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Societe de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Jefferson et Nouvelle Orléans, Part One: A Story of Sepulchers

6/5/2016

Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Ville de Jefferson tomb (1872), Lafayette Cemetery No. 2. Photo by Emily Ford.

Recently, Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation, LLC transcribed the burial records of the tomb of the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Jefferson, located in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2, thanks in part to a grant from genealogist Megan Smolenyak. The Society was absorbed by the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans in 1900.

Through this research and through extended investigation into the history of the society, its members, predecessors, and descendants, a rich portrait of the life of French-speakers in nineteenth- and twentieth-century New Orleans emerged. Today, we share the history of that society and its many milestones, members, and tombs.

View of New Orleans from the Mississippi River, 1839, by S. Pinistri (Library of Congress)

ARTICLE I: The association aims to improve physical, moral, and political fitness of its members; to lend each other assistance and relief in misery; to promote each other’s wellbeing, by council and by example; to collectively inspire the rights and freedoms of the home in all countries, and the practice of the duties, which alone can make them worthy; these are the primary obligations as members define them. – from the original constitution of the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans, 1843 (translated from French).[1]

The First French Benevolent Society in New Orleans
On March 14, 1843, after four years of preliminary incorporation, the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans (French Benevolent and Mutual Aid Society of New Orleans) was formally established with twenty-seven members. In its own words, the society formed as a result of increasing Americanization of the French colonial city after the Louisiana Purchase and into the Antebellum Era. The Sociètè Française was the first of many organizations in New Orleans with the aim of preserving French language and identity among its members.

The Sociètè in New Orleans crafted their organization in the image of fraternal and masonic organizations in France, exemplified by the Grand Orient de France.[2] Similar values were emphasized: brotherhood, charity, social solidarity, and citizenship. The French model of freemasonry also emphasized laicity, or secularism.

Among the founding members of the Sociètè in 1843 was a man who himself embodied the political nature of French freemasonry. Pierre Soulé (1801 – 1870) a French native and revolutionary who settled in New Orleans in the 1830s, shaped the early goals and tone of the Sociètè. However, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1847 and thus truncated his involvement. In this year, the Sociètè merged with the French Consulate.

Minute books and histories of the Sociètè suggest that after Soulé’s departure, the political aims of the organization were abbreviated in favor of a charitable and social mission.[3] The Sociètè would come to be known for many things – its Bastille Day celebrations, its protection of the French language, its role as the French consulate for some time – but it was likely best known for its Hospital, which was an institution for over a century.

Tomb of Pierre Soulé, St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Photo by Emily Ford.

French Hospital
In the same year as the Sociètè’s founding, a French visitor to New Orleans donated thirty thousand bricks for the construction of a place in which the members could gather. The material was used to build the first French Hospital on Bayou Road near North Robertson Street, described by historians as “a center-hall, gable-sided, double galleried residence.[4]” The hospital, or Asile de la Société Française, cared for Sociètè members and their families. From 1847 to the early 1860s, the organization weathered multiple yellow fever epidemics in which as much as half of the membership was hospitalized.[5]

In the early 1860s, the Hospital moved to St. Ann Street, a property donated by then-President Olivier Blineau. Blineau died shortly thereafter and was given the posthumous title of “Father of the French Society.”

Originally meant only for society members, French Hospital was opened to all sailors of the French fleet in November 1862, in the event that an illness may require a stay on land.[6] With few exceptions, the Hospital was expressly for the use of members, their families, and those sponsored by members until 1913.

In 1913, French Hospital expanded under the decision that “it was finally decided to build a clinic to treat strangers.[7]” Over the next thirty years, the Hospital would include a maternity ward, modern X-ray machines, and operation rooms. The original 1913 building became a well-known edifice on Orleans Street near Claiborne Avenue.[8]

French Hospital, Orleans Avenue, 1937. Photograph by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) (Library of Congress)

Tombs and Burial Benefits
Throughout New Orleans history, it was common for societies to form around commonalities of nationality, profession, or background. Most societies would provide benefits similar to those provided by fraternal orders or by modern-day insurance companies. Among these benefits was frequently the option of burial in a society tomb, as well as funereal benefits for survivors.

The Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans spared little time in establishing a society tomb for itself. On March 14, 1850, the Sociètè acquired a large lot in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on Basin Street with the financial aid of the French Consul, M’r Roger. By August of the next year, the first stone of the tomb was laid at a formal ceremony. Beneath this stone, Sociètè officers laid a lead box, in which a copy of the organization’s Constitution, and parchment containing “the names of the President, members of the Consulate, and all members of the society” were placed.[9]

The Classically-inspired tomb with an intricate sarcophagus at its apex was completed in the following years. In the early 1850s, the size of the tomb would have overwhelmed the landscape of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. The similarly-imposing Italian Benevolent Society tomb would not be built until 1857. The cross-gable roof of the tomb supported four cast-iron lamps (now missing), in addition to its large sarcophagus, giving it the appearance of a temple. Each corner of the tomb featured an upright torch fashioned of cast plaster. In historic photographs of the tomb, these torches were painted black.[10]

Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, 1890. Photo by Detroit Publishing Company (Library of Congress)

In 1853 and 1856, President Blineau donated two additional lots in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 to the Sociètè. Either one of these donations may have been for the purpose of building an addition to the tomb. As is visible in the 1895 Library of Congress photograph, a smaller structure was built to adjoin the original tomb, comprised of fifteen vaults. This expanded the Sociètè’s burial capacity to seventy vaults, all of which could be reused over time.[11]

Possibly as a result of a yellow fever epidemic in that year, rumors flew in 1867 that St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 would be permanently closed. In response, the directors of the Sociètè organized a picnic fundraiser to construct a new tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. The nearly $1,000 raised was utilized for the purchase of a lot, which was donated to the Sociètè.

Mentions in Sociètè records as well as newspaper resources suggest that a society tomb was in fact built in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 for the use of the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans. However, no tomb today bears the society name.

Aisle in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3. Photo by Emily Ford.

The Sociètè maintained and repaired their tombs regularly, as was (and is) necessary with New Orleans tomb structures. In 1897 alone, the organization set aside nearly $500 por le fonds du Tombeau.[12] Regular limewashing, painting of plaster elements, cleaning of lamps and urns, and filling inscriptions with copper-based paint were annual expenses that contributed to the well-kept, beautiful structure seen in the 1895 Library of Congress photograph above.

Funeral expenses were also part of member benefits. In an 1897 annual report, the Sociètè outlined these benefits specifically, including:

For adult burials: Imitation walnut or rosewood coffin, a hearse, and two first-class carriages.
For teenagers: A white coffin, a white hearse, and one carriage.
Obituary listings in the newspaper for members and widows of members.

A Sister Society in Jefferson
As the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans flourished through the 1850s and 1860s, an additional population of French-speaking people in what was then the City of Jefferson organized their own benevolent society.

In the 1850s, the City of New Orleans was much smaller, and bounded on its upriver side by the Faubourg St. Mary and, farther upriver, the City of Lafayette. Over the course of the nineteenth century, New Orleans successively incorporated these municipalities into itself, creating the modern landscape of the city.

1851 Birds-Eye view of New Orleans (detail), showing Uptown districts, including then-Jefferson City, Tchoupitoulas Street at the River, and St. Mary's Market. Painting by John Bachmann (Library of Congress).

Between modern-day Toledano and Joseph Streets, and bounded on the downriver side by the former City of Lafayette, the City of Jefferson was incorporated in 1850. Comprised of the Faubourgs Plaisance, Delassize, Bouligny, and others, the city would only remain independent for twenty years before being incorporated into the larger City of New Orleans.[13] It was here that the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Jefferson formed in 1868.

The French speakers who lived Jefferson Parish and formed the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Jefferson were in many ways similar to their counterparts in New Orleans proper. In fact, in many cases they were related. Members of the Tujague and Carerre families joined and served as officers in both societies. Members of each group were often natives of the same departments in France, primarily the Pyrenees and Gers. Many had family in St. Bernard Parish as well as Orleans and Jefferson.[14]

The Jefferson Sociètè was comprised of men who lived with their families “near the slaughterhouses,” or who lived on Tchoupitoulas, or near the St. Mary’s Market. They collaborated with and shared members with the Sociètè de Bienfaisance des Bouchers (the Butcher’s Society) who in 1873 brought the famous Slaughterhouse Case to the Supreme Court. A number of Jefferson Sociètè members were buried in the Butcher’s tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2.

