by nolahistoryguy | Sep 10, 2025 | Antebellum New Orleans, Cemeteries, Mid-City, St. Patrick 1
Many families bury their loved ones in-ground. It’s more than just “the water table.”
Branighan family coping in St. Patrick Cemetery Number One (Edward Branley photo)
For the most part, we bury our dead above ground in New Orleans. The conventional wisdom on this practice is, “the water table is too high.” As is the case with many “conventional” wisdoms, yes-and-no. Yes, we have a high water table. No, it doesn’t mean you can’t do in-ground burials here. You just have to make sure the coffin doesn’t pop up on a heavy-rain/flood day.
High ground
There’s a trend with cemeteries in New Orleans. They’re built on (relatively) high ground. The original St. Peter Cemetery, at the back of the Vieux Carré, is higher than the neighborhoods along the Old Portage. The Metairie Ridge, at the foot of Canal Street, also stands higher than the surrounding neighborhood. Additionally, the Metairie Ridge was well out of town when the archdiocese and Firemen’s Benevolent began cemetery construction there. That extra distance allayed fears of the spread of yellow fever.
The Gentilly Ridge also appealed to congregations looking for cemetery locations. The archdiocese expanded to the end of Esplanade Avenue, building St. Louis Number Three at Bayou St. John. Jewish congregations chose Gentilly Road, along the route of the Pontchartrain Railroad. This later became Elysian Fields Avenue.
Tradition and expense
For Jewish New Orleanians, the desire for in-ground burials was a religious one. For Christians, cost was the driving factor. St. Patrick’s church parish, located in the American Sector, Faubourg Ste. Marie, desired a burial ground separate from the Creole cemeteries. They opened St. Patrick Cemetery Number One on Canal Street in 1841. There were a large number of in-ground burials in St. Patrick Number One. The Irish community was, at the time, not well-off. They were immigrants who worked the riverfront, as well as jobs owners of the enslaved would not allow their property to do. It would be a generation or two before the Irish developed the means to build above-ground tombs in numbers. Additionally, New Orleanians in the 1840s-1850s feared disease epidemics. Burying yellow fever victims in the ground put folks at ease.
Higher Ground
Even though cemeteries were built on the ridges, extra measures were taken to maintain safety and dignity. In-ground burials were done using “copings.” Rather than just digging a hole and lowing the coffin, a concrete rectangle was built around the grave. This “coping” raised the ground for the grave by a foot or more. This ensured that excessive flooding wouldn’t push coffins up.
St. Patrick’s parish purchased a parcel of land that started at Banks Street and extended across Canal Street and City Park Avenue, into Lakeview, next to Canal Boulevard. So, the section between Canal and City Park became St. Patrick’s Number Two, and the third section, Number Three. As concerns over disease ebbed and the Irish acquired more financial means, more classic, above-ground tombs appeared in these extensions.
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by nolahistoryguy | Jun 4, 2025 | Faubourg St. John, St. Louis Number 3
Marco Rasi gives us another great photo of St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.
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St. Louis Cemetery No. 3
Mr. Marco Rasi regularly shares his photography on social media. He uses a drone to get some great aerial shots. This photo of St. Louis No. 3 is no exception. The drone hovers over the Bayou St. John side of the cemetery, towards the back (closer to the Deutsches Haus than Esplanade Avenue. The dome of Our Lady of the Rosary Church hovers, background, right. The church stands half a block down Esplanade Ave. from the cemetery’s main entrance.
So, I’m going to hush for a moment so you can take in this gorgeous scene. Don’t continue until after you look at the image for a minute or two.
Nighttime
Night in one of our cities of the dead offers opportunities for contemplation, dreams, and stories. Unlike St. Louis No. 1, this cemetery’s layout is much more orderly. New Orleans required more burial grounds by the mid-19th century. So, the city council granted the Archdiocese of New Orleans a permit to build a cemetery at the bayou end of Esplanade Avenue.
