Frankfort Cemetery

Established in 1844 on a bluff overlooking the Kentucky River, this historic cemetery is the final resting place of Daniel Boone, Theodore O'Hara (author of "The Bivouac of the Dead"), and Governor William Goebel.

Frankfort Cemetery, Kentucky's first rural garden-style cemetery and the final resting place of legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone, carries a mystery that has puzzled historians for nearly two centuries: whose bones actually lie beneath Daniel Boone's monument? This question—and the possibility that the wrong remains were taken—has given the cemetery an eerie dimension that goes beyond its historic graves.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Frankfort Cemetery was established in the early 1840s as the second incorporated memorial park in the country. Its rolling hills overlooking the Kentucky River provide eternal rest for governors, soldiers, and pioneers. But the most visited grave belongs to Daniel Boone and his wife Rebecca—or does it?

Daniel Boone died in Missouri in 1820, near his son's home. He and Rebecca were buried at a small family cemetery at Tuque Creek. Twenty-five years later, in September 1845, Kentucky officials arrived to exhume the Boones and bring them home with great ceremony. But according to persistent legend, Boone's Missouri relatives—displeased with the Kentuckians who came to claim their ancestor—never corrected a significant error: the headstone had been placed over the wrong grave.

The story goes that the Kentucky delegation dug up the wrong remains entirely, and the Missouri family kept quiet, letting the Kentuckians take whoever lay in the mislabeled plot. In 1983, forensic anthropologist David Wolf examined a crude plaster cast made of Boone's skull before the Kentucky reburial. His disturbing conclusion: the skull might belong to an African American. Since enslaved people were also buried at Tuque Creek, it's possible the wrong person was moved.

Missouri has never conceded their claim to Boone's remains. To this day, both Frankfort Cemetery and the Old Bryan Farm in Missouri maintain graves for Daniel Boone. The question of where the real pioneer lies remains unanswered.

This uncertainty has spawned ghost stories. One tale from the book "Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky" describes a stormy night shortly before Henry Clay's death, when the ghost of Clay's old friend Daniel Boone appeared to call upon him—perhaps Boone's restless spirit, divided between two graves, seeking to reconnect with those he knew in life.

Poet Arthur Guiterman imagined Boone's ghost happily tracking animals—both ancient and mythical—across the Milky Way. But others believe the frontiersman cannot rest easy when his actual remains may lie in the wrong state, his grave in Kentucky potentially empty or holding a stranger.

The cemetery itself sits near Liberty Hall Historic Site, one of Frankfort's most documented haunted locations. Built in 1796, Liberty Hall is home to the famous "Gray Lady"—the spirit of a family member who died after a long journey from New York. Visitors also report two other spirits, including a Spanish opera singer who mysteriously disappeared from the house in the early 1800s and was never seen again.

Whether Daniel Boone's spirit roams Frankfort Cemetery, still seeking his proper resting place, or whether other pioneers and statesmen walk these grounds, the cemetery remains a place where Kentucky's history—and its mysteries—feel very much alive.