Interior of the Butchers' Benevolent Society tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, September 2014. Photograph by Emily Ford.

The Jefferson Sociètè built its large, Classically-inspired, forty-vault tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2 around 1872. The tomb is of extraordinary height, particularly in the landscape of this cemetery. Its primary gable pediment was carved with the name of the society, which once read “Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Ville de Jefferson,” although the “de la Ville de Jefferson” portion of the inscription appears to have been chiseled away after 1900. Below the pediment are stucco dentils, and on each side are cast-iron florets which likely cover structural tie-rods.

Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Ville de Jefferson tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, May 2016. Photo by Emily Ford.

Evidence of terra-cotta pigmented finish on tomb wall.

French Society of Jefferson tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 2, oblique view. Photos by Emily Ford.

Evidence of blue-pigmented finish on now-empty sculptural niche.

The tomb has a number of unique additional features. On each side of its primary façade are niches which were once painted a brilliant Prussian blue, a historic pigment made with iron oxide. In each of these niches were marble statues of kneeling women, one of which had her hands raised in prayer, the other’s hands were crossed on her chest. Both of these statues were stolen between the 1950s and 1980s.

The tombs gable-roof side projections hold most of its burial vaults, each enclosed in marble tablets and divided by slate slabs. All tablets of this tomb are uninscribed, leaving the names of those buried within to mystery until the recent transcription of burial books – which revealed the names of at least 150 people buried in this tomb between 1872 and 1900.

The Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Jefferson participated in the celebrations of a number of French societies in the city. In addition to the New Orleans Sociètè, the Jefferson Sociètè was frequently documented in relationship with the Fourteenth of July Society and the Children of France.

1900: Merging of the Societies
By 1896, at its twenty-seventh anniversary, the Jefferson Sociètè had “fifty or sixty” members – a roster that the Daily Picayune regarded as “not quite so large a membership now as at other times in its history.”[15] Officers from the Butcher’s Society and the New Orleans Sociètè, the French Orpheon, and the Fourteenth of July Society raised glasses of wine to the Jefferson officers B. Tujague, O.M. Redon, F. Desschautreaux, T. Abadie, and M. Despaux – most of whom would eventually be buried in the Lafayette Cemetery No. 2 society tomb.

It was only four years later that the dwindling numbers of the Jefferson Sociètè merged with their older counterparts at the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans. The merger was completed on January 3, 1901, which records report “brought 41 new members to the society. It also brought to the Society a tomb of forty vaults, nearly new, located in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2.”[16]

The New Orleans Sociètè had merged with other organizations before, beginning with the French Consulate in 1847. In 1895, they also absorbed the Philanthropic Culinary Society of New Orleans, who brought with them an additional burial place: a five-vault tomb located in St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery on Louisa Street.[17]

A Centennial Celebration and Gradual Decline
While the New Orleans Sociètè had gained the members of its Jefferson counterpart, its own members were dwindling. This was the case for many benevolent societies in New Orleans after the 1930s. As the need for private hospitals waned, so did French Hospital. In the case of other societies who supported other causes such as orphanages or schools, the need for their ministries decreased with the rise of social services. As insurance corporations developed, private societies no longer fulfilled a necessity. For the French society, decreased interest in the French language likely took a toll, as the New Orleans Sociètè operated exclusively in that language.

In 1943, the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans (and, by merger, de la Ville de Jefferson) celebrated its 100th Anniversary.[18] A celebration was held at the French Hospital at 1821 Orleans Avenue, with a dance to follow at the American Legion. The festivities appeared to hold true to the organization’s civic dedication. French leader Andre Lefargue addressed the crowd with patriotic notions of the French and Americans once again fighting in a war together. Appeals were made to the crowd to donate to the Red Cross for the war effort. Nine French cadets training at the New Orleans Naval Air Station were special guests of honor.[19]

Said society president Henry Bernissan at the centennial celebration, “the first 100 years of the society is merely the initial performance. We expect to improve our methods with every passing day.”[20]

Yet the Centennial pamphlet published by the society seemed to suggest a different prescience:

The current charter does not expire until the year 1972. Therefore, the Society has 29 years to run.

