Whistling in the Cemetery

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, I've taken to walking in my neighborhood cemeteries. I live near at least four major cemeteries -- Saint Louis, Saint Michael, Calvary, and Cave Hill. None of them are particularly crowded with living visitors and they all have nice quiet walking paths. 

I've lived in Louisville for decades, but until this year had rarely set foot in any of them. A few years ago, my oldest nephew visited town with his then-spouse and we walked to Colonel Sanders's gravesite in Cave Hill and took a couple of pictures. And last Easter my spouse and I walked to Muhammed Ali's gravesite (while Lonnie Ali was present, actually) in the same cemetery. And I had walked a few times through a portion of Saint Michael's as a shortcut to a local grocery store. 

In any case, I'm going to post some stories about Louisville's history related to these cemeteries. 

To start, I live closest to Saint Louis cemetery, where John Henry Whallen and his younger brother James Patrick Whallen are buried (in a tomb). Those names might not be familiar to you, but they apparently dominated politics in Louisville for many years more than a century ago. They also made lots of money from whiskey and operation of a downtown burlesque spot -- the Buckingham Theater. The Whallens allegedly made even more money from prostitution and gambling as well and allowed police officers to make extensive use of their facilities.

However, their businesses were apparently threatened by some of Louisville's elite establishment and so John Henry Whallen worked to become a central figure in local Democratic politics and was eventually the powerful  "boss" of the city's political machine -- earning the nickname of "Napoleon." He engineered a mayoral election in the 1880s for a friendly candidate and was named Chief of Police as reward. Whallen's power over the city endured for nearly 30 years, built primarily upon his connections to the police and his ability to control primary elections -- and even general elections. 

Whallen, who became one of the wealthiest men in the city, was said to be generous to the poor during hard times. His political base was constituted by immigrants and Catholics. However, as University of Kentucky historian Tracy Campbell has made clear, Whallen was willing to emphasize white supremacy to maintain political power. His machine intimidated black voters and appealed to racist ideas to win white votes. The local Irish-American newspaper, described as "an instrument of the Whallen machine," published the following lines after a Whallen-backed candidate lost a rare election: “Do you want Negro domination or do you want Louisville to remain a city of white people, for the white people, and governed by white people?”

John Henry died in 1913 and though his brother took over the businesses, he was unable to maintain the level of political clout his older brother had. The machine's rule ended.

Much of this sounds like the plot to Boardwalk Empire, but set in Kentucky before World War I instead of in Atlantic City during Prohibition. 

Here are a couple of photos of their tomb -- one more distant and the other closer up so you can read the name more clearly:

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