170 CAVE JOHNSON HOUSE Kid” was just another flash-in-the-pan rider. Cauthen ended the losing streak on a horse named Father Duff y. Soon thereafter, it was announced that Cauthen had accepted from Robert Sangster, the British soccer and horseracing maven, a $l million offer to ride in England. Cauthen commenced his high-profile 14-year riding career in England (1979– 1992) by winning his first ride on April 7, 1979. He soon demonstrated that he was up to the many new challenges English racing posed and worked hard to succeed. Cauthen went on to become leading English Jockey three times (1984, 1985, and 1987) and the only jockey to win all five major derbies (the Kentucky, 1978; the Epsom, 1985; the Irish, 1989; the French, 1989; and the Italian, 1991). He is remembered internationally as a gentleman sportsman who captured the imagination of the race fans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Cauthen married Amy Rothfuss from Bellevue, Ky., in 1992 and retired after the 1992 racing season. In August 1994 he was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame at Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He does public-relations work at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., and lives with his wife and three daughters on their farm Dreamfields at Verona, where he breeds thoroughbreds that he sells or races. He also operates a horse training and boarding facility nearby. Axthelm, Pete. The Kid. New York: Bantam Books, 1978. Cauthen, Steve. Video interview by James C. Claypool, August 7, 1994. Northern Kentucky Univ. Archives, Highland Heights, Ky.
James C. Claypool
CAVE JOHNSON HOUSE. The imposing main block of Boone Co.’s northernmost home, the Cave Johnson House, was built in about 1797 by Cave Johnson soon after his arrival in Boone Co. Johnson settled in North Bend Bottoms and became involved in county public affairs. In 1798 he was appointed the first Boone Co. clerk. In 1811 he was named colonel of the militia and justice of the peace. Later, he also served as sheriff. The Cave Johnson House, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, incorporates a monumental portico and veranda overlooking the Ohio River. The house is arguably the oldest brick building in the county and is also one of the county’s finest examples of Federal period architecture. The Federal style is apparent in the building’s Flemish bond brickwork and jack arch openings. The brick slave quarters, dating from about 1800, still stand on the property. It is a story and a half, four-bay building with a standing-seam roof; it was converted to a garage in the 20th century. Originally fronting on the Ohio River, the house was remodeled in the mid-19th century to create a formal entrance facing River Rd. The tree-lined drive was developed in the early 20th century. Johnson’s friend William Henry Harrison lived on the opposite shore of the river in North Bend, Ohio, and the two men frequently crossed the river to visit. BCPL. “Local History and Genealogy.” www.bcpl .org/lhg/.
Boone Co. Historic Preservation Review Board. Historic Structures of Boone County, Kentucky. Burlington, Ky.: Boone Co. Historic Preservation Review Board, 2002. “Survey of Historic Sites in Boone County,” 1979, Kentucky Heritage Commission, Frankfort, Kentucky.
Gail Chastang
CEDAR GROVE COLLEGE. Cedar Grove College was located in Gratz, in western Owen Co. It was an academy and is generally considered to have been the first graded school in the county. Cedar Gove College appears to have operated during the last 30 years of the 19th century. Land for the school was donated by Knox Brown, with a stipulation that if the property was not used as a school for any period of five years, its ownership would revert to the Brown family. Such an agreement clearly demonstrates how risky private education ventures were at that time. Eventually the property did return to the Brown family, and Cedar Grove College has become only a vague memory in the history of education in Owen Co. Among Cedar Grove’s former students was Judge James W. Cammack Sr., the Kentucky state attorney general from 1928 to 1932. Houchens, Mariam Sidebottom. History of Owen County: “Sweet Owen.” Louisville, Ky.: Standard, 1976.
CEDAR HILL. Community life in Cedar Hill, Owen Co., has centered on the Cedar Hill Baptist Church, which dates back to 1876. Cedar Hill is three miles south of Owenton along the east side of U.S. 127. One of the early one-room schools of the county, the Kenny School, was located there on Old Monterey Rd. James M. Clark built the largest home in the area at the close of the Civil War, not far from the church. Several African American families living close by are descendants of the slaves who worked the farms around Cedar Hill. An Atlas of Owen County, Kentucky. Philadelphia: Lake, 1883. Houchens, Mariam Sidebottom. History of Owen County: “Sweet Owen.” Louisville, Ky.: Standard, 1976.
CEMETERIES, RURAL. Early cemeteries in Northern Kentucky, as elsewhere in the United States, were developed by local churches, communities, or individual families or groups of neighbors. Commercial public and privately owned, and often not-for-profit, cemeteries became more common during the late 19th century. In the 20th century, privately owned for-profit cemeteries and cemeteries owned or operated (or both) by churches were the two major types in the Northern Kentucky region. However, the hundreds of rural cemeteries documented in Northern Kentucky belong to one of three categories: small church cemeteries, family cemeteries, and customary cemeteries. When the first settlers arrived in Northern Kentucky during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they had few choices regarding where to bury their deceased loved ones. Few churchyards existed, and no community cemeteries had been
established. Most families set up small graveyards on their property. They informally set aside a plot of land but seldom went on to plat the site legally or describe the cemetery in a deed. These became family cemeteries. Children, cousins, in-laws, and other descendants were commonly buried together either chronologically in rows or grouped by relationships. In some cases, the space was shared with neighbors and these became customary cemeteries. If the families involved were slave owners, their slaves were often buried in one section of the small graveyard. Customary cemeteries are burying grounds used by more than one family. They may be located along a road, near a property boundary, or between two properties. They often began as family cemeteries but expanded through generosity and local custom. Generally, neighbors shared the use and care of the cemetery although the land was owned by one family. These cemeteries are rarely platted or otherwise legally set aside as cemeteries, although some may hold more than 100 interments. Once they fell out of use, they often became abandoned and overgrown. Some of the forgotten cemeteries found along roads or in the woods of Northern Kentucky belong to long-ago-defunct small churches that closed when their membership dwindled. After dissolution of the associated church, many of these cemeteries were abandoned. The abandoned cemeteries that belonged to a family, a neighborhood, or a church range in size from a single interment to those that contain more than 100 graves. Many of these cemeteries share at least several of the following common characteristics. Many have some type of fence, wall, or plantings that mark traditional boundaries. Most include some type of domestic vegetation with symbolic meaning, such as evergreens or springflowering plants. These may be yucca, evergreen ground cover such as periwinkle, bulb flowers such as daffodil or narcissus, small flowering trees such as dogwood, or especially Eastern red cedar trees. Other large trees including oak, walnut, and other hardwoods were often allowed to grow in or adjacent to the cemetery. The plantings help to set apart the cemetery from the surrounding farmland. Most of the family and customary cemeteries are located near a fencerow or a property boundary or on marginal areas at the edge of a ridge or a hill slope. They are rarely found in the center of prime agricultural land. Some are situated at the edge of the house yard, usually to the rear or the side of the main house. Church cemeteries are generally near the old location of the church, typically to the side or at the rear, and are usually found closer to a road than many family cemeteries. Within each cemetery, the graves are organized by one of two main methods. Some cemeteries have parallel rows of graves. The earliest burials may be at the center of the row, or the earliest may begin at one end of the row. In most Northern Kentucky cemeteries, the graves are laid out with the feet toward the east and the head toward the west, so the rows are oriented north-south. Christians of many denominations in the 19th century preferred