ton J. Payne, President, and William K. Bernard, 
Secretary and Treasurer, who are now the chosen 
officers of said corporation, shall hold their offices 
until the first general election, and until their suc- 
cessors are duly elected, and as such officers, are 
empowered to do and perform all the acts and things 
imposed on them by this act, and all vacancies 
that may occur in said board shall be tilled in such 
manner as the board may determine in their by-laws. 
“4. The President shall, at the request of any 
two of the corporators, call together a meeting of 
the board, shall preside at all meetings, and do 
all other acts and things imposed on him by the 
rules and regulations of said corporation. 
“5. All deeds for the conveyance of lota or sub- 
divisions, or certificates of shares of stock in said 
cemetery, shall be signed by the President of said 
corporation, and attested by the Secretary, with 
the seal of the corporation attached, and the further 
certificate of the. Secretary that the President exe- 
cuted the same shall be deemed a sufficient authen- 
tication of said deed in all courts and places what- 
soever, and may be recorded with like effect of 
other recorded deeds. 
‘•6. It shall be lawful for said corporation to 
hold any grant or bequest of money or property, in 
trust, and to apply the same, or the income thereof, 
under the direction of said board, for the improve- 
ment of said cemetery, or any portion thereof, or 
in the erection of any tomb or monument, accord- 
ing to the terms of any such grant or bequest. 
“7. Any person who shall willfully destroy, in- 
jure or remove any tomb or monument, or any 
grave-stone placed in said cemetery, or shall will- 
fully remove, destroy, cut, break or injure any fence 
around, or railing, fence tree, shrub or plant with- 
in the limits of said cemetery, or shall willfully ride 
or drive any beast at an immoderate gait, or shall 
ride or drive over any lot or grave, or shall turn 
loose any animal in said cemetery, or shall shoot or 
discharge any gun or other fire-arms within the said 
limits, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, 
and upon conviction thereof before any justice of 
the peace, or court having jurisdiction of misde- 
meanors in the County of Jackson, shall be fined 
not less than five or more than fifty dollars, and 
such offenders shall also be liable to an action of 
trespass, before a justice of the peace or court of 
competent jurisdiction, in the name of the corpor- 
ation, to recover all damages occasioned by such 
unlawful act or acts, and all money recovered 
either for a misdemeanor or for trespass, shall be 
appropriated in the reparation of the property in- 
jured or destroyed, and in the embellishment and 
improvement of the grounds, and in all such suits 
members of the corporation shall be competent 
witnesses. 
“8. Any person who shall wilfully open any vault 
or grave within the limits of said cemetery, for the 
purpose of unlawfully taking therefrom anything 
placed with the corpse therein, or who shall remove 
any body from said cemetery, for the purpose of dis- 
section or any other unlawful purpose, or who shall 
knowingly receive any such body after the removal, 
and also all aiders and abettors, shall be deemed 
guilty of a felony, and upon conviction shall be 
punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not 
less than one nor exceeding three years. 
“9. Said cemetery shall be exempt from all taxes 
and assessments so long as the same shall remain 
dedicated to the purposes of a cemetery, and it 
shall not be lawful for any public road, street or 
highway to be ever opened through the cemetery 
grounds, without the consent of the corporators, nor 
shall the Legislature ever authorize the same. 
“10. For the purpose of better effecting the ob- 
jects contemplated by the seventh and eighth sec- 
tions of this act, the said corporators shall have 
power to appoint a bailiff, whose appointment shall 
be confirmed by the County Court of Jackson County; 
said bailiff shall be authorized, in a summary manner 
and without process, to arrest and take before any 
officer or tribunal having cognizance of the offenses 
mentioned in said sections, any person or persons 
whos shall have perpetrated, or be in the act of 
perpetrating, or be about to perpetrate any of the 
acts or offenses intended to be prohibited by said 
sections, to be dealt with according to law, and for 
that purpose may summon peremptorily, any per- 
son to his assistance. 
“11. This act Is hereby declared a public act, 
and shall take effect from and! after its passage.” 
The ordinance complained of, is as follows: 
“An ordinance prohibiting burials within certain 
limits of Kansas City, Missouri, and prohibiting the 
Board of Health from Issuing any permits for 
burials within such limits.- 
“Be it ordained bv the Common Council of Kansas 
City; 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
“Section 1. There shall be no burials or inter- 
ments of any deceased person in Kansas Cit,y, Mis- 
souri, within the territory of boundaries included 
within the following limits: 
“ ‘Beginning at the intersection of Thirty-ninth 
street and Woodland avenue; thence west to the 
State Line, thence north to the Missouri river, 
thence east along said river to Woodland avenue, 
thence south to Thirty-ninth street.’ ” 
“Section 2. No sexton or any other persons in 
charge of any cemetery or burying ground within 
such limits shall receive the body of any deceased 
person for burial within such limits nor shall the 
Board of Health issue a permit for the burial of 
any body in any cemetery or burial ground within 
such limits. 
