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Tours of Oak Ridge Cemetery

Notable African-Americans buried at Oak Ridge

The following list includes the gravesites of more than 30 notable African-Americans buried at Oak Ridge. More might easily have been added. The Oak Ridge Cemetery Foundation hopes this sampling gives the visitor a sense of the Black experience in Springfield and Sangamon County.

African-American burials at Oak Ridge are concentrated in four cemetery blocks: Blocks 4 and 5 (the historic “colored section”), Block 24 and Block 40. In recent years, however, a growing number of African-Americans have chosen to be interred elsewhere in the cemetery.

Because of the number of sites on this tour, this list is organized topically, not as a physical tour route. It is best experienced by automobile.

Anyone who wants to view individual sites should read “Grave-finding at Oak Ridge” below.

Credit: Much of the research for this tour was compiled by Lashonda Fitch, executive director of Oak Ridge Cemetery from 2019 to 2023.

Grave-finding at Oak Ridge

The city of Springfield website includes an interactive map of Oak Ridge Cemetery. Use grave locations noted below to find individual burial sites. (If the map’s search function doesn’t work, you can drag and scroll through the map to find the correct block and site.)

However, be aware that many gravestones lie flat with the ground; that may make it harder to find a specific grave even when you’ve located it using the map.

The Florville Family

The Florvilles span the range of African-American experience in early Springfield, from Abraham Lincoln’s barber and friend to the highest-ranking Black officer in the U.S. Army in World War I to a near-victim of the Springfield Race Riot. Many members of the extended Florville family are buried in a cluster of graves surrounding the imposing “broken tree” tombstone of matriarch Phoebe Rountree Florville in Oak Ridge Cemetery’s Block 5.

Block 5 is the heart of Oak Ridge’s historic “colored section.” See the roadside marker for more information.

(Note that the family’s namesake, William Florville, who cut Lincoln’s hair and corresponded with Lincoln in the White House, is not buried at Oak Ridge. A Haitian Catholic, he lies in neighboring Calvary Cemetery.)

Here are the stories of some notable Florville relatives interred at Oak Ridge.

PHOEBE ROUNTREE FLORVILLE (1804-1897) Block 5 GPS 39.82646N, 89.65884W

Phoebe Florville was born in Kentucky, the daughter of an enslaved woman, Lucy Rountree; her father probably was Henry Rountree, the man who enslaved her mother. Lucy Rountree and her children were released from slavery shortly before they accompanied Henry to Sangamon County in1829. Phoebe married William Florville (1807-1868), a Springfield barber, in 1832. William Florville, often known as “Billy the Barber,” also was a sagacious businessman, and Lincoln handled many of Florville’s legal affairs. In turn, according to tradition, Florville cut Lincoln’s hair, with the two men telling jokes and stories as he did so.

Lincoln and Florville remained friends after Lincoln became president. “Tell Taddy that his and Willie’s dog is alive and kicking, doing well,” William Florville wrote in an 1862 letter to the president .

William Florville’s investments helped make the Florville family Springfield’s wealthiest Black family for decades after his death. Phoebe Florville’s elaborate “broken tree” gravestone, the creation of premier local stone carver Edward Levanius, is a sign of that prosperity.

JULIA (1853-1930) and CLARK (1850-1929) DUNCAN Block 5 GPS 39.82646N, 89.65884W

Julia Chavous Duncan, a granddaughter of William and Phoebe Rountree Florville, owned a grocery store, co-founded the Springfield Colored Woman’s Club and was the first president of the Lincoln Colored Home governing board — “the dominating spirit in this and other benevolent enterprises,” the Illinois State Journal once said of her.

Her husband, Clark Duncan, relocated following Civil War service with Company B of the 6th U.S. Colored Cavalry. He was a porter at the Leland Hotel for 30 years. The Duncans were among many of the Black families affected by the 1908 Race Riot.

Their son, Col. Otis B. Duncan (who is buried in Chicago), was the highest-ranking Black officer to serve in the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I.

SHEPPARD A. WARE (1872-1948) Block 5 GPS 39.82653N, 89.65881W

Dr. Sheppard Ware practiced medicine in Springfield from 1899 until 1944; his patients included whites as well as African-Americans. Ware married Clara Duncan, the daughter of Clark and Julia Duncan.

