Zachary Taylor National Cemetery: Peaceful Haven for Living, Dead

Lush and green most of the year, Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in eastern Jefferson County provides a quiet and beautiful resting place for the many veterans buried there with their families. More than 13,000 are buried at the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, which began interring U.S. veterans in 1926. 

Those visiting their loved ones will find the cemetery well tended and welcoming. However, anyone will find a stroll through the cemetery a soul-restoring sojourn with nature and a fine way to spend a warm Sunday afternoon.

The cemetery was originally the family plot for President Zachary Taylor and his family, a half-acre section of Taylor’s 400-acre estate, Springfield. Taylor, who died suddenly while in office in 1850, is buried here, as is his wife, who died two years after her husband.

After 40 years as a U.S. Army officer, Taylor had parlayed his status as a hero of the Mexican-American War — nicknamed “Old Rough and Ready” — into election as the 12th president of the United States. Also buried at the cemetery are Taylor’s parents. Springfield was given to Taylor’s father, Richard Taylor, as reward for his service as a colonel in the American Revolutionary War; however, by 1800, the Taylor family owned 10,000 acres in Kentucky.

In the 1920s, Taylor’s descendants requested that the family plot be turned into a national cemetery. The state of Kentucky added enough acreage to the original land to bring the cemetery to its current 16-acre size.

The cemetery was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1983. No altogether-new internments can be scheduled, but veterans or eligible family members can still be buried in existing gravesites.

You can see both President Taylor’s original tomb and the limestone mausoleum to which he was moved in 1926. Although Taylor was born in Virginia in 1784 while his parents were en route to Kentucky, he grew up near Louisville and is considered a native son. You can also see the 50-foot granite monument that the state of Kentucky erected in 1883 in memory of the popular president. A life-sized statue of Taylor stands atop the granite.

Each year on Nov. 24, the anniversary of Taylor's birth, soldiers from Fort Knox lay a wreath at Taylor’s mausoleum in his memory.

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