We stumbled upon another rural cemetery in West County recently, off of Conway Road. The Conway Cemetery is named after one of the earliest settlers in the St. Louis County area, and the cemetery is on his property. Joseph Conway was famous for having been scalped and surviving the assault; his grand-children supposedly used to ask to feel his head on occasion.
This interesting tombstone above marks the graves of the slaves of the Conway family. Unlike the Campbell Slave Cemetery in Wildwood, these graves are marked officially. But it is strange; the stone looks quite old but the inscription is clearly new. I suppose you can “recycle” tombstones.
The Conways’ tombstones are clearly new, and I believe they were replaced by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who also replaced the cemetery’s sign on the road.
This strange arrangement of stones, at first glance the outline of a rubble foundation, on closer inspection does not quite seem right. Perhaps it was a foundation, or as I suspect, actually a garden of some sort. Conway Cemetery is said to be the oldest family cemetery in the county; Southern settlers tended to have family plots on their own property, while Northerners had churchyard burials. It was a great find, and worth visiting on your own.
