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| At the Civil War plaque unveiling (above) are University President Lawrence Biondi, SJ, Bill Farrand with the Missouri Parks Service, and Hugh Johns, president of the Civil War Roundtable of St. Louis. Pictured at right is Ralph Kreight, a member of the Midwest Civil War Round Table. (Photos by Don Black) |
More than 135 years after Union soldiers set up an encampment where Saint Louis University's Frost campus now stands, the site is being commemorated by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
On Aug. 19, as part of the Civil War Marker program, the department's Division of State Parks marked the site of the Union encampment by dedicating a memorial plaque just north of Busch Memorial Center. University President Lawrence Biondi, SJ, gave a blessing at the ceremony.
In May 1861, Daniel Marsh Frost, brigadier general of the first military district of Missouri, commanded a state militia encampment on what is now Saint Louis University property. Frost was a close friend and benefactor of the Jesuit pioneer Peter J. DeSmet. Subsequently Frost's daughter, Harriet Frost Fordyce, became a generous benefactor to Saint Louis University, enabling the University to purchase land east of Grand Boulevard almost a century later. In gratitude, the University named the area the Frost campus in honor of Fordyce's father.
More detailed information on the encampment can be found on the marker itself.