by nolahistoryguy | Mar 16, 2023 | 1840s, Antebellum New Orleans, CBD, Judiasm
Christ Church was the first Episcopal congregation.
Christ Church, 1845
Illustration of Christ Episcopal Church, corner of Canal and Bourbon Streets, in Norman’s New Orleans and Environs, 1845. The artist is unidentified. Benjamin Moore Norman describes the church thusly:
A fine Ionic building, situated on Canal, at the corner of Bourbon street, was designed by Gallier and Dakin, architects, and its erection begun in the autumn of 1835, under the direction of Mr. D. H. Toogood. It was completed in the summer of 1837, and consecrated during the same year. The cost of the edifice was about $70,000. The form of the ceiling, being a flat dome, is much admired. The Rev. Dr. Hawkes is pastor of this church.
This was the second incarnation of Christ Episcopal. The congregation formed in 1803. They worshiped in various Vieux Carré buildings until 1816, when they bought the property on the corner of Canal and Bourbon. In 1833, the congregation’s growth required something bigger. They commissioned James Gallier, Sr. and James H. Dakin to build this second church.They consecrated the new church on March 26, 1837.
Judah Touro
By 1845, real estate developer and merchant Judah Touro set his sights on the 701 block of Canal Street. He acquired most of the property on the block. In 1845, Touro made the congregation the proverbial offer they couldn’t refuse. Christ Episcopal acquired the corner of Canal and Dauphine Streets, one block up from the existing church. By 1847, Touro completed the deal. Christ Episcopal moved up the street. Congregation Dispersed of Judah moved into the church building at Bourbon. They remained there until 1855. While Touro passed in 1854, the project continued. They moved Dispersed of Judah to a new schul uptown and demolished the Canal Street synagogue. By 1857, the entire block consisted of a row of four-story buildings.
Church migrations
Christ Episcopal moved one more time, in 1884. They put the gothic church at Canal and Dauphine up for auction. The congregation used the proceeds from the sale to build the current cathedral, located at St. Charles Avenue and Sixth Street.
by nolahistoryguy | Jun 3, 2021 | Catholicism, WWII
Twelve Months New Orleans June, continuing the series by Enrique Alferez
Twelve Months New Orleans June
This image is the sixth in a series of images by Enrique Alferez, published by Michael Higgins as “The Twelve Months of New Orleans.” Higgins published the illustrations in 1940. The image features an outdoor procession, part of the celebration of the Catholic Feast of Corpus Christi.
Enrique Alferez
Alferez was born in Northern Mexico on May 4, 1901. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1927 to 1929. He came to New Orleans in 1929. Alferez made New Orleans his home. He took advantage of various Works Progress Administration grants in the late 1930s. Alferez created a number of sculptures in the metro area, particularly in New Orleans City Park. Additionally, he designed the large fountain in front of Shushan Airport (now New Orleans Lakefront Airport.
Alferez drew and painted, as well as sculpting. So, he included many New Orleans landmarks in the “Twelve Months” booklet.
Twelve Months
The title/cover page of the booklet says:
The
Twelve Months
of
New Orleans
A set of 12 Romantic
Lithographic Prints
In COLORS
Displaying 60 local subjects
drawn direct on the plate
with pen, brush, and crayon
by
Enrique Alferez
Printed and published by Michael Higgins
at 303 North Peters St
NEW ORLEANS
June’s Lithograph
Summertime/outdoor activities and are the themes for June.
The Corners
Top Left: Voodoo. June 23 is St. John’s Eve, the day before the Feast of St. John, on the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar. St. John’s Eve is a significant night for practitioners of Voudon. The Voudon would go out to Bayou St. John and the lake, performing rituals and asking favor of the Loa, beginning at sunset. Additionally, modern Wiccans and other Pagans mark St. John’s Eve, as part of their Midsummer rituals.
Top Right: Lee Memorial
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy remained a significant part of the culture of New Orleans as late as the 1940s. While there’s no one particular event related to Lee or the (now-removed) monument in June, Lee Circle served as an escape. Downtown residents and workers sought refuge and relaxation in the green space of the circle.
