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Grave of Frank E. Boardman, d. 1926 and Edith L. Boardman, d. 1959, Miner Cemetery, Middletown, Connecticut
Trinity Church's cemetery.
This is one of the longest continuously used houses of worship in all of America, as well as one of the oldest buildings in New York City. Located in Lower Manhattan, it was spared from damage when the nearby World Trade Center was destroyed on 11 September 2011.
Another (almost) monochromatic picture. It was taken near a church somewhere in Slovakia.
shot with Canon EOS 450D
edited with Darktable
Brompton Cemetery is one of London’s magnificent 7. Being centrally located it makes an amazing free attraction to visit in London. It’s not as rural as some of the other magnificent 7, having a more formal park feel. The most memorable part though is it has some of the most amazing statues, monuments and mausoleums, including the central circle packed with gravestones, creating a spectacular sight.
Evergreen Cemetery Alpena Michigan. Infrared Photograph taken with a SuperColor (590nm) converted Nikon D90. White balance in Nikon Capture NX2 and channel swap in Photoshop.
Medfield, MA
Another fine cemetery I want to return to when the snow is gone. Huge, easy to get lost in, and graves from the colonial days to the present. My kind of place.
A view of the Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Recoleta Cemetery's status as a tourist attraction is rivaled by few; some compare it to Père Lachaise in Paris. It was designed by Prospero Catelin of France, following a proposal by Bernardino Rivadavia, and opened in 1822 as a public cemetery for ordinary citizens. Now it hosts many former Presidents and, most famously, Eva Perón, in mausolea of marble, bronze and granite.
Una vista del increible Cementerio de la Recoleta, en Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Historia:
Los frailes de la orden de los recoletos descalzos llegaron a esta zona, entonces en las afueras de Buenos Aires, a principios del siglo XVIII. Construyeron en el lugar un convento y una iglesia, que colocaron bajo la advocación de la Virgen del Pilar (el templo, iglesia Nuestra Señora del Pilar, construida en 1732, aún existe y fue nombrada Monumento Histórico Nacional). Los lugareños terminaron denominando a la iglesia de los recoletos en simplemente la Recoleta, nombre que se extendió a toda la zona. Cuando la orden fue disuelta en 1822, el 17 de noviembre de ese año, la huerta del convento fue convertida en el primer cementerio público de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Los responsables de su creación fueron el entonces gobernador Martín Rodríguez (sus restos descansan en el Cementerio) y su ministro de Gobierno, Bernardino Rivadavia.
Sus dos primeros moradores fueron el niño negro liberto Juan Benito y la joven María Dolores Maciel.
Durante la década de 1870, como consecuencia de la epidemia de fiebre amarilla que asoló la ciudad, muchos porteños de clase alta abandonaron los barrios de San Telmo y Montserrat y se mudaron a la parte norte de la ciudad, a Recoleta. Al convertirse en barrio de clase alta, el cementerio se convirtió en el último reposo de las familias de mayor prestigio y poder de Buenos Aires.
Plot 67: Christina Redfearn – Widow
In
Loving Memory
of
CHRISTINA
Beloved wife of
Harry REDFEARN
died
10th December 1943
aged 73 years.
At Rest.
REDFEARN.—On December 30 (suddenly), at Green Lane Hospital, Christina, dearly beloved wife of Harry Redfearn, 12, Carrie Street, Sandringham; aged 73 years.
Life's race well run.
Life's work well done.
Life's crown well won.
Now comes peace.
Funeral will leave W. F. Tongue and Son's Chapel to-morrow (Saturday) at 9.30 a.m. for Waikumete Cemetery.
The Corning Tomb
ANN ELIZA CORNING
Born -1813
New York, USA
Died: Sep. 1, 1893
Saginaw, Michigan, USA
(Loving wife of Timothy whom she married about 1831. Devoted mother of Gurdon and Louise C.(Bartlett). Dear daughter of Robert Dickerson.
Cause of Death: Paralysis)
GURDON CORNING
Born: May 31, 1832
Webster, New York, USA
Died: April 28, 1909
Saginaw, Michigan, USA
(Loving husband of 1st wife, Ida(Grout)whom he married May 15, 1867. Ida passed away January 17, 1869. Gurdon then married Lucy(Westren)on August 23, 1870. From this marriage Ida J.(Oxtoby)was born. Dear son of Timothy and Ann(Dickerson)Corning. Brother of Louisa(Bartlett). In his young days, Gurdon was a lumberman. Later a banker.
