No Destination: Paris Cemetery

Gateway to the Paris Cemetery. Paris, Ky.

Driving from Lexington to Paris, one cannot help but notice the magnificent Gothic Revival entrance to the Paris Cemetery. Established in 1847, the cemetery’s entrance was completed in 1862. The entrance was designed by architect John McMurtry (McMurtry also designed a gateway for the Lexington Cemetery pictured here but that was torn down in 1890).

Buried in the Paris Cemetery are several notables. Among them Associate Justice to the Supreme Court Robert Trimble (for whom Trimble County is named); CSA Gov. Richard Hawes (Kentucky’s Second Confederate Governor in a pseudo-state government); Sen. Garrett Davis (credited with keeping Kentucky from seceding); and John Fox, Jr. (author of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the first book in American literature to sell over one million copies).

The oldest headstone in the cemetery is that of Elisha Ford, who died in 1807. Upon the establishment of the Paris Cemetery, many smaller cemeteries in town were closed and the bodies exhumed and transferred to the new Paris Cemetery. [*]