Bottom Left: Jefferson Davis, only President of the Confederate States of America, was born on 3-June-1808. So, New Orleans marked the occasion with a ceremony. The illustration features the location of that ceremony, the Davis statue, formerly located on the corner of Canal Street and Jefferson Davis Parkway. The city re-named that parkway in 2021, for Dr. Norman C. Francis.
Bottom Right: “Lakeshore Lilies” – not flowers, but rather young ladies enjoying the sea breeze along Lakeshore Drive.
Summer Observances
The Catholic Church is fond of large, outdoor celebrations, in the 18th and 19th Centuries. While earlier processions wound around entire towns, parishes with long French or Spanish traditions, continued those outdoor celebrations.
The Feast of Corpus Christi began in Belgium in the 13th Century. Priests paraded the Eucharist around the town in a grand procession. Popes endorsed and encouraged this feast day. Naturally, the tradition carried over to French-Spanish Colonial New Orleans. By the mid-20th Century, the processions were no longer citywide. Parishes processed the Eucharist around their own neighborhoods.
The drawing shows a large Corpus Christi procession. So, a bishop (perhaps the archbishop?) carries the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance. The monstrance is a large gold receptacle for the consecrated host. Additionally, he is accompanied by acolytes carrying a canopy. That canopy protects both bishop and Eucharist. Two men, dressed in Colonial-style costume, observe the procession from horseback. The caption reads, simply, “Corpus Christi Procession.”
See you for the seventh image in July.
by nolahistoryguy | Jun 23, 2019 | Catholicism, Podcasts, Religion, WWI
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Two short segments on NOLA History Guy Podcast 22-June-2019
Exhibit from the WWI Museum
NOLA History Guy Podcast 22-June-2019
We’re back after a week off, while we celebrated LT Firstborn’s master’s degree! The submariner earned a master’s in Military History from the US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He spent the year as a student living in Kansas City, MO. So, we went up to see him graduate and have him show us around.
On the last day of the adventure, last Monday, we went to the National WWI Museum and Memorial. While it’s natural for New Orleanians in particular to compare the museum here with the one in KC, they’re quite different.
St. John’s Eve
Clip from the New Orleans Times, 25-June-1870
Our pick of the week from Today in New Orleans History is a bit of a cheat. We picked Sunday, 23-June, because it’s St. John’s Eve. Pre-Christian religions celebrated the Summer Solstice for thousands of years. When Christianity moved into Northern Europe, the priests integrated pre-Christian celebrations into the church’s liturgical calendar. Mid-summer, the solstice, became the Feast of St. John. The night before offered pagans a chance to hold their rituals.
St. John’s Eve on Magnolia Bridge
In New Orleans, those “pagans” were Afro-Caribbeans, free and enslaved. They worked their spirits, their Loa, into the Christian framework.Those who respect the spirits of Voudon go out to Magnolia Bridge over Bayou St. John to celebrate the solstice on St. John’s Eve.
WWI Museum
WWI Memorial in Kansas City
The memorial part of the WWI Museum and Memorial is over seventy years older than the museum. The foundation created to make the memorial broke ground in 1926. Generals, Admirals, politicians, and 60,000 members of the American Legion witnessed the event. The LibertyTower and adjacent buildings opened in 1926.
Exhibit from the WWI Museum
Until 2002, the museum portion operated from the two Beaux Arts buildings on either side of Liberty Tower. Kansas City followed New Orleans’ D-Day Museum, along with others, in upgrading. While the museum in KC isn’t as large as the WWII Museum, it’s comprehensive.
Link to my lecture from last week at the National World War II Museum.
by nolahistoryguy | Aug 17, 2018 | Antebellum New Orleans, Catholicism, Podcasts, Treme
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St. Augustine Catholic Church
St. Augustine Church, from Snippets of New Orleans, by Emma Fick (Edward Branley photo)
St. Augustine Catholic Church – Podcast!