They named the cemetery to honor St. Louis, King of France, just as its two predecessors (on Basin Street and three blocks back from Number 1, towards Claiborne). While the name indicates an affinity with the two Creole cemeteries, Number 3 reflects the ethnic diversity of New Orleans in the 1850s and post-rebellion. Most plots here are “double” tombs. There are larger, “society” tombs as well. Many of them are for Catholic religious orders. The archdiocese also maintains a mausoleum for the city’s priests. Additionally, the local Greek Orthodox community owns a mausoleum here for their loved ones.
Catholic racism
My family’s tomb is here in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. The deed for that double tomb includes a “race covenant” that specifies any futures cannot sell the tomb to Black folks. Of course, changes in the law invalidated that covenant, but it’s still a stark reminder of the desires of some residents.
by nolahistoryguy | Oct 27, 2024 | 1920s-1930s, 1940s, 2020s, Cemeteries, St. Louis Number 1, Treme
Pyramids as tombs reflect the generations-old fascination with Egyptian burial practices.
Pyramids in St. Louis
St. Louis Cemetery Number One, that is. Egyptian-style tombs remain popular in New Orleans’ above-ground cemeteries. While there are more elaborate pyramids in other cemeteries, there are two in St. Louis No. 1, the city’s oldest.
The Varney family tomb stands near the cemetery’s entrance on Basin Street. Above is an E. C. Cropp postcard from the mid-1920s, showing the pyramid. The tomb experienced a lot of wear over the years. The image shows the red brick beneath white plaster and whitewash paint. While nobody wants to see tombs falling apart, the image offers background on how tombs are built.
At top we see another image of the pyramid, also a Cropp postcard, from the 1940s. The cemetery (or the tomb’s owners) restored the plaster and gave the tomb a good coat of paint.
This 2024 photo by Commons user miguel.discart shows the tomb as you’ll see it if you visit the cemetery now.
Nicholas Cage
Tom Hilton photo
There’s a second pyramid in the cemetery. Actor Nick Cage acquired a plot for what we assume will be his final resting place:
The empty grave is a stark, nine-foot-tall stone pyramid that stands in obvious contrast to the blockier, above-ground burial sites that have been crumbling away in the cemetery for over two centuries. There is no name on the pyramid yet, but it is emblazoned with the Latin maxim, “Omnia Ab Uno,” which translates to “Everything From One.”
Cage’s pyramid stands out, but it isn’t all that unusual. The Atlas Obscura article quoted above goes into detail on Cage’s relationship with the city. New Orleanians tend to complain when outsiders acquire or change landmarks in the city. This sparks the debate of when does someone become a “local” or are they always just a “carpetbagger.” Feel free to express your thoughts on this in comments.
by nolahistoryguy | Oct 24, 2024 | 2020s, Antebellum New Orleans, Catholicism, Cemeteries, St. Louis Number 1, Treme
All Souls, All Saints, and All Hallows Eve figure prominently in the fabric of New Orleans.
House decorated for Halloween (Infrogmation photo)
All Souls, All Saints, and All Hallows Eve
Version 1.0.0
Ghosts and ghouls and goblins! All Hallows’ Eve is upon us! New Orleans never lacks for an excuse to party. Halloween provides a fun theme. Even in New Orleans, the season offers more than jack-o-lanterns, black cats, and witches on broomsticks. On Halloween, Catholics gear up for the really important day: The Feast of All Souls, on November 2.
Halloween
Halloween wasn’t really A Thing in New Orleans until the 1980s. Anne Rice’s first novel of her “Vampire Chronicles” dropped in 1976. The series enticed people. Readers accepted the notion of vampires in New Orleans. Combine this with other authors like Billy Martin (writing as Poppy Z. Brite),, writing about paranormal New Orleans. It was as if we always had vampires. Add The Witching Hour and Rice’s other “Mayfair Witches” stories. Halloween and New Orleans connected.
Voudon and Halloween
An engraving by E.W. Kemble from The Century Illustrated Magazine, April 1886: “Dance and Song of Voodoo Worship”, circa 1800-1850.
Voudon doesn’t have a lot of connection to Samhain or All Hallows Eve. St. John’s Eve, at midsummer, was always the big “feast day” for followers of Voudon. A local festival promoter linked their “Voodoo Fest” to the Halloween season, but it didn’t work on multiple levels.
