported by Hon. D.C. Allen in the Jan 28, 1910 Liberty Tribune, the "Hixon" conveyance created in perpetuity, "a charitable trust" based on a Missouri Territorial Legislature's Act. In 1851, Missouri's legislature "chartered" Liberty as a city; passing to it "The Old Graveyard". Nestled within the William Jewell College campus, it contains the "hallowed remains of all of six hundred persons...", white and black alike, some born before the American Revolution. Among early prominent family members who lie here are Liberty's first Mayor, Madison Miller, William Jewell College's first elected Treasurer (in 1849), Edward M. Samuel, and John Baxter, former "Liberty Landing" proprietor and County Sheriff.
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Mt. Memorial Cemetery
has been listed in the
National Register
of Historic Places
by the United States
Department of the Interior
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