BELTON CEMETERY - BACKGROUND & HISTORY


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This is an aerial map of the Belton Cemetery (thanks to Google Earth.) Ghost Vigil Investigations was invited to join an already scheduled investigation at the cemetery by another paranormal investigation group here in the Kansas City area. The cemetery is located at the intersection of South Scott Avenue and West 179th Street in Belton, Missouri.

The other paranormal investigation group reported to us that they had taken some photos with some odd anomalies in them in the oldest parts of the Belton Cemetery. They had also collected some interesting EVP's in this same location.


THE ORIGINS AND NAMING OF THE CITY OF BELTON

George W. Scott and William H. Colbern purchased about 80 acres of land on August 13, 1869 from Manzey Q. Ashby of Kentucky who had received it a month earlier from the U.S. Government. Scott and Colbern filed a plat for the 80 acres in December 1871, and called the new town Belton. Belton was incorporated in 1872. It was named for a close friend of Scott's, Capt. Marcus Lindsey Belt, who helped Scott survey the land. The two had served in the Civil War together. Belton and its surrounding lands were settled largely by families from Kentucky.

THE LESS-THAN-FAMOUS MAJORITY

Without having much information of a paranormal nature about the Belton Cemetery, we turned the focus of our historical research on those that are buried there. We found two politicians who are buried there...a famous writer...and an amazingly driven woman with a hachet!

  But before we get to the elected officials and the mildly famous, we need to acknowledge the hundreds of people who lived their lives beneath the notice of either historical research or internet searches. Those people mourned by only their family and their friends...some forgotten altogether over the long years. We're not familiar with the names we read upon their stones, but that does not make their lives any less rich...or complex...or valuable...or worthy of respect.

POLITICIANS RESTING ETERNAL

We found these two politicians were buried in the cemetery. We could not find photographs of either of these gentlemen for our website, unfortunately.

Temple Forrest (1891-1960) — of Belton, Cass County, Mo.; Harrisonville, Cass County, Mo. Born in Forest Green, Chariton County, Mo., August 16, 1891. Democrat. Served in the U.S. Army during World War I; automobile dealer; delegate to Democratic National Convention from Missouri, 1940; served in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II. Member, American Legion; Veterans of Foreign Wars; Freemasons; Order of the Eastern Star; Kiwanis. Died in 1960. Interment at Belton Cemetery.

William Allen Holloway (1897-1966) — also known as W. A. Holloway — of Harrisonville, Cass County, Mo. Born in 1897. Democrat. Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Missouri, 1944. Died in 1966. Interment at Belton Cemetery.


DALE CARNEGIE

Dale Carnegie was born into poverty on a farm in Missouri, but built a life for himself of success and recognition, in both the business world and writing self-improvement books. Besides "How to Win Friends and Influence People," he wrote many other books...including a biography of Abraham Lincoln titled "Lincoln the Unknown." Dale Carnegie called Belton his "hometown" and both he and his parents are buried in the Belton Cemetery.
 

For some 45 years, Dale Carnegie was a frequent visitor to Belton and called it his hometown. He was born a poor farmer's boy in Maryville, Missouri, on November 24, 1888. His parents, Elizabeth and J.W. Carnagey, bought a farm on the outskirts of Belton in 1910. The house still stands today on Carnegie Street just west of the railroad tracks. Mrs. Carnagey was a member of the Methodist Church and active in its Missionary Society. She organized Belton's first Sunday School class.

In his teens, though still having to get up at 4 a.m. every day to milk his parents' cows, he managed to get educated at the State Teacher's College in Warrensburg.

His first job after college was selling correspondence courses to ranchers, then he moved on to selling bacon, soap, and lard for Armour & Company. He was successful to the point of making his sales territory, southern Omaha, the national leader for the firm. Carnegie also served as a business manager for Lowell Thomas. He spent several years traveling in Europe, Africa and the Arctic.

  Carnegie started teaching public speaking, writing his own texts. He had a radio program and a syndicated column which appeared in 71 newspapers. His formulas for success were broadened to include all phases of human relations. His most famous book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," was published in 1936...and has sold over 15 million copies. It remains popular today...