All Saints Day
Three “double” tombs in front of the Italian Society Mausoleum in St. Louis Cemetery Number One in Faubourg Treme (author’s photo)
The Catholic Church recognizes individuals believed to be in heaven as saints. (New Orleans recognizes football players wearing black and gold as Saints). While conclusive evidence of such a state is hard to come by, Catholics make it happen. So the Church looks for supernatural events after a person’s death. Those taking up the “cause” of a prospective Saint attribute “miracles” to them. A sick person prays to a holy person for intercession. Their illness passes. The Church calls that a miracle. So, the Pope declares the holy person a saint.
Saint Francis Xavier Seelos, a Redemptorist priest whose work in New Orleans helped make him a candidate for sainthood. (Wikimedia Commons)
Martyrs
Martyrs, those who give their lives defending their faith, are believed to go immediately to heaven, which is why the yearly calendar of saints’ feast days includes a large number of them. In fact, the first recorded general recognition of saints was in 609, when Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon in Rome for the Blessed Virgin and all martyrs. May 13 was designated the date this event would be commemorated. During the papacy of Gregory III (731-741), the recognition of “all saints” was moved from May 13 to November 1. This commemoration gave the Church a “catch-all” day, where folks could pray for their “personal saints,” family and friends who they believed were in heaven but would never be formally recognized by the Church as such.
All Souls
The tradition of All Hallows (All Saints) is a strong one, but it’s still secondary in New Orleans. Faithful Catholics rise and go to Mass on November 1st. So, then they head out to the cemeteries. They clean up and prepare their family tombs for November 2nd. That’s the “Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed.” Catholics call the day, the Feast of All Souls.
While most people don’t want to believe that Grandpa is burning in the fiery pit for all eternity, maybe he wasn’t as good a person as he could have been. Catholics have a solution for that situation: Purgatory.
Purgatory
The idea was, since Grandpa wasn’t ready to go directly to heaven, he had to make a stop along the way, for purification. This pit stop was worked up over centuries into an elaborate system, where the faithful could pray for a “reduction in sentence” as it were, for their loved ones that were in Purgatory. Knowing that Grandpa wasn’t on the express train motivated Grandma to make sure the family tomb was kept up well and prayers regularly said for the repose of his soul. Since November 2 was a work day (the day before often is a holiday in Catholic-dominated countries), any clean-up projects at the cemetery had to be done on the day before.
“Decorating the Tombs” from Harper’s Weekly, 1885 (public domain)
Fixing up the Family Tomb
Cleaning up the family plot is often a bit more complicated in New Orleans than other parts of the United States, because we regularly bury our loved ones above-ground. The New Orleans cemetery tour guides will tell stories of how this had to be done in the early years of the city, since burying coffins below sea level would force them to the surface as the water table would rise. The truth of the tradition is a bit more simple (and obvious): above-ground burial was something that came over to New Orleans from France. Above-ground tombs gave families a better focal point for visiting the departed and praying for a remission of their time in Purgatory.
Above Ground
These tombs are usually made of regular brick-and-mortar, then plastered over and whitewashed. Catholic cemeteries in New Orleans were usually constructed by the various ethnic groups that made up the city’s faithful. The French-Spanish-African Creoles had the original St. Louis cemeteries in Faubourg Treme and Faubourg St. John. The Irish built the St. Patrick’s cemeteries at the head of Canal Street, and the Germans had their cemeteries dedicated to St. Joseph on Washington Avenue.
“Ovens” in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (Mugnier photo)
The heat and humidity of the city’s climate takes its toll on those structures. They require periodic maintenance. Families share tombs. They also share the maintenance duties.
One Big Picnic
So, the adult children go out to the cemetery with Grandma on All Saints Day. The kids come along, of course. So the scene in the cemeteries was often quite festive. Everyone spruced up their tomb. What started as work details became picnics where families that grew apart would come together for a very worthy cause. Siblings and cousins could catch up with each other, and Grandma was able to go to the cemetery regularly for another year with her head held high.