Cause of Death: Heart Disease)
LUCY CORNING
Born: December 28, 1842
Rives Junction, Michigan, USA
Died: December 22, 1920
San Anselmo, California, USA
(Loving wife of Gurdon whom she married August 23, 1870. Devoted mother of Ida(Oxtoby). Dear daughter of Jane(Bender)Westren. Lucy was one of the founders of the Y.W.C.A.
Cause of Death: Old Age)
TIMOTHY CORNING
Born:1803
Vermont, USA
Died: January 13, 1874
Saginaw, Michigan, USA
(Loving husband of Ann E.(Dickerson). Father of Gurdon and Louise(Bartlett).
Moved to East Saginaw in 1864 -pioneer/businessman.
Resided at 1446 South Washington Avenue. Was the forner director ot the First National Bank of Saginaw City.
Cause of Death: Heart Disease)
IDA JANE CORNING OXTOBY
Ida Jane Corning Oxtoby
Born: August 7, 1872
Saginaw, Michigan, USA
Died: September 7, 1962
San Rafael, California, USA
(Loving wife of Rev. William Henry Oxtoby. Devoted mother of Gurdon C., Florence C. and John C. Dear daughter of Gurdon and Lucy(Westren)Corning.)
Brady Hill Cemetery
Saginaw, Michigan
Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, United States
Prospect Cemetery, the early graveyard of the small town of Jamaica, is one of the few remaining Colonial cemeteries in Queens. In the early 1600s, this site was part of the land belonging to the local tribe of Indians known as the "Yemecah", meaning beaver, an animal which thrived in the area. In 1656, a group of English colonists petitioned the Dutch Governor-General, Peter Stuyvesant, to grant them a settlement which was near today's John F. Kennedy Airport.
Apparently, this site was not satisfactory, and later in the same year, the colonists moved northward, and described themselves: "We owners by purchase from the Indians and grant from the Governor and Council — living at ye new plantation near unto beaver pond, commonly called Jamaica -- ... have reserved unto ourselves 10 acres of planting land a man ...." The Dutch called this area "Rustdorp", but after the surrender of the colony to the British, "Jamaica" was used exclusively.
In its first year of existence, the settlement elected Daniel Denton, a member of a family which was to remain in the area for generations, as clerk of both the town and church, illustrating the interrelationship between church and government in this early period. It was not until thirty years later, in 1686, however, that Jamaica was granted its charter as a village by British Governor, Thomas Dongan.
The earliest record of the cemetery dates from November, 1668, when townsman John Wascot was hired to enclose the "burring plas", then ten rods square, with a fence, five rails high.
The cemetery was established, therefore., shortly before 1668, since it is doubtful that the town would allow such hallowed ground to stand unprotected for very long. Several references were made to the "burring place" during the 17th century, when citing other locations in the town.
The cemetery was generally known as the Presbyterian burial ground, since it was associated with the Old Stone Church built in the 1690s, which stood near today's Union Hall Street. Due, however, to the close interaction of church and state -- the church served also as the town hall -- the cemetery was as well the property of the Town of Jamaica.
The Presbyterian congregation in Jamaica came to blows with the Episcopalians in 1704, when the property belonging to the Church was confiscated and turned over to a representative of the Church of England, William Urquhart, an Episcopalian minister. Urquhart occupied the parsonage for five years, until he died in 1709.
Shortly afterwards his wife surrendered the property to Reverend George McNish, a Presbyterian minister. However, simultaneously, another Episcopalian preacher arrived in Jamaica, who thought he should occupy the parsonage. Ultimately, the decision, aided by. the authority of the Presbyterian sheriff, was made by the town, and Reverend McNish moved into the parsonage.
In 1753, the intimate relationship between church and town came to an end when it was voted at a town meeting to grant the land set apart for the use of "a minister of Presbyterian denomination" to the Presbyterian Church and congregation, for them "to have and to hold ... forever in trust". The cemetery, however, was not specified as part of this transfer.
As late as 1879, the Town of Jamaica still retained title to the original burying ground, but it may be possible that the Presbyterian Church used the cemetery, while not actually owning it. When the Presbyterian Church applied to Governor William Tryon for incorporation in 1775, "a cemetery for the interment of their Dead" was mentioned, but whether this was the town burial ground, or another separate graveyard, is not known.