“Section 3. All ordinances, or parts of ordinances, 
in conflict with this ordinance, are, insofar as they 
so conflict, hereby repealed.” 
The property and grounds of the cemetery, at the 
date of its incorporation, were located beyond the 
limits of Kansas City, but at the time of the pass- 
age of the ordinance in question, the limits of the 
city had been so extended that they embraced all 
of said property. 
No complaint has been lodged against the 
sufficiency of the pleadings (except in ref- 
erence to certain rights claimed by certain 
of the lot owners in the cemetery, which 
will be considered later) and for that rea- 
son we will, for the present, put the plead- 
ings aside, with the observation that they 
sufficiently tender the various issues pre- 
sented and discussed by the parties to the 
suit. 
The evidence for the plaintiffs tended to 
prove that the cemetery embraces forty- 
nine acres of land, situated within the 
present limits of Kansas City. Forty acres 
thereof were purchased May 19, some six 
months prior to the incorporation of said 
cemetery, which subsequently was duly con- 
veyed to that company. 
On April 15, 1858, the cemetery, by its 
president, signed, acknowledged and filed 
with the clerk of the Circuit Court of said 
county a plat of said forty acres, entitled 
“Union Cemetery for the Cities of Kansas 
City of Westport,” which plat, heretofore 
set forth, shows that only about one-half 
thereof was laid off into lots and sub- 
divisions suitable for burial purposes at 
that time. 
The fifteen acres, more or less, herein- 
after mentioned as unoccupied and unlaid- 
off land, fronting on Main street, is a part 
of said original forty acres. 
Shortly after the incorporation of the 
cemetery it purchased two other small 
pieces of ground aggregating about nine 
acres, making its present holdings about 
forty-nine acres. 
Said land is bounded as follows: On the 
north by Twenty-seventh street, on the 
south by Twenty-ninth street, on the east 
by — — , and on the west by Main 
street. 
That on the date of the institution of this 
suit about fifty thousand burials had been 
made in said cemetery, and in the five 
years preceding the trial there had been 
about five thousand interments made there- 
in, or about eighty-five per month. 
In the year 1910, 60 per cent of the bur- 
ials outside of the potter’s field were made 
in ground newly purchased from the coun- 
ty for that purpose. 
37 
That many of the old settlers of Kansas 
City and Jackson County are buried there- 
in, among them General George C. Bing- 
ham, William Gillis, Judge Samuel H. 
Woodson, the family of Colonel R. T. Van 
Horn, and many others, also about one 
thousand United States soldiers, most all 
of whose graves are marked by a monu- 
ment or a marble headstone, some of which 
are very expensive. 
Judging from the evidence introduced, 
and somewhat from my personal knowl- 
edge of the values of lands in that locality, 
and the expenses of burials, I would say 
that the present value of the lands of said 
cemetery is about $500,000, and were it not 
for the presence of said cemetery the value 
thereof would, in all probability, be at 
least three times that amount ; that the 
cost on the interments therein, including 
everything necessary thereto, is about five 
millions of dollars, and that the cost of 
the monuments and headstones is not much 
less than one-half of the latter sum — all 
included equal an outlay of probably seven 
or eight millions of dollars. (This is a 
rough estimate.) 
The Union Cemetery is the only one em- 
braced within the limits of the ordinance 
complained of, but there are, however, 
three other cemeteries within the corporate 
limits of Kansas City, namely, Elmwood, 
Mount St. Mary’s and St. Peter’s and St. 
Paul’s. 
Woodland avenue is the eastern boun- 
dary of the territory described in the or- 
dinance complained of, and the cemetery of 
St. Peter and St. Paul lies only five hun- 
dred and twenty feet east of that line. 
Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery contains 
forty acres and has buried therein ten 
thousand bodies, with a monthly interment 
of about fifty. Elmwood contains about 
forty-four acres, and has buried therein 
twelve thousand, with a monthly interment 
of about forty-five, and St. Peter and St. 
Paul’s contains about ten acres and has 
about two thousand burials and a monthly 
interment of only five or six. 
The three latter cemeteries were opened 
up for burials in the order stated, namely, 
in the years 1887, 1872 and 1877. 
That the comparative density of the pop- 
ulation of the territory to these cemeteries 
was shown. 
“In a strip of ground 600 feet wide con- 
tiguous to the exterior boundaries of 
these cemeteries the number of buildings 
with the length of the exterior boundary 
of each cemetery are as follows : 
“Union Cemetery : 300 buildings ; length 
of exterior boundary of cemetery, 5,560 
feet: 5.3 buildings to each 100 feet of 
boundary; the buildings are practically all 
residences. 
“Elmwood Cemetery: 231 buildings; 
length of exterior boundary of cemetery, 
5,400 feet ; 4.3 buildings to each 100 feet 
of boundary: 80 per cent of the buildings 
are residences. 
