Cave Hill Cemetery is a

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

National Cemetery and

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

located at

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

. Its main entrance is on Baxter Avenue and there is a secondary one on Grinstead Drive. It is the largest cemetery by area and number of burials in Louisville. Cave Hill was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1979. Cave Hill National Cemetery, containing military graves, is also on the National Register, added in 1998.

History

Chartered in 1848, Cave Hill was logged for construction on what was William Johnston's Cave Hill Farm, a rural property some distance east of Louisville. Johnston, who died in 1798, had built the first brick house in Louisville on the grounds circa 1788. City officials had purchased part of the land in the 1830s in anticipation of building a railroad through it and a workhouse was built there. The railroad was built elsewhere, and the land was leased to local farmers. In 1846, Mayor Frederick A. Kaye began investigating the possibility of developing a rural or garden-style cemetery on the grounds. While rural cemeteries were an extremely popular style at the time, utilizing natural topography to build an "untouched, rural" environment, Cave Hill was not initially laid out to be a rural cemetery. It was when

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

Edmund Francis Lee was hired that the plan changed: Lee saw the "undulating hills, promontories, and basins as perfectly suited for landscaping the rural aesthetic." The Cave Hill Cemetery Co. was chartered in February 1848, and the cemetery was dedicated on July 25, 1848. Reverend Doctor Edward Porter Humphrey delivered the dedicatory address and elaborated on the idea of the garden cemetery, noting, among other things, that ". . .Reason and taste suggest that his cemeteryshould be decorated appropriately by the beautiful productions of our great Creator. . ." Before the era of large municipal parks, it was common for cities to promote a garden cemetery as a green oasis and recreation destination, and Louisville was no exception. Leading up to Cave Hill's formal dedication on July 25, 1848, the ''Louisville Daily Courier'' promoted this idea with multiple articles singing the praises of rural cemeteries. Wrote the ''Courier'', "ladies and gentlemen of the city, visit these grounds on the day of consecration, and see the beauties of the place." This movement simmered with the opening of nearby Cherokee Park in 1892. After administrators sold several acres of land for the burial of Union soldiers during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, local Confederate supporters purchased nearby land as well. Several deceased patients from the Brown General Hospital and other nearby army medical facilities were interred in Cave Hill Cemetery. Johnston's farmhouse (in what is now sections 33 and 34) was converted to the city's pesthouse, and was demolished in 1872. Also in 1872, Beechhurst Sanitarium was built near the pesthouse and the modern Grinstead entrance. Beechurst was torn down in 1936. The entrance lodge and main gates were designed by Louisville architect William H. Reddin in 1880 in the style of Italian Renaissance Revival. The grounds were expanded and remapped in 1888 to their modern size of nearly . In the 1980s, razor wire was added to the brick walls surrounding Cave Hill to keep out after-hours visitors. The first scenic overlook for the cemetery, Twin Lakes Scenic Overlook, opened on August 20, 2008.

Buildings and grounds

The signature Baxter Avenue entrance, called the Broadway Entrance by the cemetery, was completed in 1892. The Corinthian-style building includes a bell in its

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure that house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building ...

. The tower, once the tallest structure for miles, was frequently hit by lightning and last renovated in 2001. The Grinstead Drive entrance was built in 1913. The third public entrance on the residential street of Dearing Court was closed as of 2007. Another public entrance, also no longer in use, was built off Payne Street in 1910, closest to the military sections. There are several service entrances around the perimeter. Other buildings include the stone office building near the lake, and the Rustic Shelter House built in 1892 at a cost of $565. The cemetery contains monuments and graves of three Union generals. The 32nd Indiana Monument, also known as the " August Bloedner Monument", is separately on the National Register. The middle fork of Beargrass Creek runs through Cave Hill, and a source stream flowing into the creek roughly divides the cemetery in new (eastern) and old (western) sections. That stream flows from a spring near the cave that gave the property its name. The cave can be entered for about , and then there is a marginal amount of crawl space beyond that, however the cave is officially off limits. There are also five man-made lakes. The cemetery currently features more than 500 species of trees and shrubs, including some two dozen current state champion trees, including both native species such as pignut hickory ('' Carya glabra'') and exotics such as Caucasian wingnut (''

Pterocarya fraxinifolia ''Pterocarya fraxinifolia'' is a species of tree in the Juglandaceae family. It is commonly known as the Caucasian wingnut or Caucasian walnut. It is native to the Caucasian region Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Ukraine and Turk ...

''). It is well known as an arboretum. GRC Gravesite 2

Interments

There were about 120,000 people interred by 2002, with space remaining for 22,000 more graves. Notable among those interred in the cemetery is

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

military war officer and founder of Louisville

George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American military officer and surveyor from Virginia who became the highest-ranking Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot military officer on the American frontier, nort ...

(1752–1818). More than 200 Confederate soldiers are buried in Section "O" of the cemetery, with 30–40 buried in a row near the National Cemetery. The original wooden markers in Section "O" were replaced with stone markers in 1880–1881. A number of markers are marked as unknown. Included in the Section "O" burials is a Confederate Brigadier General, Alpheus Baker. There are two other Confederate generals buried in other locations in the cemetery. In the addition to Section "O" (lot 267½) are a number of residents of the Kentucky Confederate Home, who died around the start of the 20th century. The confederate flag flies over the area. Within another U.S. Soldiers plot in Section E is one British war grave, of a soldier of the Machine Gun Corps, a member of the British Military Mission to the United States, who died in 1918. Portrait painter and cousin of

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

, Mary Ann Xantippe "Tip" Saunders, was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in 1922. Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill (sisters), composers of the Happy Birthday song, are interred here.

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and social activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "The Greatest", he is often regarded as the gr ...

, boxing champion born in Louisville, was interred on June 10, 2016. Also interred are the founder of

Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC Corporation, doing business as KFC (an abbreviation of Kentucky Fried Chicken), is an American fast food restaurant chain specializing in fried chicken and chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, it is the world's s ...

, Colonel Harland Sanders; and Mia Zapata, lead singer of punk band The Gits. Paul Hornung,

Heisman Trophy The Heisman Memorial Trophy ( ; also known simply as the Heisman) is awarded annually since 1935 to the top player in college football. It is considered the most prestigious award in the sport and is presented by the Heisman Trophy Trust followin ...

winner and

Green Bay Packer The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. They are the third ...

, was interred in 2020.

Gallery

Cave Hill National Cemetery 2.jpg, Union Monument in Louisville Cave Hill National Cemetery 3.jpg, Plaque quoting the poem "

Bivouac of the Dead "Bivouac of the Dead" is a poem written by Theodore O'Hara, a native of Danville, Kentucky, to honor his fellow soldiers from Kentucky who died in the Mexican-American War. The poem's popularity increased after the American Civil War, Civil War, a ...

" GRC Gravesite.jpg,

gravestone GRC Gravesite 2.jpg, George Rogers Clark gravesite GRC Gravesite M1.jpg, George Rogers Clark marker 32nd Indiana Monument Louisville.jpg, The 32nd Indiana Monument

Documents

CaveHill1.jpg CaveHill2.jpg CaveHill3.jpg

References

External links

*
Map of the Cemetery

* * * {{Authority control Arboreta in Kentucky Botanical gardens in Kentucky Cemeteries established in the 1840s Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Louisville, Kentucky, in the American Civil War National Register of Historic Places in Louisville, Kentucky Cemeteries in Louisville, Kentucky 1848 establishments in Kentucky Rural cemeteries United States national cemeteries Victorian architecture in Kentucky