During the Revolutionary War, the men of Jamaica, many of whom were buried in the cemetery, played a prominent role.
This area, was essentially a Loyalist stronghold, but a militant minority formed a local Committee of Correspondence and Observation to popularize patriot sentiment. The Committee chairman, Elias Baylis, died in 1777 and was buried in the cemetery. The tombstone erected over his grave after 1843 tells of his long suffering at the hands of the British during the war. Captain J.J. Skidmore, also buried here, formed a band of Minutemen, made up of local soldiers, which later became part of Colonel Lasher's First New York Battalion. This group held Cobble Stone Hill Fort during the Battle of Long Island.
The early graveyard was entered from an extension of Beaver Road, on the north side of today's Prospect Cemetery. Gradually, in the first half of the 19th century, its size was increased as various individuals purchased the land surrounding the cemetery and laid it out in family plots. Although it had been a common practice to bury one's relatives in their family farm property, when the farm was sold, often the family remains were removed.
One such instance occurred in 1840, when Garret Nostrand sold his family farm at the Wallabout and purchased a lot in the Jamaica graveyard in order to bury the boxes containing the remains of his ancestors. Such private lots as these extended the boundaries of the cemetery at Its western and its northern ends.
Still another reason for the purchase of cemetery lots was the incentive for profit. One of the largest lot holders was Isaac Simonson, a local carpenter, whose house stood on a large tract of land to the south of the original burying ground. In 1841, Simonson purchased some land to the west of the cemetery and subdivided it into lots for sale. He advertised these burial plots as "adjoining the old Presbyterian Burial ground", and today this section forms the western extension of the cemetery.
Three acres were added to the cemetery in 1856, when Nicholas Ludlum, a wealthy New York City hardware merchant whose family had long resided in Jamaica, purchased the land between the east side of the "old burying ground" and Prospect Street (today's 159th Street) from the Long Island Railroad Company.
The addition encompassed "about 10 lots", most of which Ludlum sold. According to an article in the Long Island Farmer of 1856, Ludlum planned to improve and beautify the cemetery grounds. In the next year, 1857, Ludlum, at his own expense, had a small chapel erected, as a memorial to his three daughters, each of whom had died at an early age.
Ludlum's first daughter, Cornelia Maria, died at the age of thirteen, while the next, Mary Cecelia, lived only to the age of one, and his third, Mary, who had married Lewis Cass, Jr., the U.S. Minister in Rome, died at the age of twenty one. Called the Chapel of the Sisters, the building was to be used for family interment.
Small in scale, this Romanesque Revival style chapel is of random ashlar fieldstone with decorative light brown-colored sandstone trim. The gable-roofed structure, originally crowned with handsome iron cresting, has gabled porticoes at both its 159th Street entrance and its cemetery side. Since the chapel was used for burials, the funeral party no doubt entered the chapel at the 159th Street entrance, and after the services made its way to the grave site through the cemetery doorway.
A large round arch, completely enframed with alternating voussoirs of fieldstone and sandstone, leads to the deeply recessed arched doorway at the 159th Street entrance. Above the door, a stone tympanum, encircled by an inscription, is ornamented with the religious symbols of the Bible and a cross, as well as a scythe, representing death. This portico, like that at the cemetery side, is embellished with sandstone quoins and also a row of corbels which follows the rake of the gable.
On the cemetery side, the large round-arched door, now filled in, is flanked on either side by small, narrow arched windows with sandstone trim. At the north and south ends of the chapel, large stained-glass rose windows elegantly pierce the heavy fieldstone walls. The chapel was a handsome addition to the cemetery, and it remains today one of its principal points of interest. This three-acre Ludlum extension greatly changed the configuration of the older graveyard, since the cemetery was now entered from the east at Prospect Street (159th Street), with the more recent grave sites near the chapel.
The cemetery, consisting of a number of different sections added over a 200-year period, was taken over by a single group in 1879, when the Prospect Cemetery Association of Jamaica Village, Inc., was formed. This is the first record of the name "Prospect" for the cemetery. Before the Prospect Cemetery Association acquired the property, the cemetery was still owned by the Town of Jamaica. Eventually, the Association, which still exists today, received title to all of the cemetery grounds.