Aside from his medical practice, Ware was known for his singing, public speaking, and involvement in local politics. “Doctor Ware is a man of very high musical attainments,” the Illinois State Journal said in 1918. “He has a wonderful voice and is considered one of the best vocal musicians of our city.”

Ware also was an early leader of the Springfield Urban League. In 1900, Ware personally confronted Police Sgt. Charles Phillips, a white officer who had become infatuated with a young African-American woman. Ware intervened after Phillips, in the presence of witnesses, arrested the woman (without charges) and then took her to his lodgings, threw her to the floor and slapped her several times. Armed with love letters Phillips had sent to the woman, Ware brought the incident to the attention of Mayor Loren Wheeler. Phillips then abruptly resigned from the police department.

AMOS DUNCAN (1890-1945) Block 40 GPS 39.82494N, 89.66208W

Amos Duncan was a political leader, a police officer and an entrepreneur. Aside from founding Dreamland Park, an amusement park open to all races, businesses Duncan owned included a laundry, several bars, and the only local movie theater that catered specifically to African-Americans. In the early 20th century, he was considered Springfield’s most influential Black politician.

Duncan was married to Phoebe E. Florville, a granddaughter of William and Phoebe Rountree Florville. (Amos Duncan apparently was not related to Clark Duncan other than through their marriages.)

GEORGE RICHARDSON (1872(?)-1948) Block 5 (ummarked grave) GPS 39.82646N, 89.65884W

George Richardson was falsely accused of raping a white woman, Mabel Hallam, in August 1908. The allegation, reported in sensational fashion by local newspapers, helped instigate the 1908 Springfield race riot.

After the riot was quelled, Hallam admitted she had lied about being assaulted. Richardson, a hod carrier, had been arrested solely because he happened to be working nearby.

Richardson was the son of Sinette Richardson, a daughter of William and Phoebe Rountree Florville. He is buried in an unmarked grave near that of his mother.

More information on the Florvilles: Directory of Springfield’s Colored Citizens (1926); SangamonLink.org, online encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society (search for individual profiles).

Community leaders

EVA CARROLL MONROE (1868-1950) Block 40 GPS 39.82542N, 89.66206W

Eva Carroll Monroe created and operated the Lincoln Colored Home, an orphanage for African-American children, from 1904 until 1933.

At times, the home housed as many as 60 or 70 people (it accommodated a few elderly Black women as well as children), but finances were always difficult.

The Illinois State Journal once described the Lincoln Colored Home as having “none of the characteristic grimness of an institution. It is a Home and no less … the presence or near presence of happy children is conveyed to one irresistibly … girls skipping ropes and boys and girls playing jacks or hopscotch with the quiet manner of a contented family.”

Monroe’s sister, Olive Price, who worked with Monroe to create and operate the home, is buried a few yards east of Monroe.

Note: Both Monroe and Price originally were buried in unmarked graves; their tombstones were added later. Both stones are flush to the ground and may be difficult to find.

More information: SangamonLink.org

LEON H. STEWART (1900-1987) Block 40 GPS 39.82516N, 89.66106W

Leon Stewart was a successful service station operator, but he made his name as a community leader. During his career, Stewart played leading roles with the Boys Club, the Springfield Urban League, Frontiers International, the YMCA, the Springfield Council of Churches, and the Boy Scouts. He won the NAACP Webster Plaque for community service in 1940; the Boys Club Medallion Award, one of the highest national awards given by the organization, in 1974; and the Copley First Citizen Award in 1980.

Along with several other people in this list, Stewart was a co-founder in 1970 of Peoples National Bank; he served as the bank’s first president.

Stewart “has probably contributed more of his time, efforts and talents toward the development of a wholesome, healthy social climate within the Springfield community than has any other one private individual living in the city today,” one of Stewart’s First Citizen nominators wrote.

More information: State Journal-Register article about his First Citizen Award, published Oct. 16, 1980

ELMER LEE ROGERS (1881-1957) Block 40 GPS 39.82506N, 89.66250W

Mississippi-born Elmer Lee Rogers started The Forum, a weekly Black-oriented newspaper published in Peoria and Springfield, at age 23. It lasted until 1927. Meanwhile, Rogers also founded (in 1905) and edited another weekly aimed at African-Americans, the Illinois Conservator. The Conservator, which Rogers often delivered personally on his bicycle, continued publication until 1950.

