As you
may know, cemeteries are definitely different in New Orleans and throughout the
bayou country. Cemetery tours are big
business for many. These guided tours satisfy curious tourists, history buffs, believers in the supernatural as
well as those who lend credence to the practice of voodoo or black magic.
Laurie
would have preferred a nighttime ghost tour…but to be honest, I wasn’t sorry that we visited
this cemetery in the daytime. Maybe
she’ll get her ghost tour on our next visit to New Orleans…
Saint
Louis Cemetery is the name of three Roman Catholic cemeteries in New Orleans,
Louisiana. All of these graves are
above-ground vaults with most being constructed in the 18th century and 19th
century. As we learned, the custom of
above-ground burial in New Orleans and south Louisiana is a mixture of folklore
and fact. These vaults were built above
ground due to French and Spanish tradition, not because of a high water
table.
St.
Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest and most famous of all the New Orleans’s
burial grounds. It was opened in 1789,
replacing the city's older St. Peter Cemetery, (no longer in existence), as the
primary burial ground when the city was redesigned after a fire in 1788.
Use
your imagination as you view the preceding photos. Pretend that it’s a dark and rainy night,
maybe with a little lightning, and you’re lost…just wandering down these dark
and spooky aisles. I’m not easily
‘spooked’, but this nighttime setting would bring out any latent fears that I
might be suppressing!
The
lady with the badge hung around her neck was our guide for the tour. She was very knowledgeable and she knew her
history as well as tomb architecture… We opted for the Historic New Orleans
Tour group/Save Our Cemeteries vs. the Haunted History or Voodoo Cemetery Tour.
This is
the tomb for Pierre Derbigny and his family. Pierre Augustin Charles Bourguignon Derbigny
was born in France in 1769 but he fled France in 1791 during the French
Revolution. Derbigny was one of the
representatives of the new Americans in Washington seeking self-government for
the Orleans Territory. He was the 6th
Governor of Louisiana…
Derbigny
supported the reopening of the slave trade and, as the territory was integrated
into the United States, he opposed British common law in Louisiana and defended
the retention of civil law practices established during the French and Spanish
colonial periods. As a consequence, Louisiana
is unique among the 50 U.S. states in having a legal system for deciding
private disputes that is primarily based on French and Spanish codes and
ultimately Roman law, as opposed to English common law.
FYI…These
tombs usually contain more than one deceased member from the family, in fact there
are normally several corpses are interred in most of these structures. The remains are basically stacked on top of
each other…
With
its multitude of large and small structures, spires, towers, multi-story tombs and monuments, St. Louis Cemetery #1 is indeed a city of the dead… The tall
brick structure on the right is a ‘tomb apartment’. If you couldn’t afford a family tomb and you
couldn’t convince a friend to ‘share’ their tomb with you, these stacked
apartment burials provided an optional solution.
This is
an example of a shared tomb, with the owner of the tomb sharing it with a
friend. As is the practice, visitors or family
members have left flowers, beads and other mementos…such as this bottle of
champagne…as gifts to the deceased.
Our
guide informed us that many families actually gather by their family tomb each
year to commemorate/celebrate the dead and to have a picnic. She had come across one such celebration only
a week earlier…
This is
the “Musicians’ Tomb”. It’s big and
quite new… Back in 2004, local community activists answered the call to
properly honor those who gave the city its anthems. This 18-vault tomb bears a plaque designating
it as the Société "L'Union Sacrée"/Barbarin Family/Musicians' Tomb. A larger plaque lists New Orleans musicians as
they are entombed at the site. Inclusion in the tomb will not be limited to
those who can't afford another place for burial but most New Orleans musicians
are neither wealthy nor international celebrities.
This is
the tomb of Jean Étienne de Boré. (1741 – 1820) He was a French planter who was
known for producing the first granulated sugar in Spanish Louisiana,
essentially making sugar cane profitable as a commodity crop. He was prominent
at the time of the Louisiana Purchase and in 1803 the American governor of the
territory appointed him the first Mayor of New Orleans under United States
administration.
This is
the de Marigny family tomb. Jean-Bernard
Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville, (1785–1868), was a French-Creole
American nobleman, playboy, planter, politician, land developer and President
of the Louisiana Senate.
Bernard
was also a big time gambler. He actually
introduced a dice game (craps), into New Orleans. He had so many gambling debts that upon
reaching legal adulthood, he divided his family plantation into small lots on what
was then the outskirts of early New Orleans.
