Calvary Cemetery St Louis, Missouri
Pray for the souls of Thomas and Ann Biddle.
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The couple buried within Calvary Cemetery’s oldest mausoleum, Ann Mullanphy and Major Thomas Biddle, were married in 1823. She was the well educated daughter of Missouri’s first millionaire and he was a dashing military hero who had distinguished himself during the War of 1812. Together they were a fashionable, well connected and seemingly happy couple until Thomas’ death in 1831.
Major Biddle was involved in a political argument with Congressman Spencer Pettis, which quickly turned to personal insults and led to Pettis challenging him to a duel. Biddle accepted readily and the ensuing duel on August 27, 1831 left both men dead within a few days. You can find a detailed post from the Missouri Historical Society about their famous duel on Bloody Island here.
After her husband’s death, Ann dedicated herself to charitable works in St Louis, even giving up her mansion on Broadway to the Sisters of Charity for use as an orphanage. She served as the president of the Ladies’ Catholic Association for Charitable Purposes, and in 1844 donated the lot on which the Church of St Joseph was built. In 1845 she made a gift towards a new orphanage for girls. including a lot worth $6,000 and an additional $3000 towards construction. In that same year she donated the land for the Biddle Market to the City of St Louis.
When Ann Biddle died in 1846 she made a final gift to Bishop Peter R Kenrick - a lot east of Tenth Street between Biddle and O’Fallon Streets for the purpose of founding an infant and widows asylum. In addition to that, she left $8,000 for the construction of a mausoleum for herself and her beloved husband Thomas, on that same site, surrounded by the institutions that were a result of her passion for charitable works in the city. George I. Barnett was commissioned to design the structure, and artist Leonard W. Volk was hired to sculpt the alto relievos for the tomb's interior.
Ann and Thomas remained in their temporary burial place at the Catholic Cemetery on Franklin Avenue until their Mausoleum was complete. Their undertaker George Lynch said later that, when reinterning the couple, he found the bullet that killed Major Bissell among his remains and turned it over to the family.
Professor C. M. Woodward recalled, in an account from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, that he last saw the Biddle monument at 10th and Biddle Street in 1867. The next trace of it can be found in The Pictorial St Louis 1875, already having been moved to Calvary Cemetery by the archdiocese. The five and a half mile journey between the original location and where the tomb and its occupants rest today likely took place in that eight year period. St Ann’s Asylum, the last of the institutions created through Ann’s philanthropy, remained in operation there until 1905 when it moved to a new facility at Page and Union. Not long after, the asylum buildings were demolished and work began on the Henry School which still stands today.
It appears there were some changes made in the overall design of the mausoleum when it was relocated. Almost all of the early reports include the inscription Pray for the souls of Thomas and Ann Biddle appearing on the monument but no trace of those words remain today. An engraving of the mausoleum by John Warner Barber in Our Whole Country, Or, The Past and Present of the United States in 1861 depicts a much more complex structure with a domed cupola and a set of exterior columns. The classical design and the beautiful marble interior remain today, albeit with a much smaller footprint and simpler profile than the one presented in the engraving.
The exterior of the tomb is constructed with buff sandstone and features two open arched entrances, directly across from each other, with a simple cross above each. Today visitors are unable to enter the mausoleum, both for its protection and theirs, but the interior is easy to view from the outside. A Corinthian column stands in each of the four corners drawing the eye up to the oculus in the tomb's domed ceiling which bathes the interior with light. The two marble effigies of Thomas and Ann face each other, their dates of death inscribed below.
Strange Graves is a series by the Mourning Society of St Louis featuring St Louis’ beautiful, strange and historic burials. Post contributed by Katherine Kozemczak.