Our Cities of the Dead

A Winchester Sun arti­cle from April 23, 1897, enti­tled “Our Cities of the Dead,” iden­ti­fied all the local ceme­ter­ies known at that time.  These six ceme­ter­ies, plus two not men­tioned in the arti­cle, are described below.

Winchester Cemetery.  The Sun arti­cle stat­ed that “the present ceme­tery is not more than forty or fifty years old and few per­sons know where our for­mer res­i­dents were buried.”  That last state­ment may still be accu­rate.  The Winchester Cemetery Company, estab­lished in 1854, pur­chased 12 acres of land on the Lexington-Winchester Turnpike from Samuel Hanson for $1,227.50.  The ceme­tery has been Winchester’s prin­ci­pal bur­ial ground now for 170 years.  It present­ly con­tains approx­i­mate­ly 55 acres, and the data­base of buri­als lists over 19,000 names.  The old sec­tions are sit­u­at­ed in a serene­ly beau­ti­ful set­ting and are well tend­ed.  Many indi­vid­u­als have been moved there from old coun­ty grave­yards, includ­ing John and Mary Strode, pio­neers of his­toric Strode’s Station.  Many oth­er nota­bles are buried in Winchester Cemetery.

Old Friendship Church.  “Numerous bod­ies await the res­ur­rec­tion in the yard of old Friendship church which stood near where the present ceme­tery stands.”  The orig­i­nal Winchester Cemetery deed stat­ed that the prop­er­ty began “near the gate lead­ing to Friendship meet­ing­house church.”  This con­gre­ga­tion began as the Strode Station Baptist Church.  In 1812 they pur­chased an acre of land from John Skinner and erect­ed a brick meet­ing­house which became Friendship Baptist Church.  The church was locat­ed adja­cent to the present chapel in the north­west end of Winchester Cemetery.  The bur­ial ground was beside the church.  Only three of the orig­i­nal mark­ers have survived.

Hickman Street School.  “The site of the present pub­lic school­house on Hickman street is an old grave­yard and was prob­a­bly one of the first, as Judge James Flanagan says he had a sis­ter buried there nine­ty years ago.  All ves­tiges of grave stones are gone and when the work­men were exca­vat­ing for the present build­ing, many bones were exhumed.”  This grave­yard was near the Hickman Street School which stood at the north­west cor­ner of Highland and Hickman.  This cor­ner may be deserv­ing of an his­toric mark­er:  Besides the ear­ly grave­yard and Hickman Street School, it is also the site of the Winchester Academy, a school autho­rized by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1798.

Timberlake Addition.  “Another old grave­yard, prob­a­bly con­tem­po­rary with this, is in the Timberlake addi­tion.  Here John Baker, the orig­i­nal own­er of the land on which the city is built, is buried.  These grounds were filled up with bod­ies and then desert­ed.”  In 1890 Mary and William Timberlake sold the Winchester Land and Investment Company 63 acres along Muddy Creek Turnpike.  The tract was enclosed, rough­ly speak­ing, by Hickman Street, Highland Street, a line run­ning a lit­tle south of French Avenue and the CSX Railroad.  Winchester Land and Investment turned this prop­er­ty into the South Park Addition.  Where the grave­yard was locat­ed in South Park is unknown.  That is espe­cial­ly unfor­tu­nate if John Baker, the founder of Winchester, was buried there.

East Broadway.  “A ceme­tery was opened up on what is now East Broadway near Jackson street.  A great num­ber are buried there includ­ing mem­bers of some of the most promi­nent fam­i­lies.”  The Winchester trustees paid John Bruner and William Ritchie $50 for this three-quar­ter-acre lot in November 1833.  At that time, the city urgent­ly need­ed a pub­lic bur­ial ground for cholera vic­tims.  Reportedly, 75 per­sons per­ished in the epi­dem­ic out of a pop­u­la­tion of 1,200.  Many of the cit­i­zens lit­er­al­ly head­ed for the hills dur­ing the out­break.  John Ward, a Winchester trustee and pro­pri­etor of Ward’s Tavern, was among the vic­tims, he and his wife hav­ing died on the same day.  The grave­yard con­tin­ued to be used until Winchester Cemetery opened.  Many of the more than two hun­dred graves were moved to the new ceme­tery.  Only two box tombs and an inscribed slab are vis­i­ble today.  This ceme­tery at the north­west cor­ner of Broadway and Park Avenue is main­tained today by Parks and Recreation.

Old Presbyterian Church.  “The old church yard where Dr. Miller now lives also con­tains many bod­ies.”  Dr. Miller’s house was at 245 S. Main, where the First Presbyterian Church stood in 1858 before mov­ing to a new build­ing.  The Presbyterians sold their old church to the Winchester Female Collegiate Institute.  Later own­ers includ­ed William M. Beckner, V. W. Bush, Dr. Washington Miller and the Goff fam­i­ly.  Historian Lucien Beckner was aware that the “old church yard” was a bur­ial ground.  In 1963 he wrote that Dr. Miller’s wid­ow “owned the old Presbyterian Church prop­er­ty.  Her front yard is near­ly filled with graves cov­ered over with grass.  The ear­li­est mem­bers of the Presbyterian Church are buried there.”

Three African American ceme­ter­ies at the edge of the city lim­its were not includ­ed in the Sun article.

Daniel Groves.  This 10-acre ceme­tery, estab­lished in 1887, lies on the east side of Muddy Creek Road just south of the CSX over­pass.  There were few buri­als after the 1960s and by the ’80s the grounds had become over­grown with trees, vines and weeds.  In 1999 the city pub­lic works depart­ment and the coun­ty road depart­ment under­took the cleanup, and today the ceme­tery has been restored to its for­mer dig­ni­ty.  Public Works still main­tains the grounds.  Many vet­er­ans of the Civil War and Spanish-American War, as well as both World Wars, are buried here.  In 2002, Matthew Williams tran­scribed each tomb­stone for an Eagle Scout ser­vice project (copy at the Clark County Public Library).

Reeves Memorial Park.  This aban­doned grave­yard lies on the east side of Old Muddy Creek Road, across the road from Daniel Groves Cemetery.  Established by Luther Reeves in 1939, bur­ial records list 288 names through 1956 (copy at the Clark County Public Library).  In 2016 Janice Martin dis­cov­ered this bad­ly over­grown bur­ial ground.  She enlist­ed her hus­band and a group of vol­un­teers from VFW Post 2728 and Right Angle Masonic Lodge 233 to clean up the grave­yard.  They have kept up their efforts to the present day but help will be need­ed in the future.

Colored Paupers Graveyard.  In 1879 the coun­ty pur­chased a 9‑acre tract at the north end of Reeves Cemetery for a place to bury col­ored pau­pers.  In 1939 the coun­ty sold the grave­yard to Luther Reeves.  Burials had ceased long before that time.  Sadly, most of the buri­als there are uniden­ti­fied.  (Records have been found of 84 buri­als from 1911 through 1928.)  The prop­er­ty has a pri­vate own­er who recent­ly cleared all the trees and veg­e­ta­tion off the ceme­tery, per­haps with a view of divid­ing it into build­ing lots.  However, use of this land is restrict­ed:  Under state law it is a felony to dis­turb a bur­ial ground.