It is hoped that the majority of the current members celebrating our centennial will prosper alongside the society until the end of its charter.[21]

On October 31, 1949, only six years after its centennial, the closure of French Hospital on Orleans Avenue was announced.[22] The building was sold to the Knights of Peter Claver, an African-American Catholic Society, who utilized the building until the 1970s, when an adjacent structure was built. The French Hospital/Peter Claverie Building was demolished in 1986. The Knights of Peter Claver buiding remains on this site.

The exact year in which the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans formally disbanded is unclear. Unlike their various balls, benefits, picnics and celebrations, this milestone in the organization’s history was not published in newspapers. However, it does not appear as if the Sociètè survived to the end of its charter in 1972. In a 1972 newspaper article, a passing reference was made to the Sociètè, “which for many years maintained the old French hospital on Orleans Street. The French Society folded a number of years ago.”[23]

Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, present day. Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

A Legacy of Burial Places
Physical evidence of the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle is scant in the landscape of modern New Orleans – except for in the cemetery. Each day, hundreds of visitors pass the Sociètè Française tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Without its cast-iron lamps and jet-black torches, it fades into the cemetery scene a little more than it once did, but it remains.

For the more than 150 people buried in the Sociètè Française de Jefferson tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2, that memory is much more tenuous. A number of trees that began growing in the tomb roof in the 1940s were cut down only this year, leaving a structure in significant need of repair. The brilliant colors of the blue tomb niches, the contrast of its white walls against black slate, its green copper drain pipes, have all faded to flat greys and exposed brick. Without names on the tomb tablets, it has been difficult for families to realize their ancestors are buried within. Yet with this project it is our hope that new resources will supply stakeholders with important information with which to regrow a connection to this remarkable structure, which represents more than a century of French fellowship in New Orleans.

In our next blog post, we will share the lives of the people buried in this tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2.

The full burial rolls of interments into this tomb from 1872 to 1900 (up to the society’s merger with Sociètè Française d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans) have been uploaded to FindaGrave, in hopes their descendants may find them. The burial books are also available as an Excel Spreadsheet , MS Access Database, or PDF Document. Click here for burials listed by vault number.

[1] Abrege Historique de la Societe Francaise d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, c. 1903, Williams Research Center, Historic New Orleans Collection. This and nearly all documentation of the Jefferson and New Orleans societies are entirely written in French. All translations by Emily Ford, who is by her own admission not fluent in French. Difficult phrases are presented in their original French in [brackets].
[2] Founded in the 18th Century, the Grand Orient de France permitted female membership by 1773. Documents of the Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Nouvelle Orléans and of Jefferson suggest that neither society permitted female membership at any time.
[3] Centenaire: Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 1843-1943, published 1943 by the Sociètè, 9. Louisiana State University Special Collections, MSS 318, 1012.
[4] Roulhac Toledano, Mary Louise Christovich, and Robin Derbes, New Orleans Architecture: Faubourg Tremé and the Bayou Road (Gretna: Friends of the Cabildo, 2003), 82.
[5] Centenaire: Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 1843-1943, 19-21.
[6] Ibid., 21.
[7] Ibid., 39.
[8] “New French Hospital Dedicated Yesterday,” Times-Picayune, February 24, 1913, 13.
[9] Ibid., 15.
[10] Leonard Victor Huber, Peggy McDowell, Mary Louise Christovich, New Orleans Architecture, Vol. III: The Cemeteries (Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 2004), 9.
[11] Centenaire: Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 1843-1943, 19.
[12] “Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, Rapport annuel, 1897,” Williams Research Center, Historic New Orleans Collection.
[13] Richard Campanella, Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans (Lafayette: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2008), 290.
[14] From the records of Sociètè Française de Beinfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de Jefferson burial books, Louisiana State University Special Collections.
[15] “The Old Jefferson Society Celebrates its 27th Birthday,” Daily Picayune, November 16, 1896, 10.
[16] Centenaire: Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 1843-1943, 37.
[17] Ibid., 35.
[18] “French Unit Will Fete Centennial,” Times-Picayune, March 14, 1943, 11.
[19] “Society Marks Centennial Day,” Times Picayune, March 15, 1943, 25.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Centenaire: Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance et d’Assistance Mutuelle de la Nouvelle-Orleans, 1843-1943, 51.
[22] “25 years ago,” Times-Picayune, October 17, 1974, 19.
[23] Times Picayune, September 24, 1972, 6.

