Frankfort Cemetery

The cemetery is the burial site of Daniel Boone, the famed frontiersman, and contains the graves of other famous Americans including seventeen Kentucky governors and a Vice President of the United States.

Frankfort Cemetery and Chapel
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Entrance to Frankfort Cemetery
Show map of Kentucky Show map of the United States
Location	Frankfort, Kentucky
Coordinates	38°11′52.2″N 84°52′01.8″W / 38.197833°N 84.867167°W / 38.197833; -84.867167
Built	1844
Architect	Carmichael, Robert; Launitz, Robert E.
Architectural style	Romanesque
Website	www.frankfortcemetery.org
NRHP reference No.	74000872
Added to NRHP	July 12, 1974

The cemetery is built on a bluff overlooking the Kentucky River with views of the Kentucky State Capitol, the Kentucky Governor's Mansion, downtown Frankfort, south Frankfort, and the Capitol District.

The cemetery was created by Judge Mason Brown, son of statesman John Brown, inspired by a visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston. Brown enlisted other Frankfort civic leaders and on February 27, 1844, the Kentucky General Assembly approved the cemetery's incorporation. The 32-acre (13 ha) property, then called Hunter's Garden, was purchased in 1845 for $3,801. Additional land was purchased in 1858 and in 1911 for a total of 100 acres (40 ha).

Brown hired Scottish-born landscape architect Robert Carmichael to design the cemetery. The cemetery is laid out in a style similar to Mount Auburn, with curving lanes, terraces and a circle of vaults. Carmichael imported and planted trees and flowering shrubs from the mountains of Kentucky, intending the cemetery to double as an arboretum in a time when residents could not easily travel to see mountain plants not native to the region. Carmichael is also buried in the cemetery.

There are numerous monuments and memoria in the cemetery. A central feature is the State Mound, featuring a Kentucky War Memorial designed by Robert E. Launitz and inscribed with the names of officers killed in numerous wars. During the American Civil War, Frankfort Cemetery was used for the final resting place of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Corporal, Lyman B. Hannaford of the 103rd Ohio Infantry notes in his letter dated April 2, 1863, "They are planting (as soldiers term it) a good many soldiers here—almost one per day. That is a good many for the number of troops here."

Kentucky Governors

Eighteen Kentucky governors are buried there:

Other notable people

Other notable people buried at Frankfort Cemetery include:

• Rufus B. Atwood, president of Kentucky State University
• Bland Ballard, soldier and statesman
• William T. Barry, member of the United States Senate and United States Postmaster General
• George M. Bibb, U.S. Senate and United States Secretary of the Treasury
• Daniel Boone, American pioneer
• Rebecca Boone, American pioneer and the wife of Daniel Boone
• John Brown, lawyer, statesman
• Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., U.S. Army general, World War II
• Johnson N. Camden Jr., U.S. Senator
• Henry Clay, Jr., soldier and statesman
• Henry Crist, Kentucky pioneer, member of the Kentucky General Assembly and the United States House of Representatives
• George Bibb Crittenden, Confederate Army general
• Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, Union Army general
• Anthony Crockett, Revolutionary War soldier and politician
• John Milton Elliott, judge, murdered
• Thomas Y. Fitzpatrick, U.S. Representative, County Judge, County Attorney
• Gilbert Genesta, magician, drowned
• Martin D. Hardin, politician
• Parker Watkins Hardin, politician, Attorney General of Kentucky 1879–1888
• Joel Tanner Hart, sculptor
• Elizabeth Ann Hulette, professional wrestling manager
• Enoch Edgar Hume, physician and former mayor of Frankfort, Kentucky
• Andrew J. James, lawyer and state representative, who served as Attorney General and as Secretary of State of Kentucky
• Willard Rouse Jillson, Kentucky historian, geologist
• Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President of the United States
• William Lindsay, U.S. Senate
• Humphrey Marshall, U.S. and Confederate States Congressman, Confederate Army general
• Thomas Francis Marshall, lawyer, politician, Kentucky House of Representatives
• John Calvin Mason, attorney, U.S. Representative
• Silas B. Mason, construction contractor who built the Grand Coulee Dam, racehorse owner/breeder who won the 1933 Preakness Stakes
• Samuel McKee, law, U.S. Representative
• Presley O'Bannon, U.S. Marine credited as first to raise the American flag over foreign soil in 1805 at the Battle of Derna.
• Theodore O'Hara, poet, newspaperman, soldier
• Lucy Phenton Pattie, 1842–1922, the only honorary initiated female member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity
• Thomas H. Paynter, U.S. Senate
• Paul Sawyier, Kentucky artist
• Solomon P. Sharp, Attorney General of Kentucky murdered in the Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy
• John Simpson, soldier, member of the Kentucky General Assembly, Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, and Congressman-elect
• Daniel Weisiger Swigert, 1883–1912, Thoroughbred racehorse breeder, owner of Elmendorf Farm
• Isham Talbot, U.S. Senate
• Landon Addison Thomas, businessman and member of the Kentucky General Assembly from Frankfort, Kentucky
• Thomas Todd, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
• South Trimble, Kentucky House of Representatives, U.S. Representative, Clerk of the United States House of Representatives
• Emily Harvie Thomas Tubman, businesswoman and philanthropist from Frankfort, Kentucky, was an early supporter of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
• John White, served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and in the U.S. House, where he served as Speaker of the House

• Gravestones and Memorials in Frankfort Cemetery
•  
  Pioneer explorer Daniel Boone & wife Rebecca Bryan.
•  
  Gov. Robert P. Letcher
•  
  Impressionist painter Paul Sawyier
•  
  Confederate Monument in Frankfort
•  
  One side of the Kentucky War Memorial
•  
  Names of some of the American dead (Raisin River Massacre, War of 1812, Kentucky War Memorial)
•  
  Chapel