Cave Hill Cemetery: final resting place of many Kentucky legends
Published: Apr 3, 2009
For 160 years, Cave Hill Cemetery has been the final resting place of Revolutionary War heroes, famous inventors, sculptors, Abraham Lincoln's friends, novelists, poets, merchants, bankers, judges, governors and mayors, as well as everyday Louisville residents. Weather permitting, visitors can come daily to the garden-like spot and stroll through the grounds to view the grave markers, monuments and plaques or simply enjoy the trees, grassy hills, ponds and lakes.
This 300-acre historic cemetery, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was chartered in 1848. The civil engineer tapped to plan out the cemetery, Edmund Francis Lee, was much taken with the then-modern idea of laying out cemeteries so that they would be peaceful garden spots. Today Lee's vision lives on, with many coming simply to enjoy the serenity. Groups of schoolchildren come to feed the lake's ducks and geese.
Regardless of where they lived, many of Louisville's great (and not so great) end up buried at Cave Hill Cemetery -- sooner or later. General George Rogers Clark, a Revolutionary War hero who founded Louisville, now rests here. Although he was buried at his sister's home, Locust Grove, when he died in 1818, Clark and his entire family were reburied at Cave Hill Cemetery in 1869. British-born businessman George Keats, brother of famed poet John Keats, was reburied here in 1879.
Abraham Lincoln's lifelong best friend, Joshua Speed, rests here, as do many members of his family. Among them is Speed's brother, James Speed, another friend of Lincoln, who served as the 16th president's attorney general and also rests here. Also buried here are Governors Thomas E. Bramlette and Augustus E. Willson, U.S. Senators Thurston Ballard Morton and Frederic M. Sackett, beloved Mayor Charles Farnsley and legendary editor Henry Watterson (whose name graces the Watterson Expressway, or Interstate 264).
Visitors can also see the grave of Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., grandson of the explorer Meriwether Lewis, founder of Churchill Downs and inventor of the Kentucky Derby.
The cemetery occasionally hosts three types of tours: historical tours; so-called "twilight driving tours," limited to one dozen people who rides on a tractor-driven hay wagon after dark; and two geological tours. Call for dates.
Group tours for schoolchildren are free; however, any other group tours -- with a 10-person minimum -- requires a $10 per person donation to Cave Hill’s Heritage Foundation. Tours last 90 minutes or less.
- by Ivonne Rovira, Louisville Reporter for HelloMetro
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