Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky is one of America’s most beautiful cemeteries. From the moment you cross through the majestic Victorian entrance gates at Cave Hill Cemetery, you leave the world behind. No more honking horns, traffic jams, or flashy lights. It’s all peace and tranquility with leaves waving on the breeze and a chorus of chirping birds.
Cave Hill Cemetery spans 296 acres. Five lakes dot the peaceful rolling hills, all fed by underground springs. Beargrass Creek runs through the cemetery dividing the east (new) and west (old) sections.
Beargrass Creek flows from a spring that bubbles up near the cave for which the cemetery is named. The cave is an open cavern for about 30 feet (9.1 m) and then narrows to a crawl space. The cave is off-limits to visitors.
Cave Hill Cemetery is also well known as an arboretum with more than 500 species of trees.
Cave Hill Cemetery History
In 1848, Cave Hill Cemetery was established on what was previously William Johnston’s Cave Hill Farm, a rural property east of Louisville, Kentucky.
Johnston had built the first brick house in Louisville on the grounds about 1788. Ten years later, Johnston passed away.
In the 1830s, Louisville city officials purchased part of the land with hopes of mining the high-quality limestone out of the cave. The Louisville and Frankfort Railroad was expected to run through the grounds which would have made the limestone quarry very profitable. But then the railroad was built elsewhere, disrupting their plans.
Louisville city fathers then decided to convert the old brick farmhouse into a sanitarium for patients with contagious diseases, calling it the “City Pest House”. This is not an uncommon practice for its time. Hospitals in the early 1800s were not equipped to care for patients with smallpox, cholera, typhoid fever, or similar diseases. They were not curable.
Along with the sanitarium, came a large number of deaths so the next logical step was to turn the land into a cemetery.
Today, Cave Hill Cemetery is located on the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail.
Cave Hill Cemetery Landscape Design
The landscape at Cave Hill Cemetery was designed by civil engineer Edmund Francis Lee. He chose to have the premier burial sites on top of hills, accessible by winding roads. The low-lying land was reserved for ponds and groves of trees.
In the mid-1800s, death was seen as a natural transition to heaven. It was not something to be dreaded or feared. So Cave Hill Cemetery, with the sentiment in mind, was designed as a place for loved ones to rest in nature until their resurrection.
In 1979 Cave Hill Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Cemetery section of Cave Hill, containing military graves, was also added to the National Register, in 1998.
The military sections of Cave Hill Cemetery hold nearly 250 Confederate soldiers, including three generals. In 1880 – 1881, their original wooden markers were replaced with stone markers.
Cave Hill Cemetery Wildlife
The abundance of trees and water at Cave Hill Cemetery attracts all kinds of wildlife.
Petunia and Percy are a pair of Australian Black Swans that live in the cemetery’s main lake. Other birds include spotted sandpipers, Canadian geese, Cooper’s hawks, and wild turkeys.
Cave Hill Cemetery is also home to barn owls, great horn owls, and eastern screech owls.
Mammals at Cave Hill Cemetery include foxes, badgers, grey squirrels, hedgehogs, rabbits, otters, and bats.
Cave Hill Cemetery Notable Burials
Cave Hill Cemetery is a sought-after burial site for many reasons – the beautiful landscape, the historical significance, the wildlife and serenity, and for some just because Louisville is HOME.
Florence Satterwhite
Many consider the domed monument for Florence Satterwhite to be the most beautiful grave in Cave Hill Cemetery. When Florence Satterwhite died in 1927, her husband, Dr. Preston Satterwhite, chose a 26,343 square-foot site at Cave Hill and purchased it for $50,000.
Satterwhite then hired Philadelphia architect, Horace Trumbauer, to design a monument. Trumbauer based his design on the Classical Revival Temple of Love built for Marie Antoinette in the Petit Trianon Gardens at Versailles in Paris.
While Trumbauer worked on the marble columned dome, Dr. Satterwhite hired Wadley and Smythe, to enhance the landscape. They ordered four freight cars full of plants.
The gravesite was officially declared finished in 1928 and has delighted visitors from around the world for nearly a century.
Patty and Mildred Hill
Buried beneath much more humble gravestones are two sisters. You may not have even hear of Patty and Mildred Hill, but I bet you’ve sung their song. Patty and Mildred Hill wrote the song, “Happy Birthday”.
Patty and Mildred were the daughters of Reverend William Wallace Hill, a Presbyterian minister. Williams insisted that his daughters receive a full education, which was rare at that time.
If you or your children ever attended kindergarten, you likely have Patty Hill to thank for that. Patty was an educational reformer and promoted kindergarten. She served as the first president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and was also a professor at Columbia University.
Mildred was an internationally renown pianist. She was also a historian of music for the state of Kentucky. Mildred, who was white, loved the jazz and blues she heard black musician performing outside her studio.
“If a history of music in Kentucky were being written, a large portion should be devoted to the music of the Negro in our state,” Mildred recorded in an 1896 essay. “The old Negroes, who alone know this music, are fast dying out, and it is sad that some effort is not made to secure it before it is too late.”
Neither of the Hill sisters married or had children, but their legacy lives on through their burial site at Cave Hill Cemetery and through their “Happy Birthday” song as it is sung at birthday parties around the world.
Colonel Sanders
While you may not recognize this cemetery monument, many of you will likely recognize this familiar face:
Colonel Harland David Sanders (1890 – 1980) was an American entrepreneur and founder of the restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (also known as KFC).
It isn’t often that someone’s face is part of their company’s branding and logo. So it is fitting that his likeness is also on his grave, in the form of a sculpture.
Sanders started out selling chicken at a roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky. He made it with his “secret recipe” and his patented cooking method using a pressure fryer.
Sanders believed that franchising restaurants could be profitable, so in 1952 the first KFC franchise opened in South Salt Lake City, Utah. The company expanded rapidly across the US and by 1964, when Sanders was 73, he sold it for $2 million (equivalent to nearly $20 million today).
Click HERE to see Colonel Sander’s gravestone and additional information on BillionGraves’ website.
Muhammad Ali
Boxing champion Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in 2016, at the age of 74.
Ali was nicknamed “The Greatest”, as he was considered to be the best heavyweight boxer of all time and one of the most accomplished sports figures in the 20th century.
He began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. At age 18, he competed at the 1960 Summer Olympics and won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division. Later that year, he turned professional.
In 1964, he took the name of Muhammad Ali after converting to the Islamic religion. Ali was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky so it is appropriate that he should be buried at Cave Hill Cemetery.
He rests beneath a black granite monument with the epitaph, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in heaven.”
Click HERE to see Muhammad Ali’s gravestone and additional information on BillionGraves’ website.
Volunteer
BillionGraves needs volunteers to take photos of gravestones. Click HERE to learn how. If you photograph your local cemetery and I photograph mine, we’ll all be able to find our ancestors from wherever we are!
If you are planning a large group project, email us at Volunteer@BillionGraves.com and we will be happy to send you some additional resources.
Happy Cemetery Hopping!
Cathy Wallace
