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John Sappington A Slave Owner and Not a Missouri Hero
Sappington Cemetery State Historic Site
John Sappington – Saline County’s Elite
Dr. John Sappington (1776-1856), a prominent pioneer physician of Saline County, established this family cemetery in 1831. The two-acre cemetery contains 111 headstones and markers and is enclosed by a limestone wall and wrought iron fence.
Dr. Sappington studied medicine in Kentucky and in 1804 married Jane Breathitt, the sister of Kentucky Gov. John Breathitt. In 1817, they came to central Missouri’s Boone’s Lick Country and by 1819 settled just west of Arrow Rock.
A conformist, Dr. Sappington attacked the common medical practice of bloodletting to treat patients. In the 1830s, he perfected and amss marketed quinine in pill form to treat malarial fever, a major disease in the Missouri River valley. The St. Louis Medical Society denounced him as a quack, but his”anti-fever pills” quickly became the frontier’s most famous pre-scription. in 1844, he wrote “The Theory and Treatment of Fevers,” the first medical treatise published wesst of the Mississippi River.
Dr. Sappington was also a business entrepreneur, agriculturist, land speculator and political confidant. He established an economic and political dynasty that included three Missouri governors. An inscription over his grave reads: “A truly honests man is the noblest work of God. He lay like a warrior taking his rest.”
Along with the Sappington family, two of Missouri’s governors are buried in the cementery. Both had married daughters of Dr. Sappington.
Meredith Miles Marmaduke (1791-1864) was elected Lt. Governer in 1840 after Gov. Reynolds died. Marmaduke married Dr. Sappington’s daughter Lavinia in 1826 and became a partner in his father-in-law’s enterprises. Active in the Santa Fe trade, Marmaduke also served as Saline County judge and surveyor. His son, John Sappington Marmaduke, was Missouri’s 25th governor (1885-1887).
Clairborne Fox Jackson (1806-1862) was beginning his term as Missouri’s 15th governor when the Civil War began. Jackson supported slavery and advocated the seccession of Missouri. In June of 1861, federal troops occupied the capital of Jefferson City, forcing Jackson and pro-secession officials to flee and join Confederate forces. He died in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1862 and was reinterred in Sappington Cemetery after the war.
Prior to entering poltics, Jackson was Arrow Rock’s first postmaster and engaged in retail trade and banking. He was elected to the House of Representatives from Howard County in 1842, and became a leader in the “Central Clique,” the machine that dominated Missouri’s Demoncratic Party politics during the mid-19th century, Jackson married three of Dr. Sappington’s daughters: Jane in 1831, Louisa in 1833 and Eliza in 1838.
All three women are buried in the cemetery.
Symbolism in Sappington Cemetery reflect some period beliefs. Cedar and Austrian pine trees represent eternal life because they are evergreen. Governor Marmaduke’s arched monument suggests vitory over death. The clasped hands symbolize a farewell and hope of meeting in eternity. The Masonic compass shows he was a member of that organization. Twin columns over Governor Jackson’s grave denote “noble lives” of he and his wife.
The Sappingtons and their extended families owned large numbers of African American slaves whose labor and skills contributed directly to their success and prosperity. Dr. Sappington gave them a tract of ground as a burial place. Known as the “Sappington Negro Cemetry,” it is located on Route AA one-quarter mile south of the Sappington Cemetery. It is privately owned, but open to the public.
Sappington Cemetery, along with two other cemeteries, became part of the state park system by an act of the state legislature in 1967. The act mandated that the state park board “suitably mark and maintain every grave of a former governor in this state, which is not within a perpetual care centery.” Jewell Cemetery, near Columbia, houses the grave of Missouri’s 22nd governor, Charles Hardin. The burial site in Herculaneum of Missouri’s fifith governor, Daniel Dunklin, is also a state historic site.
Sappington Cemetery State Historic Site
Route AA
Saline County
c/o Arrow Rock State Historic Site
Arrow Rock, MO 65320
660.837.3330
Tags: arrow rock, cementery, john sappington, slave owner
I found the article very well written and informative. But, it needs to be checked over and corrections made in relation to several miss-spelled words. I had an opportunity to see both cemeteries and the Sappington estate home from the road for the first time this past Saturday, although I had lived in Saline County for the past 40 years. I am appreciative of the maintenance of these historical sites. Billie
Billie,
Thank you for your comments. We have made changes and if you have any additional corrections, please feel free to leave a comment again.
The Sappington Cemetery is a good place to reflect about the era in which Mr. Sappington lived.
I thought the article was well written and informative! I do take issue with the heading (John Sappington A Slave Owner and Not a Missouri Hero) you say a good place to reflect about the era in which Mr. Sappington lived. As you stated in that era it was common practice to own slaves! He obviously had compassion for the Negro’s or he wouldn’t have given land for the Sappington negro cemetery! Do some research and see how many Masters gave land to their Negro’s then rethink your title.
Sincerely, John Sappington
May 15, 1776…John Sappington born
Dr. John Sappington, author of the first medical book published west of the Mississippi River, was born May 15, 1776 at Havre De Grace, Maryland. He studied and practiced medicine under his father for several years at Nashville, later moving to Franklin, Tennessee. In 1814 Sappington set out on horseback for the Philadelphia medical college where he received his degree. He returned to the South and in 1817 joined westward bound caravans to Missouri. Two years later he settled on a farm west of Arrow Rock in Saline County.
