Paris Cemetery - Main Street

The imposing gatehouse entrance to the Paris Cemetery is located at 1603 South Main St. and was built in the 1840s. Designed by architect John McMurty, the Gothic Revival structure features unusual cast iron pinnacles on the gatehouse's four towers. The cemetery was established in 1847, but some families moved family members to the cemetery from private family plots, so the earliest stone marks the 1807 death of Elisha Ford.

There are several interesting gravesites in the cemetery, which is open to the public from sunrise to sunset. These include the artist palette-shaped tombstone of Hattie Hutchcraft Hill (1847-1921) in section K. Hill was a prolific artist who exhibited her works around the world and who painted several portraits of Bourbon County judge-executives which are now hanging in the Bourbon County courthouse.

An artist of another kind is buried in Section R - John Fox, Jr., was a well-known author during the early 1900s. He wrote several novels including: The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, said to be the first piece of fiction to sell more than 1,000,000 copies and the Trail of the Lonesome Pines.

Then there are the graves of Nimrod Long Lindsay and his wife Lavinia Grimes Lindsay in Section I. According to the information on the tombstones, Lindsay was a state representative during the 1800s. He rode his horse home from Frankfort in a cold rain, caught pneumonia and died. His distraught wife went to bed, turned her face to the wall, and ten days later joined him in death, leaving behind seven children.

Other sites to visit in the cemetery include the Confederate War Memorial, a stacked stone monument in Section N which is the tallest structure in the cemetery. Also the grave of Brig. Gen. John T. Croxton, a Bourbon County native who rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Union Army. After the war, he was appointed ambassador to Bolivia, where he died in 1874. Through the efforts of his wife, his body was returned to Paris for burial in Section L.