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The Legacy of Jewish Stonecutters in New Orleans: H. Lowenstein and Edwin I. Kursheedt

5/22/2016

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Tomb of the Minerva Benevolent Society, erected in 1885 by Kursheedt & Bienvenu. Photo by Emily Ford.

Adapted from Emily Ford, “The Stonecutters and Tomb Builders of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana,” Master’s Thesis, Clemson University, 2012.

Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, the New Orleans Jewish experience varied among individuals and families, from great successes to great defeats. For some, it was something one was born into: by mid-century, a number of families had developed deep roots in New Orleans commerce and culture. For men like Judah P. Benjamin and other merchants, lawyers, and factors, New Orleans was a place of opportunity among aristocrats and politicians. For others, however, New Orleans was a refuge, only slightly improved from the poverty and exclusion of the homeland from which they had fled. Among the Jews from Central and Eastern Europe who immigrated to New Orleans between 1840 and 1880, many found their new home to be wracked by destitution, disease, and an uncertain future. These immigrants formed their own communities, establishing a familiar cultural norm to ease their transition in the New World.[1]

Two New Orleans stonecutters exemplify this wide spectrum of experience. Edwin I. Kursheedt, part of an influential Jewish family, was successful not only professionally but personally. Committed to charity and military service, he inherited his business from his father and carried it into the twentieth century. Alternatively, the carved signature of H. Lowenstein is nearly all that remains of this stonecutter’s legacy. It is likely that his time in New Orleans was brief, cut short by disease, war, or the search for better opportunities.

Detail of closure tablet, Rodgers tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Signed H. Lowenstein. (Photo by Emily Ford)

H. Lowenstein: A Brief New Orleans Resident
Although H. Lowenstein’s name is found carved on ten tombs in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, his first name was never recorded in any census, directory, or tax record. Furthermore, his last name, a traditionally Ashkenazic (German Jewish) surname, was documented with a number of variations: often Loewenstein, Lewenstein, or Löwenstein.[2] These variations in records suggest that Lowenstein was likely not a native English speaker. He was active as a stonecutter between 1861 and 1869, a period when his contemporaries advertised regularly. Yet Lowenstein never advertised in English-language newspapers. A number of clues suggest, however, what his life and work in New Orleans were like.

The address of H. Lowenstein’s business is recorded in directories and on his signed tablets as 195 and 197 Washington Avenue, which corresponds to the historic marble yard and shop located across Washington Avenue from Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. During the years Lowenstein held business there, other stonecutters and sextons advertised at the address, namely James Hagan and Philip Harty. Lowenstein also advertised himself as an undertaker at this address. Lowenstein’s carving style bears a resemblance to that of other contemporary German stonecutters, namely the Anthony Barret and his sons Charles and Frederick. These artisans carved in the German Fraktur style, or black-letter, and employed similar imagery of oak and laurel wreaths that are not found among the work of non-German craftsmen in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.

Detail of closure tablet, Fridolin Hottinger tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Signed by H. Lowenstein. (Photo by Emily Ford)

These scant traces of Lowenstein in New Orleans indicate that he was likely a German-Jewish immigrant who served the community of the Fourth District, once part of the suburb of Lafayette. A number of German newspapers, including the Deutsche Zeitung and the Louisiana Straatszeitung, may have been the venue for his advertising. Considering he frequently carved closure tablets in German, it is likely that he aided more established craftsmen like Hagan and Harty with their business in the German immigrant community. Yet, after 1869, documentation of H. Lowenstein evaporates completely, suggesting that, like many other Jewish immigrants in the South, he may have moved elsewhere, or possibly died young in New Orleans.