More information: State Journal-Register; findagrave.com

Education

JOHN J. BIRD (1844-1912) Block 4 GPS 39.82571N, 89.65922W

In the 1870s, John J. Bird became the first African-American trustee of the college that became the University of Illinois – at a time when the school was essentially all-white. Bird earned another first for a Black man in Illinois in 1873, when he was elected police magistrate in Cairo.

Bird’s tombstone in Oak Ridge Cemetery doesn’t mention either of those distinctions, but its text does include an unusual note: the stone was “erected by the 47th General Assembly of Illinois.” And newspaper stories show that two white lawmakers from Springfield were among speakers at Bird’s memorial service.

What also went unsaid was that Bird had been prominent in African-American organizations statewide for more than four decades, a role he parlayed with political activism to try to push Illinois Republicans to support Black civil rights.

More information: SangamonLink.org; Directory of Sangamon County’s Colored Citizens (1926); “Watchman, Tell Us: John J. Bird and Black Politics in Post-Civil War Illinois” (book), by Wayne Pitard (2024)

Rev. JAMES MAGEE (1839-1912) Block 5 GPS 39.82662N, 89.65883W

Rev. James Magee was born in Madison County, Illinois, to an enslaved mother. After his father bought his mother out of bondage, they relocated to Macoupin County. However, the Magee children were denied education there, so James was sent to Racine, Wis., for his education. He also studied in England.

Magee was a minister with the Baptist and later African Methodist Episcopal denominations, serving in churches in Tennessee, Ohio, and elsewhere in Illinois before coming to Springfield about 1901.

Here, he held state patronage positions while simultaneously becoming one of Illinois’ most influential African-Americans. Magee organized the Illinois Colored Historical Society, spoke at Springfield’s Black observance of Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday (Blacks were barred from the official city ceremony), and served as president of the Ambidexter Institute, an “industrial school” modeled on Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute.

More information: SangamonLink,org

MAE HAMMONS (1910-1983) Block 51 GPS 39.81996N, 89.65873W

Mae Ryan Hammons was the first Black woman to teach in the Springfield public schools. Hammons, who had a degree in education from the University of Illinois, moved to Springfield in 1941, but the school board’s refusal to hire Black teachers forced her to start her teaching career in Champaign.

In 1953, she was hired to teach mentally handicapped children in a temporary program sponsored by the Springfield Junior League at Westminster Presbyterian Church. She finally became a teacher in School District 186 in the 1955-56 school year; she taught at Iles School for 19 years.

More information: State Journal-Register obituary published Aug. 12, 1983

JOSEPHINE SNOWDEN MEEK (1890-1979) Block 24 (unmarked grave) GPS 39.82496N, 89.66153W

Josephine Snowden ranked as the top student in Springfield High School’s January 1907 graduating class – until her last grading period. In a suspiciously sudden reversal of fortune, the grades of a white male student improved during the final term, and Snowden’s slipped. She was named salutatorian.

“The teachers marked me down,” Meek told a State Journal-Register reporter decades later. “Even my Latin teacher, whom I thought was so wonderful, marked me down. That was quite a humiliation.”

Meek, however, had the last word, via a remarkable line of descendants. Her daughter Vesta Nichols, a civil rights activist, state employee and well-known local vocalist, was an honoree of the Sangamon County Senior Citizens Hall of Fame. Granddaughter Dr. Victoria Nichols-Johnson became a Springfield physician, and a grandson, Dr. Stephen Lockhart, was a Rhodes Scholar in 1977.

Meek is buried in an unmarked grave next to that of her father, Nathan Meek. However, his tombstone has fallen over, face down, so Meek’s grave is difficult to identify.

More information: SangamonLink.org

Meek (left of father's fallen gravestone)

EDWIN LEE SR. (1914-1993) Memorial Chapel North Corridor, Row 4, Crypt F GPS 39.82057N, 89.65368W
Dr. Edwin Lee, who grew up in Indianola, Miss., received his medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., and began to practice medicine in Springfield in 1945.