His development was very popular and it is now called the Faubourg
Marigny…a neighborhood in the city. Jazz
musician Jelly Roll Morton was from Faubourg Marigny.
Among
other family members buried in this tomb is Homer Plessy. (1862 – 1925) He was
the American Louisiana Creole of Color plaintiff in the United States Supreme
Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. Arrested,
tried and convicted in New Orleans of a violation of one of Louisiana's racial
segregation laws, he appealed through Louisiana state courts to the U.S.
Supreme Court and lost.
The
resulting "separate-but-equal" decision against him in 1896 had wide
consequences for civil rights in the United States. The decision legalized state-mandated
segregation anywhere in the United States so long as the facilities provided
for both blacks and whites were "equal". This ruling stood until the Supreme Court’s
decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.
There
are also a number of ethnic or society tombs in the cemetery. This is the Italian Society's version…
Society
tombs for professional or benevolent societies were common in the early history
of New Orleans and served to administer to the burial needs of the individuals
who belonged to them. There are many
historically important ethnic groups as well as such groups as volunteer
firemen that are represented by these tomb styles. A society tomb is a multi- layered tomb wall
that contains several burial vaults. They
are like mausoleums…except that most people in a society tomb are connected in
some way.
Scattered
tombs throughout the cemetery have slowly collapsed as families either fail to
maintain them or family lines have faded into obscurity.
Initial
burials appear to have taken place in a haphazard manner, leading to the
current maze of tombs and aisles. Current
theories about tomb and site evolution suggest that initial burials took place
below-ground or in low, quasi-above ground tombs that only held one
burial. As the needs of the site grew,
existing burial plots were added on to create additional burial vaults while
retaining the original tomb footprints.
So, the one tier semi-below ground burial space became the fully
realized above-ground tomb now found throughout the cemeteries of New Orleans
and bayou country.
This pyramid is
one of the most unusual tombs in the St. Louis #1 cemetery. As it turns out, this is the only property
remaining in New Orleans that is still owned by actor Nicolas Cage. While he lost his home and other properties
in bankruptcy, apparently pre-purchased tombs are exempt from the law.
If
you’re wondering about all of those stains on the tomb, just click on the photo
to enlarge it. You will discover that
those are lipstick imprints… Yikes!
This is
the Glapion family tomb. Allegedly, best
evidence indicates the renowned Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, (1794 – 1881),
is interred in the Glapion family crypt.
There is still some debate regarding the whereabouts of Marie and her
daughter’s remains…but she had a lover, Christophe Dominick Duminy de Glapion, and
they had a plethora of offspring.
Two
known descendants of Marie Laveau (II) supposedly still practice Voodoo.
To
learn more about Marie Laveau (I), the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laveau.
The
Laveau-Glapion tomb is a focal point for commercial ‘voodoo’ tours. Some
visitors leave small gifts at the site-coins, Mardi Gras beads, candles, etc.-in
the tradition of voodoo offerings. Many follow a custom of making a wish at the
tomb. In 2013, this tomb was painted
pink by a vandal and it cost over $10,000 to remove the paint and refurbish the
tomb.
This is
another tomb that is somehow alleged to be connected to the voodoo practices of
Marie Laveau and her daughter. The XXX
markings are supposed to bring good luck and there are other rituals that go
along with that. Several tourist
operations over the years have sensationalized the voodoo aspect of the
cemetery, some going so far as to encourage people to mark on the tombs or even
to knock openings in the bricks so they can extract bones to show the tourists…
If
you’d like to learn more about Voodoo in New Orleans you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Voodoo.
From
what we were told, many of the tombs used to be painted and a few families
still maintain the practice. This
particular crypt is littered with offerings and gifts.
In
January of this year, the Roman Catholic archdiocese announced that, as of
March 1st, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 will no longer be free to the
general public. This is to protect the
cemetery from further desecration. Tour
companies that operate in the cemetery will be required to register with the
archdiocese at a cost of $450 a month, $1,200 quarterly or $4,500 a year.
People with family members buried in the cemetery also can register for free
passes. To learn more about this new
policy, you can go to http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2015/01/new_rules_limiting_access_to_s.html.
We did
enjoy our tour. The “Save Our
Cemeteries” organization supports the new controls in St. Louis Cemetery #1
despite the additional costs. Our tour
guide was very good although another ‘guide’ tagged along, interrupted and was
a general nuisance. To learn more about
this group and their tours, go to http://www.saveourcemeteries.org/st-louis-cemetery-no-1/.
Just
click on any of the photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by and accompanying us on our tour!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
