Tag: Maple Grove Cemetery

CEMETERY: Maple Grove (Jessamine Co, KY)

Cutters photographed at her parents’ headstone

Many family members are interred in the Nicholasville cemetery, now known as Maple Grove Cemetery. I have been visiting Maple Grove since the 1970s on special occasions, funerals and otherwise. When I was very young, I could see the cemetery from the porch of Cutters & Granddaddy’s home on Richmond Ave. They lived in this house when they moved to town from Sugar Creek Pike. My grandmother (shown above) could see her own parents’ headstone from that porch. There is something sweet about that to me.

My cousin and I sitting on the porch together of Richmond Avenue home. If the photographer panned right, there you would see Maple Grove.

Maple Grove Cemetery was formed in May 1849 near downtown Nicholasville. The first person to be buried there is named Brown. He had a role in the formation of the cemetery, as well, prior to his death. The original entrance to the cemetery was from Richmond Avenue, known then as Union Mill Road. Very close to that entrance is where my paternal grandmother, a widow, and my maternal grandparents lived as neighbors for a time when my parents met.

Present-day view from the Fayne headstone looking back at the homes on Richmond Avenue, Nicholasville, Jessamine Co, KY

I captured images as I walked around the 20+acre grounds on a recent visit to Nicholasville, KY. Most visits, we follow a memorized route from Main Street to Cutters’ & Granddaddy’s headstone. Near there, we can walk to a few other family sites. More recently, I found there are many more ancestors than I’ve ever known buried there, including Cooks, Cormans, Mathews, McQuerrys, and more.

The condition of Brown’s grave fascinates me with its partially destroyed cover stone, the bright flowers and modern marker which was dedicated in 2007 by the Jessamine County Historical Society. I learned the style of stone that covers the entire grave is a full ledger marker. I wonder: were there words on that stone at some point?

Our regular family trips to Nicholasville ceased when Cutters passed in 2014 but I like to stop by Maple Grove whenever I am in the area. With the intention of honoring every single body that now forever rest at Maple Grove – including my ancestors.

Each step on this journey reveals excitement in discoveries but always with a bittersweet tinge for what is lost by never being recorded. The more I learn, the more I realize there is much I can never learn. That is inherent in the work of genealogy.