Carnegie changed the spelling of his name because friends in the east constantly misspelled it and Carnegie said he wanted to spare them the embarrassment of repeated corrections.

Dale Carnegie married in 1940 and died on November 1, 1955. He and his parents are buried in the Belton Cemetery. The official word was that he died of Hodgkin's disease. In the dark of night we were unable to locate his grave.
 

  Dale Carnegie will always be known as an American writer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, and corporate training programs, public speaking and interpersonal skills. Carnegie was an early proponent of what is now called responsibility assumption. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's reaction to them.


CARRY AMELIA MOORE NATION

Carry Nation is most famous for spearheading the Temperance movement. She came from a troubled background: her mother was mentally ill and her husband was an alcoholic who drank himself to death. She remarried a lawyer named David Nation and soon after moving to Texas, she began having frequent visions. She then settled in Kansas and it was there that she organized the local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. In 1899, she declared war on liquor and went about smashing up saloons and liquor selling stores with a hatchet. She was arrested repeatedly for her actions and others in the organization soon distanced themselves from her.
 

Born in Kentucky in November 1846, she and her family moved to a farm east of Peculiar, Missouri in 1855. George Moore was an eccentric loud hollerin fellow. George's wife would ride around in a carriage with a purple robe and a crown of brass inset with pieces of colored glass. As the carriage traveled the country roads, it was led by a slave dressed in a red coat playing a trumpet. Mrs. Moore claimed she was Queen Victoria. This couple had one child. Her name was Carry Amelia Moore. She would later be known as Carry Nation.

The family history seems to have had its share of eccentric and insane people. Rumor says Carry's grandmother became "insane" and was confined to a room sometimes with handcuffs. Carry stated "my grandmother was an invalid and kept in her room."

  On the family's journey from Kentucky to Missouri, Carry became very sick and was known as a "delicate" child for many years after. She began to attend a Bible School run by the Campbellites. At one particular church service, Carry was overcome with emotion, began to cry and felt compelled to move and sit on the front bench. She believed she would end up in the "Bad Place" because she had "stolen" ribbons and laces from her Aunts to make dolls. This obsessive religious view would mold the rest of Carry's life.

The Moores moved to Texas for a few years during the Civil War, but returned to Missouri. On their way back after the war they crossed the Pea Ridge battlefield in Arkansas shortly after that battle. All the bedding and pillows they could spare were given to the wounded.

A young man named Dr. Charlie Gloyd arrived and though he called himself Doctor, he was not a physician or Dentist. They married in 1867 and moved in with Charlie's parents in Holden, MO.

However, Charlie drank so much he would routinely fall asleep. Carry stated "I learned drink causes much enmity between the sexes. Drinking men neglect their wives." Charlie was also a Freemason and would visit the lodge frequently - mainly to drink. Charlie's neglect of Carry due to his drinking and association with the Masons influenced the young woman.

A pregnant Carry left Dr. Gloyd and she returned home where she had a daughter. From the beginning it could be seen the daughter was "defective" (mental illness). Carry blamed the condition on Charlie Gloyd's drinking and Masonic "devil-worship" not on the family history of similar conditions. Dr. Gloyd died shortly after the birth.

The sad series of events in Carry's life continued to spiral. At Warrensburg, Missouri she met David Nation. He was a handsome man who ran a newspaper, was a Campbellite preacher and had several children of his own, but was 20 years her elder. The marriage was not a happy one due to differences in religious beliefs. That marriage ended in divorce in 1901.

After they separated, Carry moved all the children to another town where she opened a hotel. During this time, Carry's daughter became ill. She stated "her right cheek was much swollen and on examination we found eating sores inside her cheek. This kept up in spite of all the remedies and at last her whole right cheek fell out leaving the teeth bare." The child was taken to Philadelphia where "plastic surgery" repaired the damage. Carry returned to the hotel and her daughter - Charlien - remained with Gloyd's relatives.