He took on many other roles as well, including helping to found and then serve as president of both the Springfield chapter of Frontiers International and Peoples National Bank.

In 1965, Lee became the first Black member of the Springfield School Board; he ultimately served two terms, including a period as board president.

Lee also was the first African-American to be named Copley First Citizen, an honor he received in 1972. Lee quoted George Bernard Shaw in accepting the award: “The harder I work, the more I live.”

More information: Illinois State Journal article on Lee’s Copley First Citizen Award, published Oct. 11, 1972.

Military

LEWIS MARTIN (1840-1892) Block 4 GPS 39.82650N, 89.65923W

Lewis Martin was a free Black man who served in the 29th regiment U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War. He was severely wounded in the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864, and his right arm and left leg had to be amputated.

A photo of Martin taken to document his pension application has become an iconic image of the horrendous injuries the war inflicted on many combatants, on both sides and of both races.

In Springfield, Martin was a member of the John A. Bross Post (the city’s African-American post) of the Grand Army of the Republic. He originally was buried in an unmarked grave in Oak Ridge Cemetery’s paupers’ section. After researcher Kathy Heyworth identified Martin as the subject of the famous photograph, however, funds were raised to erect a headstone for him; the photo is displayed on the stone.

More information: SangamonLink.org; dnrhistoricillinois.gov

Lt. ROBERT BLAKEMAN (1872-1900) Block 5 GPS 39.82650N, 89.65907W

Robert Blakeman, born and educated in Springfield, enlisted in Company K of the Eighth Illinois Volunteer Regiment at the start of the Spanish-American War. (The Eighth Illinois was the only U.S. Army unit in the war that was composed entirely of Black soldiers, from the lowest-ranking private to its commander.)

Blakeman served as Company K’s first sergeant during the Eighth’s deployment to Cuba in 1898-99. Back in the U.S., he was commissioned a lieutenant and ordered to the Philippines. He died there of hepatitis, and his mother had Blakeman’s body returned to Springfield.

More information: Illinois State Register obituary, published Oct. 12, 1900

4Underground Railroad Conductors

REV. HENRY BROWN (1823-1906) Block 5 GPS 39.82654N, 89.65903W

Rev. Henry Brown is best known to history because of photographs taken not of him, but of Abraham Lincoln’s horse, “Old Bob.” The photos were taken on May 4, 1865, the day of Lincoln’s funeral. Brown and another local minister, Rev. W.C. Trevan, were asked to lead Old Bob in the funeral procession. The horse, draped in a mourning blanket, walked just behind the honorary pallbearers and ahead of carriages bearing Lincoln’s relatives, including the president’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln. As a result, Brown and Trevan appear to have been the only Black marchers not relegated to the end of the parade. Even then, newspaper reports named Old Bob but identified Brown and Trevan only as “two grooms.”

Brown deserved more. He had devoted his life to organizing AME congregations, traveling – often on foot – throughout Illinois to camp meetings and revivals. “He was a man of immense physique, being six feet, three inches in height and weighing 250 pounds, a fact that enabled him to withstand many hardships,” the Journal said in his obituary. “In those early days, it was not an easy matter for a stranger to secure accommodations, especially if he was colored.”

Before the Civil War, Brown worked with the Underground Railroad network between Quincy and Springfield, helping runaways escape bondage in the South. “His idea of the golden rule was illustrated by one instance when he gave his own coat and vest to a poor fellow who was without one,” the Journal obituary said.

More information: coloredconventions.org.

JAMESON JENKINS (1810?-1873) Block 5 GPS 39.82661N, 89.65874W

Jameson Jenkins, a carter, is mainly remembered as a neighbor of Abraham Lincoln and the man who drove Lincoln and his belongings to the train station when the president-elect left Springfield for Washington, D.C.

Jenkins’ life, however, was multifaceted. According to the National Park Service at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Jenkins “was an enterprising, comparatively successful businessman” and property owner.

Jenkins also is known to have been active in the Underground Railroad, including an incident in 1850 in which he helped spirit some two dozen fugitives through Springfield to Bloomington.