NOLA History Guy Podcast this week is a “snippet” – a short presentation on an illustration from Emma Fick’s book, Snippets of New Orleans. So, we chose Emma’s illustration of St. Augustine Catholic Church for this week While there are three “St. Augustines” in New Orleans, this is the oldest.
Bishop Blanc dedicated St. Augustine Catholic Church October 9, 1842. Therefore, it is to this day, the spiritual nexus for Creoles of Color who are Catholic.
Faubourg Treme
Faubourg Treme, including “Divo Augustino R.C” Church, Robinson Atlas (courtesy New Orleans Notarial Archives)
The Treme neighborhood dates back to the Morand Plantation. Claude Treme bought the land in 1792. So, shortly after this transaction, the city built the Carondelet Canal, which connected the French Quarter with Lake Pontchartrain by water, via Bayou St. John. The canal’s business opportunities attracted commercial and light industrial ventures along its banks. Residential neighborhoods grew out on either side of the canal. This area attracted a number of free people of color, who spoke French and identified more closely with the French-Spanish Creoles of the Vieux Carre’ than the Anglo-Irish in the “American Sector.”
These Creoles of Color bought lots in Treme and built homes. By the 1830s, their numbers were large enough that they went to then-Bishop (later Archbishop) Antoine Blanc, and petitioned him to create a Catholic parish for their neighborhood. Bishop Blanc agreed. Therefore, the community began work to raise money and build their own church, so they didn’t have to walk down to St. Louis Cathedral to go to Mass.
St. Augustine Catholic Church (Infrogmation photo)
The neighborhood built their church on land donated by the Ursuline Sisters. So, the nuns asked that the church be named in honor of St. Augustine of Hippo, one of their order’s patrons.
The Tomb of the Unknown Slave
Tomb of the Unknown Slave (Infrogmation photo)
Snippets of New Orleans
Snippets of New Oleans by Emma Fick (Edward Branley photo)
You can buy Emma’s wonderful book at all of the usual suspects, including Octavia Books.
Trusted Talents
NOLA History Guy Podcast is sponsored this week by Elysian Fields Press, publishers of Edward J. Branley’s latest novel, Trusted Talents.
by nolahistoryguy | Apr 3, 2015 | Catholicism, Religion
Good Friday is still a day off for many businesses in New Orleans.
St. Henry’s Church, Uptown (courtesy Infrogmation)
Like many local traditions, those surrounding Holy Week have become blurred as our world becomes more secular. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers focused on religion so much more. Grandma and Great-Grandma took Holy Thursday and Good Friday much more seriously. They build up to the big celebration of the Resurrection.
Holy Week
The story of the Passion of Jesus Christ (well, at least the Catholic version, anyway) usually begins on the Sunday before Easter. On the liturgical calendar, this is Palm Sunday. The story of Jesus’ entry into the city of Jerusalem is told at Mass. The faithful sharpen their spiritual focus for the climax of Lent. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week don’t really involve changes in the regular routine. Those who went to weekday Mass kept doing so. Kids went to school. That’s changed in recent times. Families escape home for a few days on the Mississippi/Alabama/Florida Gulf Coast. (In recent years, that trend has reversed, particularly with high schools. Because parents can’t seem to tell their kids no, the schools remain in session on Monday thru Wednesday. The underage drinkers and drivers can’t run to Florida for spring break.)
So, on Wednesday, kids dash out of school in the afternoo. They anticipate a break that runs at a minimum to the following Tuesday. Some schools take all of the following week off. Either way, the family’s home on Thursday, and that’s important, because there was work to be done. Momma had to make sure the family had clothes ready for not only the Big Day, Easter, but for Mass Thursday night and Friday’s religious activities. Food was also a big issue on Holy Thursday, because everyone was going to be at the big Mass that evening. Friday involved the Nine Sisters, so that meant there wouldn’t be much time for cooking then, either.
Holy Thursday
The first big liturgical event since Palm Sunday is Mass on Holy Thursday. It’s usually one big parish event, featuring the “washing of the feet”. While every celebration of the Eucharist is a remembrance of the Last Supper, this is the one that syncs with the calendar.
