Over the grave of one recently killed in a duel was a tablet, with the inscription "Mort, victime de l'honneur!" Should anyone propose to set up a similar tribute to the memory of a duelist at Mount Auburn, near Boston, a sensation would be created ...

Cemetery Life - Interment & Visitation

Nineteenth century accounts describe in detail the experiences awaiting the curious visitor in the sight of a freshly dug watery grave or the sounds and smells of above-ground corporal decomposition. During the city's frequent yellow fever epidemics, the cemeteries were far from the peaceful respites they were expected to be or as they appear today (tours aside) as undertakers' carriages clogged the alleys and caskets piled high awaiting interment. So severe was the situation for prompt burial during these frequent periods due to the fear of contagion, that the air became thick with the stench of decaying corpses, mixed with the fragrance of flowers, and visitors occasionally witnessed fresh body parts carried off by marauding dogs and pigs.

These horrors were a powerful, but not uncommon, reminder of the realities of a New Orleans death, despite the promises of resurrection and the aesthetic trappings of a well-appointed tomb. Nearly all visitors, beginning with John Pintard in 1801 and throughout the century, commented on the grim realities of a New Orleans' burial.

It is of little consequence whether one's carcase [sic]is given a prey to crayfish on land--or the catfish of the Mississipi[sic]--I believe in either case of burial [above or below ground]--a body is speedily devoured and transmigrated in crayfish or catfish--dressed by a French cook & feasted upon by a greasy Monk--a fair lady--a petit maitre or a savage who in turn supply some future banquet…Give my bones terra firma I pray.

Surviving descriptions and graphic images also help us to understand how nineteenth century visitors experienced these places. All foreign visitors found the St. Louis cemeteries to be curiosities, however their response to above ground burial varied widely. This was based in part on Christian belief in the resurrection and a deep-seated aversion to the loss of individuality resulting from the local custom of exhumation of individual remains for vault reoccupation by the family. Fear of disease associated with corporal decomposition, especially in the context of the city's many epidemics, led many professionals and free-thinkers, beginning with Benjamin H. B. Latrobe to denounce interment in favor of cremation, despite its violation to Christian doctrine.

Beyond the grim realities of death and dying associated with such places, many visitors found visual entertainment in the dense assembly and stylistic variety of the myriad of tombs. This taste for the architectural panorama as spectacle was already a well-established form of popular visual entertainment beginning in the late eighteenth century. Yet, unlike the two-dimensional forms of the dioramas and cycloramas depicting modern cityscapes, exotic foreign places, and historical events, cemeteries such as Père La Chaise and the St. Louis Cemeteries offered the visitor actual, albeit miniature, environments of classical and exotic architecture and sculpture in concentrated form. St. Louis Cemetery was described by one visitor in 1835:

When I entered the gateway, I was struck with surprise and admiration. Though destitute of trees, the cemetery is certainly more deserving, from its peculiarly novel and unique appearance, of the attention of strangers, than any other in the United States…there are innumerable isolated tombs, of all sizes and shapes, and descriptions, built above ground. The idea of a Lilliputian city was at first suggested to my mind on looking down this extensive avenue. The tombs in their Moorish dwellings, temples, chapels, palaces, mosques…and structures of almost every kind…Many of the tombs were…miniature Grecian temples; while others resembled French, or Spanish edifices, like those found in "Old Castile".

Such imagery recalls the great vedute tradition of eighteenth century artists such as Piranesi and the interest in ecclectic architectural assemblage in the follies and monuments of English and French picturesque garden landscape design. This taste for architectural assemblage and scenographic spectacle found an audience in the popular entertainment of the panorama, diorama, and cycloramas, and at midways of the many international expositions and fairs. However it was the real density, eclecticism, and picturesque vistas which gave the New Orleans’ cemeteries their public and exotic appeal, judging from the many articles and images appearing in popular nineteenth century national serial publications. These sites along with the French Quarter's archaic Creole houses, streetscapes and denizens were also recorded by local photographer George François Mugnier. His composed panoramic bird’s-eye views and claustrophobic vistas of tombscapes made for the tourist market during the 1880s and 90s, confirm this fascination with the cemetery as a miniature city of the dead.

By 1895 St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the city’s first extramural cemetery was closed to new tomb interments, 106 years after its inception and guidebooks began to describe it as "…fast falling into ruin and decay". As a result, one of the city's first preservation efforts was begun around 1923 through the formation of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Tombs. Organized by concerned citizens and led by Grace King, noted southern author and historian, the group began a project to survey and restore significant tombs in an effort to create a landscape of local genealogy.

Opening quote: Sir Charles Lyell, A second visit to the United States of North America. Vol II, New York: Harper and Bros, 1849, 96.

Text adapted from Frank G. Matero, Dead Space: Defining the New Orleans' Creole Cemetery, Exhibit at Graduate School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania, April 2002.