Sappington’s field of practice extended from Jefferson City west to Lexington and all over adjoining counties. His forte lay in a remedy for fever, the main agency of which was Peruvian bark or quinine. Although this drug had been known since 1600, it had won recognition slowly, especially in America. To Sappington is due credit for its widespread and successful use in the Mississippi Valley as a treatment for malarial fevers. He attacked such practices as bloodletting, and his success and frankness to brother physicians contributed much to the acceptance of new treatment.
Tiring of his strenuous practice, Dr. Sappington devoted his attention after 1832 to the manufacture and exploitation of his “Dr. John Sappington’s Anti-Fever Pills.” Their large sale throughout the Mississippi Valley brought exceptional financial returns, which were wisely invested. His sense of public duty induced him to give to the world his theories, and there appeared in 1844 The Theory and Treatment of Fevers, by Dr. John Sappington, Saline County, Missouri. Thus voluntarily relinquishing a fortune, he set forth all his formulae, including that of his proprietary anti-fever pills.
To ameliorate the lot of indigent children of Saline County he left $20,000 in trust. During the first fifty years of its service thousands of boys and girls were its beneficiaries. Owing to the establishment of the free public school system, the interest was directed to the higher education of young men and women of Saline County. In August 1938 the fund amounted to $80,000 and almost 12,000 students had been aided with nearly $200,000 in tuitions having been paid. Sappington died September 7, 1856.
Sounds like a Missouri Hero to me!
As an African American 17 year old, I have to agree with BlackMissouri about what constitutes a hero.
George Washington was a slave owner, too.
And he wasn’t a hero either.
I don’t think we should celebrate any slave owner as a hero.
Again, you are reading from a black perspective and any black person who believes in their dignity and value as a human being would have a right to determine that he is not a hero.
At least Washington and Sappington have names. There are plenty of slaves who were heroic in escaping from their masters, but they were called criminals and likely beaten and burned in front of the other slaves.
A good book to read about a true heroin is “Celia, A Slave” but she was put to death for murdering her rapist master near Fulton.
As a great, great granddaughter of Dr. John Sappington I was very pleased to read about his accomplishments. I don’t know if he was a hero but the person who discovered quinine was surely a humanitarian.
The definition of the word Hero:
…a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
To that end, Dr. John Sappington was and is a hero of his era, he was admirable, noble, and brave in his deeds as you’ve obviously stated in your passage after the title. I came across this lack luster article while looking up some of my family history, and it appears that my Great Grandfather Sanford (Sappington) Sapenter (11/20/1855 to 12/03/1935) may have been either one of the Sappington slaves or a true Sappington himself as he changed our name from Sappington to Sapenter after word got out about the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. I have found no record as to his race, but he married a Mulatto woman named Sylva Perry in Goliad, TX in 1882. In retrospect, Dr. John Sappington could just as well have been the victim, not a hero, nor a Slave Master who did the least he could in providing a burial site for his slaves. In fact, just as this young man and the editor of this article are victims of our time, Dr. John Sappington could be viewed in the same light. All victims in that you unconsciously take part in the continued mis-education of humanity by calling yourself “Black” or “White”. If you go back as far as 1712, in the Willie Lynch letters he taught slave masters how to keep someone mentally enslaved forever. The fact that it worked and is still working even today as we have a so called “Black” and “White” President, is astonishing to me which is exactly why I feel it to be so important to know where you’re from as a people. Without knowing where you’re from navigating through this world with even the conscious of mind may prove to be an unsuccessful battle. Unfortunately, because of Slavery and the indoctrination of the Willie Lynch practices our Nation is set up for us to have the hardest of time attaining even the smallest means of success. You can look back and say that Abraham Lincoln was a hero with your unconscious mind, but if you think about it… after nearly 200 years of the emasculating, beating, tar and feathering, setting on fire, and ripping apart of our most courageous men in front of their wives and children… Lincoln only gave birth to a youth that could never be cut from their umbilical cord. Then, moving forward, umbilical cord still attached dangling as we walk, in comes another disenfranchising masked in the vail of desegregation in our schools less than 100 years after the birth of this youth that had just gone through 200 years of misery with same people we are now supposed to have our kids in school with. At this early stage in our birth, it only served as a continuance of slavery, encouraging the mis-education of our youth through the use of those same Willie Lynch practices that still have our minds arrested today. So I urge you, especially the young man, to not only educate yourself on what strong holds are still held on us as a people today, but to do something about it by implementing this knowledge in your daily life.
In Honor and Memory of my Hero, Sanford (Sappington) Sapenter, born Nov. 20, 1855 and laid to rest Dec. 3, 1935 in Sapenter Cemetery on Sapenter Rd. in Goliad, Texas.
Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
I am a descendent of the sapenter ( sapington ) Sanford died on my birthday which tells a lot about howe time repeats itself.
Dr. Sappington was an ancestor of mine also. He had a very interesting life and I am happy to know more about him. Thanks to whomever did the research. I do consider him a hero.
I’d love to know more!
Thank you,
Shannon Sappington Hagen
Yes, Dr. Sappington qualifys as a Hero, To discover and market quinine as a cure for
Malaria, is more than enough reason alone to call Dr J. Sappington ” Hero”.His additional achievements are complements to his greatest achievement.
His contribution toward a cure for Malaria has changed the face of our world.His discovery has brought life to area’s where humans died in massive numbers every year from the dreaded mosquito and the illness known as Malaria.