... it is of little consequence whether ones carcase [sic] is prey to crayfish on land or the catfish in the Mississipi. I believe in either case of burial a body is speedily devoured and transmigrated in crayfish or catfish, dressed by a French cook and feasted on by a greasy Monk. Mon Dieu, quelle sort! Give my bones terra firma I pray. John Pintard, 1801

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 - Always a Tourist Attraction

The above ground cemeteries of New Orleans have long been a source of awe and inspiration to the visitor and tourist. Travelers' accounts dating from the earliest years of the nineteenth century, and continuing through to the present day, reference these "cities of the dead" as curiosities not to be missed on a visit to New Orleans. Most of the early travel journals that reference New Orleans were written by visitors from the Northeast, where church graveyards were the norm and where the rural cemeteries first developed in the 1830s. They were most comfortable with the rural cemetery, or a garden of graves. When confronted with the watery graves in early New Orleans, and the later Necropolis, or architectural 'city of the dead' model, they commented with fascination, puzzlement and sometime, revulsion.

When John Pintard visited the cemetery in 1801, he described a landscape that is very different from the current image of the cemetery, and one that probably contained more in ground than above ground burials. There still remain several good examples there of the low step tombs that Pintard describes.1

In 1818, Benjamin Latrobe described a cemetery that contained stucco covered brick tombs, as well as wall vaults. He sketched 4 platform tombs in his journal, and a wall vault 3 tiers high.2

The Catholic tombs are of a very different Character from those of our Eastern and Northern cities. They are of bricks, much larger than necessary to enclose a single coffin, and plaistered over, so as to have a very solid and permanent appearance.

Benjamin Latrobe's youngest son John H. B. Latrobe painted a watercolor that gives us a clear image of St. Louis 1 Cemetery in 1834. The pyramidal Varney tomb is prominent and there are step and platform tombs illustrated in pastel colors, as opposed the landscape of white tombs we find today. Multiple burial tombs, open space, wall vaults, and ships in the canal beyond are documented.3

Cyril Thornton, writing in 1834 in Men and Manners found the whole idea of a watery grave very repugnant during his visit to the cemetery. The lurking pools of water and visible crayfish must have made more of an impression on him than did the above ground tombs, as his comments reflect:4

One acquires from habit a sort of lurking prejudice in favour of being buried in dry ground, which is called into full action by a sight of this New Orleans cemetery. The space cannot penetrate even a few inches below the surface, without finding water.

By the travel accounts of many in the 1840s and 1850s, the beauty of the above ground tombs of St. Louis 1 and 2 are better appreciated and the concern of in-ground watery graves has ceased to be mentioned. It is during this time that the well-read traveler is aware of cemetery advances in Paris at Père Lachaise, established in 1804 and the rural cemeteries such as Mt. Auburn (1831) in Massachusetts or Greenwood (1835) in Brooklyn, NY. It is also by the mid 1830s that the marble clad tombs designed by dePouilly are commissioned by societies and prominent families for tombs in St. Louis 1 and 2.5

1. David Lee Sterling, "New Orleans, 1801: An Account by John Pintard," Louisiana Historical Quarterly Vol 34 no 3 (July 1951): 230. John Pintard wrote a series of articles published in the Daily Advertiser from April 15 to May 22, 1802, while an editor of that paper in New York City. The original manuscript is held by the New York Historical Society. Back

2. Benjamin Latrobe, March 8th 1819. Latrobe's Journals have been published by two sources. Impressions Respecting New Orleans Diary & Sketches 1818-1820, Edited with introduction and notes by Samuel Wilson, Jr. 1951. p 82. The Journals of Benjamin Henry Latrobe 1799-1820 From Philadelphia to New Orleans, ed. Edward C. Carter II, John C. Van Horne, and Lee W. Formwalt, Samuel Wilson, Jr. Consulting Ed. 1980, p. 241. Back

3. John H.B. Latrobe, "St. Louis Cemetery No. 1," 1834, Watercolor sketch. Image was reproduced for the cover of The St. Louis Cemeteries of New Orleans, October, 1998, published by St. Louis Cathedral. The original artwork was owned Mrs. Ferdinand Claiborne Latrobe, II, of Baltimore. Back

4. Cyril Thornton, Men and Manners in America, 2nd ed. vol. II (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1834), 215. Back

5. Ann M. Masson, “Père La Chaise and New Orleans Cemeteries.” The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South 31, no. 2 (Winter 1993) 82-97. Back