County of church: Cooper County
Location of church: My Moriah Rd & Bushyhead Rd., 3 miles NE of Clifton City
Church Built: 1859
Cemetery Created:1880
Church disbanded: 1974
Number of Graves: 125
Token Tombstone Text:
THOMAS A.
SIMMS
BORN
DEC. 14, 1824
DIED
FEB. 12, 1905
"This abandon church cemetery is located two miles northwest of Clifton City, Missouri by a county road. When I recorded this cemetery in 1983, it was in sad shape being over grown by weeds and brush. Death certifcates [sic] suggests that this is a black cemetery. At one time the Mt. Moriah Church was located here." ~ Find-A-Grave
[In fact it is an African-American cemetery...read about the church below]
"This is a very old cemetery. The land, for the church, school, parsonage, and cemetery was given by the family of Rev. William D. Simms, the grandfather of Mr. Eugene Simms of New Lebanon, Missouri.
"When this cemetery was first recorded [by MoGenWeb] in about 1980, there were the cemetery, and old Methodist Episcopal Church building and an the old school building all standing. There is a considerable plot of land here. There had been land reserved for a Lodge Building also, but it was never built. The old school building is now gone.
UPDATE: February 6, 2013 with 117 entries for this cemetery." ~ MoGenWeb
"Mt. Moriah is a simple, gable-end church. Although structurally intact, it is in generally poor
condition; clapboard has been removed, windows have been torn out and double front doors ripped
from their hinges. On the interior, a elevated stage remains on the western end. Wainscoting is intact
throughout the entire parameter and fragments of late nineteenth century murals, associated with a
men's fraternal lodge, the are evident.
"Around 1860 a small community of black farmers and farm laborers grew up in western Cooper
County, in the area north of Clifton City and west of New Lebanon. Said to have been built as early
as 1859, Mount Moriah AM.E. Church stood as the religious and social center of the community for
well over 100 years. Early families associated with Mt. Moriah and the community include: Sims,
Mayfield, and Bushyhead, who were former slaves from the area.
"The early history of Mt. Moriah Church is sketchy at best. Most local sources date the building to
1859, implying that a small community of free blacks was established in the area before
Emancipation. Certainly the materials and techniques used in the church's construction give some
credence to this assumption. The land was said to have been given to the AM.E. Convention by
William Sims to build a church and establish a cemetery. An original deed confirming this
arrangement could not be located. (There is currently a dispute over ownership; according to the
former members of the community, the property, now deeded to a local white landowner, still belongs
to the church. Mt. Moriah appears on the 1877 Cooper County Atlas on the northwest corner of the
Sims Property. Pastors at Mount Moriah include: Rantel, MacTassel, Clarkston, A.L. Davis, Porter,
Adams, Shasteen, Lowry, Strickland and Hodges.
"The original plaster walls have been partly stripped of numerous layers of wallpaper and now
reveal a series of intricate murals associated with a local African American Lodge. The designs are
executed exclusively in blue, a color long associated with African American spiritualism. A repeated
pattern (in two distinct variations) outlines the top of the wainscoting. The word "TRUTH" appears on
the north wall, opposite on the south wall is the word "GRACE." A scene depicting Adam and Eve in
the Garden of Eden was also painted on the north wall, but is no longer discernible. Flanking the
main entrance are decorative geometric designs.
"North of the church is the partially collapsed parsonage, a frame building constructed on half-log
sills on fieldstone piers. The small structure originally consisted of a small single pen with narrow
stairs leading to a sleeping loft above. South of the building is Mt. Moriah Cemetery. The oldest
remaining headstones date to the 1880s, but the oldest section of the yard is filled with unmarked
graves, highlighting the economic situation of the earliest members of the community.
"Oral tradition strongly suggests that school was held on this property for a number of years,
specifically in the parsonage and likely in the church itself. This would have been a very typical
arrangement; at one point or another in most rural African American communities in Missouri, classes
were held in the ever-important local church.
"Shortly after the turn of the century, a quarry began operations west of the community, along the
Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad tracks. The resulting job opportunities attracted new black families to
the community. The community apparently did not build a separate school until the early decades of
the twentieth century. Built across the road from the church, Oak Ridge School would serve the
community until its demise in the years just prior to desegregation. Lillie Blackstone was the teacher
through the 1930s and 1940s, during which time the average enrollment was twenty to twenty five
students. Blackstone is buried in the adjacent cemetery. The school house was razed in the 1970s;
only the concrete steps remain.
"Beginning in the 1940s, the community experienced a rapid decline, and the 1970s witnessed the
last services at Mt. Moriah. By that point the black community had dwindled to just a handful of
families.
"Mt. Moriah church is the last obvious material remnant of this once-thriving community.
Although in poor condition, Mt. Moriah is the oldest African American church still standing in Cooper County and undoubtedly, one of the oldest in the state. In recent years Mt. Moriah has
experienced vandalism and neglect; It is now in a state of deterioration. It has, however, retained a
good deal of its architecturtural [sic] integrity. It is one of the most endangered African American sites in
central Missouri." ~ Missouri Historic Property Inventory