Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery: Kirksville History, Records and Visiting the Grounds

Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery is both an active City-maintained cemetery and one of Kirksville's most useful historical records.

The City says graves on the site date to 1845 and its records contain more than 3,600 burials.

Many graves are unmarked, which makes the City's record system especially important.

Start with the City's alphabetical record

The City organizes Forest-Llewellyn records in two steps.

First, search the alphabetical list for the person you are researching.

That entry identifies the cemetery section.

Then open the record for that section to see the information the City holds for the grave.

The City also provides an abbreviation guide because the burial records contain shortened terms that are not always obvious to a modern reader.

This is a better starting point than assuming a user-contributed genealogy entry is the official cemetery record.

Use the cemetery map after you have the section

Once the section is known, the City's cemetery map helps turn the record into a physical location.

The City also publishes a separate guide to prominent people buried in Forest-Llewellyn.

The cemetery includes people connected to several major parts of Kirksville history, including civic development, the Civil War and osteopathic medicine.

The cemetery contains multiple Civil War stories

Forest-Llewellyn is associated with the Battle of Kirksville, fought August 6, 1862.

The State Historical Society of Missouri catalogs photographs of markers for 26 Confederate soldiers killed in the battle.

Local tourism material also identifies a mass-grave memorial associated with Confederate prisoners executed after the battle.

Those should not automatically be treated as the same group.

Battle deaths, prisoner executions and later memorialization are different historical questions.

For the battle itself, see The Battle of Kirksville: A Guide to the Local Sites and Surviving History.

A.T. Still and osteopathic history are here too

A.T. Still's family gravesite is in Forest-Llewellyn near the ATSU campus.

ATSU also identifies several other osteopathic pioneers buried there, including George A. Still, Charles E. Still Sr. and Arthur G. Hildreth.

That makes the cemetery a direct physical link between Kirksville's civic history and the history of osteopathic medicine.

Check current cemetery rules before a visit or decoration

The City links its current Forest-Llewellyn rules and regulations from the cemetery page.

Because cemetery policies can change, use the current City policy before placing decorations or planning anything beyond an ordinary respectful visit.

The current cemetery page does not give a simple universal visitor-hours statement. If access timing matters for a trip, confirm it with City Hall.

Preservation is still active work

The City created the Friends of Forest-Llewellyn Cemetery Committee in 2013 to support restoration and preservation.

It also operates an Adopt-a-Lot program for community members interested in light maintenance and stewardship.

That work matters because many graves have no surviving stone.

Forest-Llewellyn is not a perfectly preserved historical display.

It is an old cemetery whose physical evidence and written records have to be used together.