Cave Hill Cemetery is a

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

National Cemetery The following is a partial list of prominent National Cemeteries: Africa Algeria * El Alia Cemetery, Algiers Burundi * Mausolée des Martyrs de la Démocratie, Bujumbura Ghana * Asomdwee Park, Accra * Burma Camp Military Cemetery, Accra L ...

and

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

located at

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. 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 United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

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

History

Cave Hill was chartered in 1848 on what was William Johnston's Cave Hill Farm, then 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, a popular concept at the time.

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

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 ...

Edmund Francis Lee was hired, who planned a cemetery with winding paths, graves across the tops of hills, and lakes and ponds in the valleys. 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 A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. They were typically built one to five ...

as a green oasis and recreation destination, and Louisville was no exception. This largely ended 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 or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same 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 ...

, 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 A pest house, plague house, pesthouse or fever shed was a type of building used for persons afflicted with communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox or typhus. Often used for forcible quarantine, many towns and cities had o ...

, 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 Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century Revivalism (architecture), architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival ...

. The grounds were expanded and remapped in 1888 to their modern size of nearly . In the 1980s,

razor wire Barbed tape or razor wire is a mesh of metal strips with sharp edges whose purpose is to prevent passage by humans. The term "razor wire", through long usage, has generally been used to describe barbed tape products. Razor wire is much sharper th ...

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 Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

-style building includes a bell in its

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which 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 buildi ...

. 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 Christian Friedrich August Bloedner was a German-born carpenter from Cincinnati, who served with the 32nd Regiment Indiana Infantry during the American Civil War. He built the 32nd Indiana Monument. Biography August Bloedner was born around 18 ...

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 ''Carya glabra'', the pignut hickory, is a common, but not abundant species of hickory in the oak-hickory forest association in the Eastern United States and Canada. Other common names are pignut, sweet pignut, coast pignut hickory, smoothbark ...

'') 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 a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

military war officer and founder of Louisville

George Rogers Clark George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American surveyor, soldier, and militia officer from Virginia who became the highest-ranking American patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Ame ...

(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 Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

, 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 The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...

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 The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in the First World War. The Heavy Branch of the MGC was the first to use tank ...

, 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 his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

, Mary Ann Xantippe "Tip" Saunders, was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in 1922.

Patty Hill Patty Smith Hill (March 27, 1868 – May 25, 1946)Snyder, Agnes. ''Dauntless Women in Childhood Education, 1856–1931.'' 1972. Washington, D.C.: Association for Childhood Education International. p. 233-270. was an American composer and teacher w ...

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 activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...

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

Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, with 2 ...

Colonel Harland Sanders Colonel Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 December 16, 1980) was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restaurant chain KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken (also known as KFC) and later acting as the company's brand ...

; and

Mia Zapata Mia Katherine Zapata (August 25, 1965 – July 7, 1993) was an American musician who was the lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits. After gaining praise in the emerging grunge scene, Zapata was murdered in 1993 while on her way home fr ...

, lead singer of punk band

The Gits The Gits were an American punk rock band formed in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1986. As part of the burgeoning Seattle music scene of the early 1990s, they were known for their fiery live performances. Members included singer Mia Zapata, guitari ...

Paul Hornung Paul Vernon Hornung (December 23, 1935 – November 13, 2020), nicknamed "the Golden Boy", was an American professional football player who was a Hall of Fame running back for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) from 195 ...

Heisman trophy The Heisman Memorial Trophy (usually known colloquially as the Heisman Trophy or The Heisman) is awarded annually to the most outstanding player in college football. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, and hard ...

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 club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the thi ...

, 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 Danville, Kentucky native, Theodore O'Hara to honor his fellow soldiers from Kentucky who died in the Mexican-American War. The poem’s popularity increased after the Civil War, and its verses have been ...

" 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

Cemetery website

Map of the Cemetery

Photos of selected graves with GPS coordinates

* * * {{Authority control Arboreta in Kentucky Botanical gardens in Kentucky Cemeteries in Kentucky Cemeteries on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky History of Louisville, Kentucky Louisville, Kentucky, in the American Civil War National Register of Historic Places in Louisville, Kentucky Tourist attractions in Louisville, Kentucky Protected areas of Jefferson County, Kentucky Buildings and structures in Louisville, Kentucky 1848 establishments in Kentucky Rural cemeteries United States national cemeteries