Very little has chanced in Prospect Cemetery since the end of the 19th century, save for the addition of new graves, narked frequently by tall obelisks, which contrast vividly with the earlier, smaller gravestones. During the summer of 1976, selected family grave sites were cleared of debris and brush as part of a Bicentennial Project, sponsored by Community Planning Board 12 in Queens.
Prospect Cemetery is a valuable reminder of much of the early history of Queens, and especially of Jamaica. The earliest section of the cemetery begins approximately at the site of the Raynor family plot and extends to the west, to join Isaac Simonson's 1841 addition.
This original portion is also much narrower than the present graveyard and totals an area of 165 square feet. Many of the old tombstones are of brownstone with various types of ornamentation. It is believed that the earliest gravestone in the old part of the cemetery dates from 1709.
Another old tombstone is that of Thomas Wiggens, who died in 1728, His brownstone grave marker is carved in a very simple manner with his name and the date of death. The 1737 tombstone of Thomas Walton is more richly carved. Its three-arched top is ornamented with an angel's head of a primitive design, and a decorative curvilinear motif extending along either side. The angel head was a common theme on gravestones and occurs quite often in the cemetery.
The brownstone grave marker of Obadiah Mills, who died at the age of twenty six on September 17, 1773, also displays an angel with wings. In some instances, skulls replaced the angel's head. Many of these early grave markers, also ornamented with curvilinear designs, are' of limestone.
A number of Revolutionary War veterans, many of whom served with Skidmore's Minutemen, are buried in the cemetery. These include several members of the earlier generation of the Ludlum family who were part of the Minutemen band. Increase Carpenter (1733/6-1807), who fought in the Battle of Long Island, is also buried here.
One of the most renowned figures in the cemetery is Egbert Benson (1746-1833), who in 1794 served as Justice of the Supreme Court and in 1801 was Chief Justice of the U.S. Circuit Court, which was abolished soon after. Benson then retired to Jamaica, where he died.
Behind this old section of the cemetery, extend the lots sold by Isaac Simonson. Since these date from a later period, a few obelisks characteristic of the later 19th century, may be seen there.
It was common for Negroes to be excluded from white cemeteries, and such was the case with Prospect. One exception, however, was made and is recorded as: "Jane Lyons, a colored woman, who upwards of 65 years was a faithful and devoted domestic in the family of James Hariman, Sr., of this village, died December 19, 1858, Age 75 years."
Many names of the important early families of the area appear throughout the cemetery, and these include Sutphin, after whom Sutphin Boulevard was named, and Van Wickes, for whom the Van Wyck Expressway was named. Relatives of many of the original settlers of the Village of Jamaica continued to be buried in the cemetery at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
These graves are marked by ornate tombstones and tall granite obelisks. A descendant of one of the early local families, John H. Brinkerhoff (d.1903), the village supervisor, and his wife Laura (d. 1891), have a richly decorated tombstone, topped with a small ornamental sarcophagus, incised with the letter "B".
The very early origins of the cemetery, together with its 19th century additions, make it an important part of the history of Jamaica. Its early Colonial period is marked by the picturesque tombstones of many members of the town's prominent families, as well as several veterans of the Revolutionary War.
The Simonson and Ludlum additions border, in part, the old graveyard and are occupied by many 19th-century obelisks. The fine Romanesque Revival Chapel of the Sisters is a particularly handsome feature of the cemetery and is a monument to an important local family, the Ludlums. The cemetery remains today in a well-preserved state, due primarily to the care and interest of the Prospect Cemetery Association.
- From the 1977 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Sandstone, marble and granite headstones, along woth some rough bush rocks which have been used to indicate unmarked graves in St Thomas's Anglican cemetery in Bevendale. Taken in 2018.
Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery is located in Saint Petersburg, on the Avenue of the Unvanquished, dedicated mostly to the victims of the Siege of Leningrad.
Wikipedia:
The memorial complex designed by Alexander Vasiliev and Yevgeniy Levinson was opened on May 9, 1960. About 420,000 civilians and 50,000 soldiers of the Leningrad Front were buried in 186 mass graves. Near the entrance an eternal flame is located. A marble plate affirms that from September 4, 1941 to January 22, 1944 107,158 air bombs were dropped on the city, 148,478 shells were fired, 16,744 men died, 33,782 were wounded and 641,803 died of starvation.