French language tablet, likely carved in the 1860s. Signed by H. Loewenstein. St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Photo by Emily Ford.

Edwin I. Kursheedt: The Native Son
The ephemeral legacy of H. Lowenstein contrasts with the established prestige of another Jewish stonecutter, Edwin Israel Kursheedt. Born in 1838 in Kingston, Jamaica, his accomplishments in New Orleans followed those of other members of his family: Israel Baer Kursheedt, the New York rabbi who funded early Jewish business ventures in New Orleans, and Rabbi Kursheedt’s son, Gershom, who helped establish the city’s second synagogue, Dispersed of Judah.[3] Edwin I. Kursheedt was raised in New Orleans and, upon the outbreak of the Civil War, joined the Confederate cause as a member of the Washington Artillery, where he rose to the rank of Colonel. His service lasted the length of the war, marked by distinguished promotions for heroism at the battles of First Manassas (Bull Run), Gettysburg, Sharpsburg, and others.[4]

Shortly after his return to New Orleans, Kursheedt entered into business with his father, who had been a merchant of stonework since at least 1857.[5] The business was operated jointly with their partner, J.G. Bienvenu, who also worked as a notary public in New Orleans.

Edwin I. Kursheedt (1838-1906). From Isrealites of Louisiana by William E. Myers (1905). Image courtesy Tulane Louisiana Research Collection.

The business of Kursheedt & Bienvenu was among the most successful and prominent merchants of not only cemetery stonework and tombs but also hardware, commercial stonework, mantels, grates, and other items. By the 1880s, they owned not only a large show room on Camp Street but also a marble yard next door, at which at least thirty men were employed.

When the historic capitol building at Baton Rouge was restored in 1880, Kursheedt & Bienvenu won the contract for all stonework performed.[6] This contract was won despite the protests of James Hagan, then a Louisiana state senator, who owned a competing marble company. Around this same time, Kursheedt also relocated the monument of Governor Henry Watkins Allen to the Old State Capitol – a monument that Hagan originally erected in 1872. While no evidence directly suggests this, both events surely stuck in Hagan’s craw. 1887, Kursheedt’s business was the first of its industry in New Orleans to advertise a telephone number.[7]

Monument to the Grand Army of the Republic, Chalmette National Cemetery. Erected by Kursheedt & Bienvenu.

Monument to William Sahlman, a volunteer nurse who died in Plaquemine during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. Carved by Kursheedt & Bienvenu. Photo by Emily Ford.

Memorial tablet to three children who died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Tablet signed by Kursheedt & Bienvenu.

Much of Kursheedt & Bienvenu’s signed work can be found in Jewish cemeteries in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Plaquemine, among other Louisiana towns. Within Jewish cemeteries, this work consists of headstones, as Jewish tradition prohibits above-ground burial. Yet Kursheedt & Bienvenu served clients of all religions and traditions. Among their most visible commissioned works is the Sercy tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Marked by a stone sarcophagus and located near the Washington Avenue cemetery gate, it is most notable for its epitaph: “Died of Yellow Fever,” a relic of the 1878 epidemic.

J.G. Bienvenu left the business after 1888, and Edwin Kursheedt operated Kursheedt’s Marble Works until 1901.[8] Throughout these years, he served on various boards for Jewish Charities, including Touro Infirmary, the Hebrew Benevolent Association, and the Jewish Widows and Orphans Home.[9] He died in on February 21, 1906, at the age of sixty-seven, a veteran, merchant, benefactor, husband and father. He is buried in Dispersed of Judah Cemetery on Canal Street.

It is unclear where or when H. Lowenstein died. The only tenuous hint points to an obituary published in the New Orleans Daily Picayune November 3, 1896, reporting the death of Henry Lowenstein, who died at the age of fifty-six in Cincinnati, Ohio. That a New Orleans newspaper reported his death suggests he once lived in the city, and may have been a young stonecarver on Washington Street in 1861, but no definitive documentation can support this possibility.[10] So these two artisans whose work is marked in New Orleans cemeteries died as they lived: one documented and memorialized, one lost in historic thin air, as were many immigrants who came and went from the Crescent City in the nineteenth century.