Happy Halloween, Blessed Samhain, All Saints and All Souls!
by nolahistoryguy | May 24, 2024 | 1920s-1930s, Cemeteries, Hope Mausoleum
Cemeteries rely on Perpetual Care to maintain the properties.
Perpetual Care preserves grave sites
Ad for Hope Mausoleum in the Times-Picayune, 23-May-1935, for Hope Mausoleum, 4801 Canal Street. This ad emphasizes the importance of perpetual care fees:
Hope Mausoleum is the only burial place in New Orleans which includes Perpetual Care in the original purchase price, a practice almost universal in modern cemeteries across the United States. Faithfully laid aside at the consummation of each sale of crypt space, this fun is steadily growing. Invested in sound securities, the income from the Perpetual Care Fund will be used to maintain Hope Mausoleum after all space has been sold. Assured Perpetual Care is but one of several factors which have influenced a wide public acceptance of Hope Mausoleum as “The Modern Way of Burial.”
While Hope included the service in the purchase price, just about every cemetery in New Orleans offered this funding. Other cemeteries sold it as an add-on. Most buyers added the service to their purchase. The cemetery owners reminded buyers of the consequences of not having it. So, cemeteries maintain tombs and copings with perpetual care. Without it, the owners of the tomb repair their plots. If a family dies out, the cemetery may choose to demolish a tomb in disrepair. Therefore, memories vanish.
Consequences of no perpetual funding
The biggest example of the consequences of no perpetual fund is the Girod Street Cemetery. Located where Champions Square (by the Superdome) stands now (no, the Saints don’t play on top of a graveyard), Girod Street was the first Protestant Cemetery in the city. The chapter of Christ Episcopal Church (now Cathedral) built the cemetery. They didn’t set up perpetual care funding. So, by the 20th century, much of the cemetery fell into serious disrepair. By the 1950s, Girod Street had to be deconsecrated and demolished. Many of the unclaimed remains at the time of demolition were re-interred in Hope Mausoleum.
by nolahistoryguy | May 21, 2024 | 2020s, Mid-City, St. Patrick 1
The weather’s nice enough for a proper morning photowalk!
Morning Photowalk for a Monday
My usual Monday routine is breakfast at Wakin Bakin on Banks Street in Mid-City. I parked my car back by St. Patrick Cemetery Number One, on Canal Street. From there, I did a morning photowalk, down Canal to S. Murat Street, to Banks Street. The weather was great and the neighborhood is fun to observe.
Canal Street
4920 Canal Street
4916 Canal Street
4916 Canal Street
4920-4916 Canal Street. Numbers here decrease since I’m walking “down,” towards the river. This is a pair of Streamline Moderne buildings housing downstairs retail (professional offices) and upstairs apartments.
Botinelli Place
Botinelli Place is a private street. It’s the south-of-Canal extension of Anthony Street. The building in the rear with the large spires is the ‘Botinelli Building.” The spires originally adorned the old Touro Synagogue on Carondelet Street. Botinelli acquired them as salvage when the congregation sold their building on Carondelet and moved to St. Charles Avenue, by Loyola University. He built an apartment building and put the spires on top.
Dominican Priory at St. Anthony Church
Dominican Priory at St. Anthony Church
Two views of St. Anthony’s Priory, 4640 Canal Street. More than just a rectory for the parish, the priory houses Friars working around New Orleans.
4520 Canal Street
Currently listed by Anthony Posey Properties, Inc.
4534 Canal Street
This house is one off the corner, with the well-known home of the Centanni family at the corner of Canal and S. Murat Streets.
Napoleon in Mid-City
One of the more interesting and less-known aspects of this section of Mid-City is its association with Napoleon Bonaparte. While most folks are aware of the Napoleonic theme of street names just off of Napoleon Avenue uptown, many aren’t aware of the Mid-City connection. Three streets in Mid-City, Bernadotte, Murat, and Alexander are named for personalities from the Napoleonic period. Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was one of Napoleon’s marshals. He was elected crown prince of Sweden in 1810 and became King Charles XIV John upon the death of King Charles XIII. Joachim Murat was also a Marshal of France under Napoleon, later becoming King of Naples. Tsar Alexander I of Russia was one of Napoleon’s chief adversaries.
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