The center of the architectural composition is the bronze monument symbolizing the Mother Motherland, by sculptors V.V. Isaeva and R.К. Taurit.
By granite steps leading down from the Eternal Flame visitors enter the main 480-meter path which leads to the majestic Motherland monument. The words of poet Olga Berggolts are carved on a granite wall located behind this monument:
Here lie Leningraders
Here are citydwellers - men, women, and children
And next to them, Red Army soldiers.
They defended you, Leningrad,
The cradle of the Revolution
With all their lives.
We cannot list their noble names here,
There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite.
But know this, those who regard these stones:
No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.
Taken in River Bend Cemetery, Westerly RI
Stanton Clark , son of Weeden and Amelia Clark was born Dec. 27, 1820 on the Clark homestead in Westerly, RI and died Dec. 12, 1916 at 96 years old.
He was very engaged in the granite business and operated a quarry in the town.
He first married Antoinette Sweet in Waterford, CT in 1848. After her death he married Annie Williams of Plainfield N.J.
Hong Kong Cemetery (Chinese: 香港墳場; pinyin: Xiānggǎng Fénchǎng), formerly Hong Kong (Happy Valley) Cemetery and before that Hong Kong Colonial Cemetery, is one of the early Christian cemeteries in Hong Kong dating to its colonial era beginning in 1845. It is located beside the racecourse at Happy Valley, along with the Jewish Cemetery, Hindu Cemetery, Parsee Cemetery, St. Michael's Catholic Cemetery and the Muslim Cemetery. Hong Kong Cemetery contains 79 scattered Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 62 from the Second World War, which are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The Protestant Cemetery is built as a series of terraces ascending a hillside. The older graves tend to be at the bottom of the hill; those from the 1930s and 1940s are generally at the top.
On a number of occasions, remains in the Protestant Cemetery have been disinterred to make way for road developments, and have been placed in niches in an ossuary, which continues to be used for contemporary cremations. The niches provide basic information on each individual.
The cemetery is a popular place for filming movies and TV shows. The UK folk artist Johnny Flynn released a song in 2008 about the cemetery, found on the album A Larum.
Captain Ferdinand Gravert, born at Glueckstadt, Germany in 1847, became a shareholder in the cemetery in 1887.
TYPES OF GRAVES
Some sections of the Protestant Cemetery tended to be reserved for particular groups of deceased, e.g., army, navy, Hong Kong Police. There are two main categories of graves that can be found in Hong Kong Cemetery:
MILITARY GRAVES
As the name states, this category of graves for British military dead, spanned from the late 19th century until the early 1960s (when the Government of Hong Kong established another cemetery near Sai Wan for military dead in 1965). At the beginning of the colonial era, the British garrison force had the same problem as those in India: weather. Some of the members of the force could not adapt to the tropical weather of Hong Kong and died owing to tropical disease, while others fell during the Boxer Rebellion – mainly in 1900. At the time being, it is the major cemetery for military dead along with Stanley Military Cemetery
There are about 100 military graves of World War I – 79 of them are in Hong Kong Cemetery, mainly the soldiers who died in Hong Kong and Kowloon Military Hospital, which received the sick and wounded from the German-leased territory of Tsingtao, on the Shandong peninsula in north-east China. Evidence shows that most of them are naval personnel.
Before the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, Britain had sent two battalions from the Royal Scots and Middlesex Regiments to Hong Kong for garrison duty. This cemetery provides evidence of the presence of these two battalions. There are in all 62 military graves of World War II Commonwealth service personnel – mainly from the year 1941 – maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
The British force in Hong Kong used the cemetery as their burial ground until 1965. One notable military burial is Driver Joseph Hughes, a recipient of the George Cross.
There are also two monuments erected by the Royal Artillery in memory of their fallen comrades, which were later moved to the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence.
CIVILIAN GRAVES
The civilian burials in the cemetery are diverse and exemplify the social structure at the early stage of the colonial era. It is widely understood that the cemetery is for the burial of the privileged group of the society, mostly British. Notable people of that era buried in the cemetery include Sir Robert Ho Tung and his first wife, Sir Paul Chater and Sir Kai Ho. Most Christian missionaries to Hong Kong are also buried here, a notable example being Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff, a German Missionary who helped to establish Lutheran churches in Hong Kong, who is considered the first Lutheran missionary to China. Another notable missionary interred here is Henrietta Hall Shuck, the first American female missionary to China.