Above: Burial site of Caspar Henry Lowenstein, died 1867, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. It is unclear whether this is the same stonecutter Lowenstein. Left: Burial place of Edwin Kursheedt, Dispersed of Judah Cemetery.

[1] Bobbie Malone, “New Orleans Uptown Jewish Immigrants: The Community of Congregation Gates of Prayer,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 32, No. 3, Summer 1991, 239-287; Ellen C. Merrill, Germans of Louisiana (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2005), 225, 236.
[2] The signature “Löwenstein” can be found on the Fridolin Hottinger tomb, Quadrant 2, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1; Gardner’s New Orleans Directory for 1861 (New Orleans: Charles Gardner, 1861), 282; Gardner’s New Orleans Directory for 1866 (New Orleans: True Delta Book and Job Office, 1866), 279; Gardner’s New Orleans Directory for 1869 (New Orleans: Southern Publishing Company, 1868), 399.
[3] Bertram Wallace Korn, The Early Jews of New Orleans (American Jewish Historical Society: 1969), 247-249; “Mr. Israel Baer Kursheedt,” The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, Vol. X, No. 3, June 1852, 1.
[4] Robert N. Rosen, The Jewish Confederates (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), 111-116.
[5] Andrew Morrison, The industries of New Orleans: her rank, resources, advantages, trade, commerce and manufactures, conditions of the past, present and future, representative industrial institutions, etc. (New Orleans: J.M. Elstner & Co., 1885), 144.
[6] Louisiana Capitolian (Baton Rouge, LA), August 21, 1880, 5; “The Other Side: The Report Adopted by the State-House Commission Respecting the Work Done,” Louisiana Capitolian (Baton Rouge, LA), August 28, 1880.
[7] Soards’ New Orleans City Directory for 1887 (New Orleans: L. Soards & Co. Publishers, 1887), 513.
[8] Soards’ New Orleans City Directory for 1889 (New Orleans: L. Soards, Publisher, 1889), 532; Soards’ New Orleans City Directory, for 1901, Vol XXVIII (New Orleans: Soards Directory Co., Ltd., Publishers, 1901), 501.
[9] W.E. Myers, The Israelites of Louisiana: Their Religious, Civic, Charitable and Patriotic Life (New Orleans: W.E. Myers, 1904), 103.
[10] Daily Picayune, November 3, 1896, 4. See also, Emily Ford and Barry Stiefel, The Jews of New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta: A History of Life and Community Along the Bayou (History Press, 2012).

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Building an Historic Landscape: Sextons of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, 1833-1945

5/8/2016

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Washington Avenue aisle, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, 1999. Photo by Mark Ford.

Adapted from Emily Ford, “The Stonecutters and Tomb Builders of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana,” Master’s Thesis, Clemson University, 2013. Full text here: http://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/1613/

The history of sextonship in New Orleans is as old as the city’s cemeteries. The origin of the cemetery sexton derived from European tradition, in which the sexton would care not only for the graveyard surrounding a church sanctuary, but also for the church itself. In New Orleans, the first sextons likely were part of a lay ministry, employed by the Catholic Church to care for St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and, later Saint Louis No. 2.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, however, was not administered by the Church or any other religious group. Instead, it was established in 1833 by the municipality of Lafayette, a suburb of New Orleans. Translating from the ecclesiastical to the secular sphere, the City of Lafayette employed a sexton to care for the cemetery at Washington Avenue and Prytania Street.

From the cemetery’s founding into the 1950s, at least twenty-two individuals served as sexton of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Many were stonecutters and tomb builders, some were additionally undertakers, politicians, and masons. They cared for the cemetery in times of epidemic, vandalism, and population shifts. Through their stewardship, the landscape of the cemetery was formed.

Aisle in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 at dawn. Photo by Emily Ford.