More information: Lincoln Home National Historic Site

WILLIAM DONNEGAN (1829-1908) Block 5 GPS 39.82660N, 89.65890W

William Donnegan was a cobbler and a successful real-estate investor and apparently a major cog in the Underground Railroad in Sangamon County. In a memoir published in 1898, Donnegan described a harrowing night in 1850 during which he helped a 16-year-old girl evade a gang of so-called slave catchers. At one point, Donnegan confronted the men with his pistol and at another, he hid the young woman in a tree.

“Oh, I could give you a lot of such scrapes,” Donnegan concluded. “But I’ll never forget the night I spent in trying to get that girl away.”

Tragically, at age 80, Donnegan was lynched by a mob during the Springfield Race Riot of 1908. He was one of two Black men killed during the riot (the other, Scott Burton, is profiled below).

More information: SangamonLink.org; “In Lincoln’s Shadow: The 1908 Race Riot in Springfield, Illinois” (book), by Roberta Senechal (1980)

Artists

JESSIE MAE FINLEY (1906-2006) Block 51 GPS 39.82036N, 89.65882W

Jessie Mae Finley, the granddaughter of enslaved persons, founded a lauded Springfield choir, the Voices of Love, Joy, and Peace. But she also was notable for her work with other musical, social service and senior citizen groups.

Among other honors, she received the NAACP Webster Award for Community Service in 1975 and the Mayor’s Art Award in 1982 and was named to both the Springfield Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and the Illinois Senior Hall of Fame. She received the Copley First Citizen Award in 1976, but but her contributions continued for another 30 years.

“This has been my life, to help people,” Finley said when she was named First Citzen. “I wake up each morning thinking, ‘What can I do for somebody?”

More information: Findagrave.com

EDDIE WINFRED ‘DOC’ HELM (1911-1994) Block 40 GPS 39.82515N, 89.66233W

Eddie Winfred Helm – whom everybody called “Doc” – was the photographer for the Illinois Secretary of State for more than 50 years. In his private photo business, he documented Springfield’s Black community in thousands of remarkable, intimate and candid photographs.

He also was one of the founders of Peoples National Bank.

Helm began his state employment with a patronage job in which one of his duties was to raise and lower the flag over the Illinois Statehouse. He next moved to a position microfilming documents for the Illinois State Library. He asked the librarian if he could develop film in the library’s darkroom, and that began his photography career with state government.

Helm also realized Springfield’s Black community had no photographer of its own. He took correspondence courses in photography, scraped together enough cash to buy a quality camera and opened a commercial photo studio in 1943.

Helm’s nickname was “One Shot Doc,” because he was able to compose photos in his mind; he often needed just a single exposure to capture the image he wanted. Subjects of Helm’s camera over the years included such personalities as Joe Louis, Gene Autry (and his horse Champion) and Muhammad Ali.

More information: “Fifty Years of Doc Helm’s Photos,” Illinois Times article by Karen Ackerman Witter, published March 31, 2022; SangamonLink.org

ROBERT PRESTON TAYLOR (1876-1951) Block 40 GPS 39.82515N, 89.66233W

By one measurement, Robert Preston Taylor went into history as the first African-American graduate of the old Lincoln College of Law in Springfield. But that would ignore Taylor’s more significant achievement: bringing to life exhibits at the Illinois State Museum.

Despite his degree, earned in 1915, Taylor never practiced law. He went to work at the museum in 1912 and remained there until 1949. Hired as a custodian – his official title for his entire career – Taylor actually wore many hats over his decades at the museum, with roles that ranged from taxidermy to painting to guiding tours. As The Living Museum, the institution’s magazine, put it when Taylor died:

“When Robert came to the Museum in 1912, he was not only the custodian but also the taxidermist, carpenter, preparator, exhibits technician and everything else that the director and his secretary, the only other staff members, could not do. Therefore, many of the exhibits were installed by Robert alone. So it is no wonder that he loved every rock and bone, every life-like animal and wax mushroom in the Museum.”

More information: SangamonLink.org

Others

SCOTT BURTON (1850?-1908) Block 24 GPS 39.82499N, 89.66093W

Scott Burton operated a barbershop at Ninth and Jefferson that catered to whites. As the Springfield Race Riot raged the night of Aug. 14, 1908, Burton, armed with a shotgun, attempted to defend his home from the rampaging white mob. The rioters dragged him from the house and beat, shot and stabbed him, then hung his dead body from a tree at 12th and Madison streets. Members of the mob continued to riddle his body with bullets.