There are also a number of Chinese burials, all of them Christians, some of them were involved in the 1912 Xinhai Revolution, including Quai Wan Yeung, who was assassinated by the Qing Government in Hong Kong.
A number of Japanese were buried in the cemetery, mostly those who resided in Hong Kong during the early colonial era. Some of them were Christian, but most were followers of Shinto. The Japanese custom of burning incense during memorial rites led to complaints from some Westerners. As a result, a special Japanese section of the graveyard was designated.
BURIALS
Notable burials at Hong Kong Cemetery include:
Henry Fletcher Hance (1827-1886)
Wong Tape (1875–1967), merchant in Dunedin, New Zealand and member of the Urban Council, Hong Kong[3]
Samuel Cornell Plant (1866 - 1921), first to command a merchant steamer plying on the Upper Yangtze River, First Senior River Inspector for Upper Yangtze
WIKIPEDIA
nrhp # 85000065- The cemetery was first established in 1867 with the first soldier being Daniel H. Lee in the month of March. Seventy-Five of the soldiers were reburied at the Custer National Cemetery. The rest, except the seven that were still remaining, were shipped home to their families at the cost of $13.50. Today the graves are difficult to distinguish because a row of the Indian children's graves passed over the circle of graves in the middle of the military section. Many of the deaths in the war didn't occur because of the war but because of various accidents.
Fort Shaw began existence as Camp Reynolds, an Army post built by the 13th US Infantry on the Sun River about 24 miles west of Great Falls in 1867. Shortly after completion, the name was changed to Fort Shaw in honor of Colonel Robert Shaw of Civil War fame. To the east were the Plains Indians and the great buffalo range. To the south and west were Montana's mining camps and earliest settlements. To the north was Blackfeet country. The site is on the old Mullan Road, a route which saw lots of emigrant settlers and fortune-hunting miners passing through and getting raided by Blackfeet Indians. The Mullan Road (which stretched from Fort Benton, Montana and Fort Walla Walla Washington) was also traveled by stagecoaches and freight companies going between Fort Benton (head of navigation on the Missouri River) and the Last Chance Gulch placer mines near Helena.
It was from Fort Shaw that General Gibbon rode out with the Seventh Infantry one fateful day in 1876, ordered to join up with General Perry and General George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry at the Yellowstone River. Troops from Fort Shaw also took part in the "Battle of the Big Hole" against the Nez Perce in 1877.
In the 1880's, Fort Shaw was known for its social scene, and as the site of Montana's first professional stage performance. The Army abandoned the site in 1890 but the buildings later served as an Indian school. When the Great Northern Railway built a spur line between Vaughn and Augusta, the settlement's fortunes were revived.
from sangres.com
I think it's good hunting in the cemetery, particularly in this spot as there is a hedge off to the left, and more foliage to the right.
Cave Hill Cemetery is a 296-acre (1.20 km2) Victorian era National Cemetery and arboretum located at 701 Baxter Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. 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 in 1979. Cave Hill National Cemetery, containing military graves, is also on the National Register, added in 1998.
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 garden-style cemetery on the grounds, a popular concept at the time. Hartford, Connecticut civil engineer 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 [this cemetery] should 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. 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, 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 grounds were expanded and remapped in 1888 to their modern size of nearly 300 acres (1.2 km2). 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.
The signature Baxter Avenue entrance, called the Broadway Entrance by the cemetery, was completed in 1892. The Corinthian-style building includes a 2,000-pound (910 kg) bell in its clock tower. 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.[7] The cave can be entered for about 30 feet (9.1 m), 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). It is well known as an arboretum.
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 military war officer and founder of Louisville George Rogers Clark (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.
Muhammad Ali, boxing champion born in Louisville, was interred on June 10, 2016. Also interned is the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel Harland Sanders.
ANNEX, Block G, Lot 008
Col. Farr was a Civil War veteran and financier. His wife Mary was the first osteopathic physician in Pierre. Together they built their mansion with plans to eventually turn it into a sanitarium, though that never happened.
Col. Farr was later appointed head of the State Soldiers Home in Hot Springs, SD. The mansion was rented to Governor Peter Norbeck.