The following link is to a video on Rev. Pastor John B. Meachum taken at the Bellefontaine Cemetery where John Meachum and his wife are buried. I also have a video on this blog about Rev. Meachum where I am reading from This Day in Baptist History for May 3.
This is from the same page as the above link.
‘Bellefontaine Cemetery and Arboretum is a key cultural institution in St. Louis, offering visitors a beautiful atmosphere for exploring history, art, architecture, and nature. We have a 3.7-mile newly painted white line to follow while in your car, on your bike, or on foot for your own self-guided tour. An interactive map is available on our website, or you can find a paper copy outside of our office doors highlighting 38 historic stops along the white line.
Stop 24 on the white line tour belongs to Reverend John Berry Meachum, founder and pastor of First African Baptist Church in St. Louis, the oldest continuously operating black church in Missouri. John and his wife Mary established a school for free and enslaved Black students in the basement of their church. Disguised as a Sunday school, the school became known as the “Candle Tallow School.” In 1847, the state of Missouri banned education for all Black people–free or enslaved–and the police forced the Meachums to shut down their school. John and Mary then moved their classes to a steamboat in the middle of the Mississippi River, which was beyond the reach of Missouri law. They provided the school with a library, desks, and chairs, and called it the “Freedom School.”
The Meachum’s used proceeds from John’s carpentry and barrel-making business to purchase freedom for twenty enslaved individuals. Their home on Fourth Street in St. Louis was a safe house on the Underground Railroad. John and Mary also helped slaves escape to Illinois, where slavery was outlawed. Their work involved considerable risk due to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a law that authorized the hunting and capture of escaped slaves and required that they be returned to their masters.’
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