The oldest of the walled cemeteries is known as the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, and is the property of the Saint Louis Cathedral, having been acquired by that corporation by a French concession made in 1744.

A.G. Durno, 1900

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 - Site History

Built in 1789, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is New Orleans's oldest remaining cemetery. Before its construction, prominent inhabitants were entombed within the Parish church. In 1725, New Orleans's first independent cemetery, St. Peter's Street Cemetery, was opened outside of the city limits on the upriver west side of St. Peter Street, presently the area between Burgundy and Rampart Streets.

The history of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 really began in 1788, a year of great trauma for the city of New Orleans, as the river overflowed, a great fire destroyed 856 buildings and 80% of the city, and a serious epidemic broke out amongst the populace.1 St. Peter's Street Cemetery was full and the Cabildo was warned by local physicians that the proximity of the cemetery to the city could cause another serious epidemic. Following the Spanish royal decree, the city ordered a new Catholic cemetery to be established and St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was built outside the city in an area just north of Rampart Street.2

The cemetery was not designed to be segregated by race, but by religion, as the Protestants were placed in a section in the rear. The site as it stands now is a microcosm of New Orleans history. The diversity of New Orleans can be seen within the site as the poor are buried next to rich and people of different races and ethnicities are buried next to each other.

The building of the Carondelet Canal in 1795 led to later construction of a navigational road that caused the front part of St Louis Cemetery No. 1 to be removed during the first half of the 19th century.3 This road later became the site of a railroad line around the turn of the 20th century. In 1822, the cemetery was once again shortened when part of the Protestant section was removed during an extension of Tremé Street. In order to lay the street, the city offered Christ Church a tract of land on Faubourg Street for the building of a new Protestant cemetery and the remains were removed to this spot.4 Only a portion of the original Protestant section remains today.

Meanwhile, in 1817 an epidemic resulted in the formation of a board of health. This office decided that the "exhalations of the dead at funeral services and the transporting of the dead through the streets spread disease." This led to the passage of a city ordinance on March 22, 1821 forbidding the placing on view of the dead during any funeral service from the first day of July through December. Before this time, all funerals took place at St. Louis Cathedral and processed to St. Louis 1 from there. To rid the city of the danger that these funeral processions might present, a funeral chapel (currently Our Lady of Guadalupe Church) was built adjacent to the cemetery. At that time it was called the Mortuary Chapel of St. Anthony, and it was designed by the French architects Gurlie and Guillot. Today it stands as the oldest Church in the city and its view of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is obstructed by the four lanes of Basin Street.5

Opening quote: A.G. Durno, "Old Burial Places" Standard History of New Orleans. Ed. Henry Rightor. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co. 1900.

1. Samuel Wilson Jr. and Leonard V. Huber, The St. Louis Cemeteries of New Orleans (New Orleans: St. Louis Cathedral, 1963), 7-8. Back

2. Records and Deliberations of the Cabildo, Oct. 17 1788, typescript, WPA, 1936. Back

3. Federal Writers' Project, New Orleans City Guide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938), 400. Back

4. Wilson, 12. Back

5. The History of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, http://www.saintjudeshrine.com/history.htm. Back