First Mobile police chief properly memorialized

By Rob Herbst
The Catholic Week
The first chief of police for the Mobile City Police now has proper memorialization at Catholic Cemetery of Mobile.
Stephen Charpentier served three stints as chief of police beginning in 1858, but where he was buried had been a mystery. Mobile Police Department’s Capt. Billie Rowland, who also serves as the department’s historian, began a search for Chief Charpentier about two years ago. 
It turned out Charpentier, who died in 1895, was buried in an unmarked grave at Catholic Cemetery and Capt. Rowland aimed to change that. With assistance from Ascension Funeral Group and funding help from others, Chief Charpentier now has a proper slab that was unveiled in a ceremony on Feb. 21 at the cemetery.
“I didn’t think that was right,” Capt. Rowland said. “He was obviously a well-regarded individual and he definitely deserved to have some type of memorial.” 
Not only was Charpentier the first chief of police, but he was also in command of Charpentier’s Battery in the Civil War - which took him away from his police chief duties in 1861. He also served as chief from 1865-66 and 1873-74. The department can actually track its lineage to 1814, although the organization’s head would be referred to as town marshal or constable prior to 1858, Capt. Rowland said. 
Capt. Rowland said he had a death certificate and funeral notice for Charpentier, but no information regarding a burial. His search for Charpentier initially took him to Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, because he received information that Charpentier was buried there.
“I spent days walking in the sections that we were getting information he may be in and never could find it,” Capt. Rowland said. “There was the name Charpentier on a tombstone and it was one of his soldiers buried there.”
He then came across a Catholic Cemetery book from the 1950s and sure enough, Stephen Charpentier was in it – Section 30, Lot 7. 
“It was like wow there it is,” Capt. Rowland said. Records also matched what Tilmon Brown, director of Catholic Cemetery of Mobile, had.
Once Capt. Rowland had a location, he used ground penetrating radar and easily found Charpentier’s gravesite, along with his wife Sarah and one daughter, Sarah Ann.
“In our modern minds it’s shocking (he was marked in an unmarked grave), but the more I’m around all of these older officers … you have to think that back in 1895, we didn’t have pension programs that we have today. It cost money to bury and do that. Most likely it just came down to cost,” Capt. Rowland said.
He added, “We’ve had police officers killed in the line of duty and they were in unmarked graves. The cost just seemed to be prohibitive, but at least we were able to resolve this one.”
The Charpentier search is not completely over, however, as Capt. Rowland continues to look for more history.
“The holy grail for us is a picture. We just can’t seem to locate one,” he said. “But you would think that a captain in the Confederate Army with such a well-known artillery unit and a chief of police would have a photograph.”