As a kid growing up in the late-sixties/early-seventies, the one thing about Holy Thursday’s Mass that always struck me were the “smells and bells”. This was the time when the instructions from the Second Vatican Council were starting to kick in full-on, and two big themes that stood out in the mind of a fifth-grade altar boy were the transition of the liturgy from Latin to English, and the toning down of the various ceremonies. Even in parishes that had pastors totally committed to Vatican II, Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday were “High Mass” days, complete with the choir, the good vestments, incense, and ritual.
The choir worked overtime on Holy Thursday, singing before Mass, leading the congregation in singing the responses during Mass itself, then singing while the church was “stripped” of all the linens, and the statues were covered for Good Friday observances. Once the church was stripped, we reached the part in the script where bad things happen, so the choir ended, and everyone went home.
Good Friday
Good Friday at St. Louis Cathedral, circa 1910s (Detroit Publishing photo in the public domain)
Good Friday is the most solemn day in the liturgical year. Observing the death of Jesus meant quiet time for the kids in many devout households. It also meant unsupervised time, as the men and women of the neighobrhood either observed Good Friday at the parish church, by pitching in to do clean-up work, or even just kneel in prayer for a large part of the day. In Uptown New Orleans, Good Friday meant walking the Nine Sisters. Visiting nine churches on Good Friday is a French-Spanish tradition that can be traced back to the Spanish Colonial period. Given the distance covered in the traditional Uptown-to-Downtown walk, the tradition was either also observed in Germany, or the Germans and the Irish picked up on it from the Creoles of the city.
Nine Churches
Why nine churches? There’s a lot of speculation on that one. The closest thing to a nine that ties with Holy Week is that there are nine days from Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Of course, these events happen weeks after Good Friday, but let’s not quibble. In modern times, the list of nine churches has been expanded to fourteen, a more-logical number, since there are fourteen Stations of the Cross.
The route of the Nine Sisters: Start at St. Stephen’s on Napoleon Avenue, Walk around the corner to St. Henry’s, on Berlin Street (Now General Pershing St.) From there, walk to Our Lady of Good Counsel, on Louisiana Avenue at Chestnut Street. Since the post-Katrina consolidations of parishes done by the archdiocese, all three of these churches are part of the same parish, under the same pastoral management. The seat of the parish is St. Stephen’s, but they open the other two until noon for Good Friday devotions.
Notre Dame de Bon Secours, on Jackson Avenue, antebellum period
The Old Redemptorist Parish
The next church has varied over the years. Most likely, it was Notre Dame de Bon Secours (Our Lady of Prompt Succor), the “French” church of the three churches that made up the “Redemptorist parish” that serviced the Garden District and the Irish Channel. After that church burned down in the 19th Century, the faithful most likely stopped at the chapel at the residence of the Redemptorists, on Prytania and Third Streets.
Nowadays, the Redemptorists are gone from New Orleans. The order sold their Third Street residence to Anne Rice, who told the Catholics of the Garden District to go down to St. Mary’s Assumption, on Constance and Josephine Streets, in Da Channel. The wealthy folk of the Garden District opted to resurrect the old Notre Dame church, in an interesting way. When the church we know as St. Mary’s Assumption was constructed in the 1850s, the Germans dismantled the wooden church that was on that corner, moving it to St. Joseph Cemetery, on Washington Avenue and LaSalle Street.
Return to Uptown
It stayed there for 150 years, serving as a mortuary chapel. That chapel was moved to Jackson Avenue, so now it becomes the Fourth Sister, in the 1500 block of Jackson Avenue. From St. Mary’s Chapel, the path turns towards the river, and the faithful stop next at St. Alphonsus. St. Alphonsus is the “Irish church” of the Redemptorist parish. After performing their Veneration of the Cross at St. Alphonsus, the next Sister is directly across the street, St. Mary’s Assumption.
After stopping in at the “German church”, it’s a ten-block walk to the Seventh Sister, St. Theresa of Avila, on Erato Street, in the Lower Garden District. From there, the second-to-last stop is the other Irish parish, St. Patrick’s on Camp Street, in the Warehouse District. From there, the trek ends at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, better known as “Jesuits’ Church” on Baronne Street in the CBD. Then followed the walk back to Jefferson City or Faubourg Bouligny.