Burton was one of two Black men who were lynched during the riot (the other, William Donnegan, is profiled above).

More information: SangamonLink.org; “In Lincoln’s Shadow: The 1908 Race Riot in Springfield, Illinois (book), by Roberta Senechal (1980)

CHARLES GIBBS (1871-1927) Block 24 GPS 39.82492N, 89.66178W

To Springfield poet Vachel Lindsay, Charles Gibbs was “Gibbs the Great … a gigantic Negro warrior disguised as a lawyer.” To his colleagues at the bar, he was a courthouse legend, an orator who drew throngs to the courtroom to hear him plead a case.

And to his clients, Charles Smith Gibbs was often the last hope of avoiding financial loss, jail or even the hangman’s rope. – State Journal-Register, Feb. 2, 1987

Charles Gibbs began his working life as a coal miner in southern Illinois. He stayed in the mines after moving to Springfield at age 31, but simultaneously began studying law. He was admitted to the bar in 1908.

In the courtroom, Gibbs often took advantage of whites’ demeaning stereotypes of Blacks. He would present himself as an awkward, badly educated miner-turned-lawyer and apologize for how poorly he was about to present his case. Then he would turn the tables. “As he progressed with his argument,” a fellow attorney said at a eulogy for Gibbs, “he was most able, eloquent and forceful.” He was particularly skilled at cross-examination, contemporaries said.

Gibbs also was generous, perhaps to a fault. He took on many cases for little or no fee and, his daughter later remembered, “People would come with hard luck stories, and he would give them money.” Gibbs died penniless, and his grave originally was unmarked. Friends chipped in later to buy the small tombstone that now identifies his final resting place.

More information: State Journal-Register profile by Doug Pokorski, published Feb. 2, 1987

JANE PELLUM (1787-1867) Block 5, Lot 16 GPS 39.82656N, 89.65876W

Jane Pellum, believed to have been the first person buried in the historic “colored section” of Block 5, was the mother-in-law of Jameson Jenkins (above). A housekeeper and washerwoman, she lived with the Jenkins family in the block immediately south of the Abraham Lincoln home. She is known to have sometimes worked for the Lincolns.

Pellum also was the first Black member of Springfield’s First Methodist Church. In 1856, she was assigned the back seat on the north side of the church.

More information: Lincoln Home National Historic Site

HARRY TAYLOR (1861-1928) Block 24 GPS 39.82487N, 89.66106W

Harry Taylor was the first Black firefighter in Springfield, but became better known later as a police detective. Both jobs were patronage positions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Taylor benefited because he was a rarity at the time – an influential Black politician who was a Democrat.

Taylor was confirmed to the Fire Department in 1894 despite a letter of protest written by the city’s white firefighters. He kept the job under two Democratic mayors, but was discharged, along with all the other Democratic firefighters, when a Republican was elected in 1897.

Another Democratic mayor appointed Taylor to the police department in 1903. It was a job he would hold, with several interruptions as political fortunes changed, nearly until his death in 1928. Although Black officers were usually limited to arresting only Black suspects and frequently couldn’t even wear police uniforms, Taylor was credited with solving several notable crimes.

More information: SangamonLink.org

MORRIS WILLIAMS (1879-1936) Block 40 GPS 39.82498N, 89.66211W
Abraham Morris Williams (he was known by his middle name), was the first Black man admitted to the Sangamon County Bar. He was a native of Virginia and graduated from the Hampton Institute.

Williams moved to Springfield in 1901, working first as a cobbler. He studied at the Ambidexter Institute, a local industrial school for African-Americans, but then completed his legal studies at the University of Michigan. He was admitted to the Illinois bar on Oct. 2, 1907.

In addition to his law practice – Williams had white as well as Black clients – and involvement in many local African-American organizations, Williams was active in politics and real estate development. Among his realty projects was construction of the Brown Hotel, 11th and Adams streets, which served Black people when white-owned hotels would not.

More information: Directory of Sangamon County’s Colored Citizens (1926)