In 1884, while attending a local Methodist service, Carry Nation had a seizure. She declared it a religious experience and the obsession grew. At the hotel she would try to heal sick travelers by supernatural means, charged Jews half-price because Jesus was a Jew and used charms to protect the hotel from fire. Together with her husband David, the family moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas.

Even though Kansas was technically "dry" there were places where liquor was served. This is where the Carry Nation of history begins...the Carry Nation known as a "Cyclone in Petticoats." She began to harass these establishments by entering the building, falling to her knees, sing hymns and pray at the top of her lungs. She would condemn each patron individually claiming there were neglecting their wife and children. In one embarrassing moment, she did the same to a bachelor. Gathering wives of many patrons, the group would keel on the sidewalk outside the "saloon", open their Bibles and pray for an end to the "Devil Rum".
 

It was legal in Kansas for stores to sell liquor for "medicinal" purposes, but this did not stop Carry Nation. In her first violent episode, the "Nation gang" of women entered a store where she grabbed a barrel of whiskey and began to roll it into the street. She was temporarily stopped by the marshal, but her women companions overtook the lawman. She rolled it into the street, called for an axe, but was handed a sledgehammer. Carry stated "I struck with all my might and the whiskey flew into the air. Then we poured it out and set it afire. I fell on my knees and thanked God for the victory."

The next town to feel the wrath was Kiowa, Kansas. Wrapping rocks and bricks in newspapers, she headed down the road. About half way, Carry had a "vision". "I saw perhaps a dozen or so creatures in the forms of men leaning toward the buggy as if against a rope which prevented them from coming nearer. Their faces were those of demons....". In Kiowa she grabbed her wrapped items, stormed a saloon and began to throw them at anything that would break. Inspired by her success, Carry visited two more saloons breaking everything in sight including the front windows. At one saloon and with one projectile left, she hurled the rock at a large mirror which did not break. She ran to the billiard table, grabbed a ball and screamed "Thank God" as the mirror smashed.

  The assault on Kiowa reached the newspapers as Carry declared the politicians were taking money from these saloon owners. In a libel suit, she was fined $200 and David Nation began to keep a tight hand on Carry. She slipped away to Wichita where she used a cane with a heavy metal bar on the end to attack the hotel barroom smashing everything she could. She paid particular attention to a painting of a nude woman over the bar.

Next to Enterprise, Kansas where she broke into a saloon and smashed all the bottles of beer. With a number of local supportive women, they paraded down the street toward another saloon. They encountered a group of women opposed to the idea and a battle began. Carry was knocked down and badly beaten with some of her hair being pulled out.

In Topeka, she would use her first hatchet. As she described the saloon incident "I ran behind the bar smashed the mirror and all the bottles behind it. I picked up the cash register and threw it down; then broke the faucets of the refrigerator, opened the door and cut the rubber tubes which conducted the beer. It began to fly all over the house."

All the publicity attracted offers from sideshows and traveling circuses. She obtained an agent from New York who sent her on a speaking tour throughout the country. The audience went to see the "hatchet woman" rather than absorb her speeches against liquor and crooked politicians. She toured the east coast, the middle west and finally England. While she would enter saloons and create havoc, Carry did little destructive persuading during this time.

Even those limited engagements were probably at the request of her manager to heighten her visibility.


As her life winded down, she retired to the backwoods of Arkansas. Her 10 year crusade was filled with fury and personal sacrifice. She was jailed at least 33 times, egged, stoned, beaten and on at least one occasion hit over the head with a chair. Carry Nation died on June 9, 1911 in Leavenworth, Kansas. She was brought to Belton for burial in the family plot next to her parents. Carry Nation is buried in the Belton Cemetery in Belton, MO. The inscription on her marker says "Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition - She Hath Done What She Could".
 

Information and some of the images on this page come from the following websites...please visit them if you get the chance: WOLA: Western Outlaw Lawman History Association, Outlaw Women, Kansas State Historical Society, Cass County Historical Society. City of Belton, Wikipedia, and The Political Graveyard.


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