Holy Week Food
Gumbo z’Herbes, Fried Chicken, and Cornbread at Dookey Chase on Orleans Avenue (photo courtesy Mary Ehret of Native Palate)
It’s only logical that momma wouldn’t want to cook a lot of food on Good Friday. After all, that walk from Napoleon Avenue to Canal and Baronne in town is a big effort. Even if you take the streetcar back, a big chunk of your day is used up. No time to cook! That’s never been too big a challenge for Creoles and Yats, though. Momma knows how to prepare ahead.
No, the big challenge for Holy Week is the dietary restrictions that used to be enofrced by the Church on Good Friday. Even a lot of good Catholics forget that Lent was much tougher on the faithful than it is now. Lent wasn’t merely a time of paryer and reflection, but also a time of fasting. In this context, “fasting” usually meant having only one meal a day. Coffee and a piece of toast for breakfast, followed by a light lunch, like a hard boiled egg, or maybe a Mrs. Drake’s chicken salad sandwich. Over time, those restrictions were eased; fasting was cut back to just Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Good Friday – Fast and abstinence!
But back in momma’s day, it was fast and abstinence on Good Friday. That meant not only one meal, but no meat! For Catholics in New Orleans, that wasn’t hard to deal with, just eat seafood. Fish, shrimp, oysters, the possibilities were endless.
But, for many of the faithful, substituting fried shrimp or oysters for chicken or pork just wasn’t good enough. There was no sacrifice. Additionally, seafood wasn’t as ubiquitous or inexpensive fifty years ago as it was now. Some folks just couldn’t afford to have a shrimp fry. The common New Orleans solution to the problem of keeping costs down was to make dishes that stretched the resources, like jambalaya, gumbo, red beans that taste like ham because of the bone, but didn’t have any real meat in them. Momma was creative, like her momma before her.
Gumbo z’Herbes
But when it came to making a filling meal with no meat or no shellfish, momma knew what to do. Greens. Herbs. Spices. Momma knew from her Creole ancestors how to make a roux, then combine the green stuff to make Gumbo z’Herbes. The meatless version of our classic thick soup was just the right meal for Good Friday. It’s gumbo, so it’s easy to prepare ahead of time. Momma could put the proper time in to make a roux and let the soup simmer, then put it aside overnight. When she came home from making the Nine Sisters the next day, all she had to do was put the pot back on the fire and heat things up. Judy Walker gives us the recipes for two versions of this wonderful soup in her NOLA.com column.
Gumbo is a filling soup. A good roux of fat and flour, thinned down with water or stock, could be a meal in itself. Add in a lot of green goodness (Chef Leah at Dookey Chase says there are nine different kinds of greens in her gumbo), and you get an even more filling dish. Even when we try to sacrifice, we just can’t make it happen. Gumbo z’Herbes is the closest thing to the “bread of affliction” we’ve got in New Orleans.
Meat in your Gumbo z’Herbes!
When you go to see Chef Leah Chase at her restaurant on Holy Thursday, you get Gumbo z’Herbes and Fried Chicken. Her gumbo is different from the traditional, meatless dish. Why? That should be obvious. She’s not serving it on Good Friday, and the meat she adds makes the soup taste wonderful.
Tasty!
But wait, you say, Ms. Leah has sausage and chicken in her Gumbo z’Herbes! Yes, that’s correct. That’s because she’s serving it on Holy Thursday, when there’s no restriction on meat. Some cooks, when making Gumbo z’Herbes for Good Friday would make extra gumbo base (roux, water, basic stock vegetables) and then whip up a chicken-and-sausage gumbo for dinner on Thursday. If momma was particularly busy, she’s just make extra Gumbo z’Herbes, adding the meat. The irony of gumbo during Holy Week is that it’s a wonderful food that doesn’t distract from the important devotional activities.
It’s why folks from everywhere else just don’t understand us.
Voodoo Experience Stage, 2009 (courtesy Commons user Njmaki)[/caption]
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