Forest Home Cemetery, located at 3650 Petersburg Rd, is the oldest dedicated African-American cemetery in Kentucky. It was originally a burial ground for many slaves in the Louisville area.
The Petersburg neighborhood (now part of present day Newburg) was first settled by freed slave Eliza Tives in either the 1820s or 1830s. The land was swampy and known orignally as Wet Wood. It was the only land that white landowners would sell to freed slaves. Petersburg was named by freedman Peter Laws, who built a cabin there. Tives inherited land and 50 slaves from her owner John B, Hundley when he died of small pox.
It was not uncommon for freed slaves to become owners themselves, though as in Tives's case, many attempted to help make their slaves lives better. She would take in orphans from separated slave families, and would often have them help out with other plantations, on guarantees of good treatment.
Tives, many of her slaves, as well as many of the early settlers of the area are buried at Forest Home.
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