Phil Harty and the First Sextons of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1
Up to and after the City of Lafayette was incorporated into the City of New Orleans in 1852, the role of the sexton was to perform and record interments, submit interment records to the city council, and maintain the cemetery grounds. It was also his responsibility to enforce the ordinances of the city and state regarding interments and sanitary conditions.[1] These laws included the collection of a certificate of burial (presented by a physician or coroner to the deceased’s family), ensuring the deceased was properly placed in a coffin, and construction regulations regarding tombs. Failure to perform these duties resulted in punishment from City Council.[2]

Sextons were additionally paid a fee for each interment based on the deceased’s status as colored or white, child or adult, and whether the interment was to be an act of charity. In the nineteenth century, these fees varied from 50 cents to $1.50, with a $3.00 charge for the opening and closing of tombs and vaults, to be paid by the owner.[3]

The first sexton of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was most likely B.S. Quinman, who served from 1832 to 1844.[4] After Quinman, H.G. Hicks served briefly in the position. While many sextons constructed tombs in Lafayette No. 1, no structure or tablet in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 bears either man’s signature. Their successor, however, seems to have made more of an impact on the cemetery.

Tomb of Phil Harty, near Sixth Street gate, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Photo by Emily Ford.

A. Thomas tomb, built by Phil Harty. Photo by Emily Ford.

Philip Harty, mostly referred to in documentation as Phil Harty, served as Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 sexton from 1855 to 1861. [5] Only one of his signed works survive amidst the rows and aisles of tombs: the tomb of A. Thomas, located near the rear gate.[6] He lived at 197 Washington Street, across from the main gate of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. This address was utilized by numerous sextons and stonecutters throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Today, the lot is listed as 1427 Washington Avenue. The building is currently utilized as the administrative offices for Commander’s Palace restaurant.

Phil Harty died August 14, 1861. His obituary, describing his death as “sudden,” states that Harty was well-known as a sexton and a “hearty, merry fellow up to the very hour of his death. Thousands he has introduced to the narrow house, and now he has gone himself, with scarcely a moment’s warning.”[7]

D.F. Simpson, a local stonecutter, followed Harty as sexton of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, from 1863 to 1868. He was also a stonecutter and tomb builder – his office was located on Race Street.[8] Examples of his work remain in the cemetery today, including the Stearns tomb and at least three constructed while Simpson was in business with later sexton J. Frederick Birchmeier.

Following D.F. Simpson were James Hagan (1830-1908, sexton 1865-1867), and Joseph F. Callico (sexton 1867-1875).[9] James Hagan served as state senator representing Orleans Parish from 1880 to 1884. Based on remaining signed tombs and closure tablets, J.F. Callico was one of the most prolific stonecutters among the sextons of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1: today, nearly thirty tablets in the cemetery bear his signature.

Above: Stearns tomb, signed by Birchmeier & Simpson. Left: James Hagan tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Photos by Emily Ford.

1865 – 1900: A Thriving Craft Community
The late 1870s were unusual for the stewards of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in that no one individual served for more than a few years. As had occurred in previous years, especially 1853, yellow fever epidemics were particularly difficult times for sextons. It is possible, then, that the 1878 epidemic, the marks of which are still very visible on the tombs and tablets of Lafayette No. 1, caused an upset in the administration of the cemetery.

In quick succession, Dennis Irvin, Cornelius Donovan, John Barret and Patrick Gallagher served as sextons from 1876 to 1880. Patrick Gallagher likely left his office due to accusations against him that he attempted blackmail on an unnamed person.[10] After these men, J. Frederick Birchmeier, a stonecutter who had been active in Lafayette No. 1 for decades, became sexton.[11]

J. Frederick Birchmeier advertisement, from Soards 1874 New Orleans Directory. Image: Tulane University Louisiana Research Collection.

All cemetery sextons sold tombs and lots to city purchasers. D.F. Simpson sold a tomb for one thousand dollars to a Mrs. Klarr in 1868.[12] Hagan and Callico certainly engaged in this practice, as well. However, J. Frederick Birchmeier did a very brisk business in tomb construction and sale. Moreover, he is the first sexton to be documented as having engaged in the practice of declaring tombs abandoned, clearing the lot, and re-selling the lot to a new client. He turned these lots for profit on a number of occasions. For example, Birchmeier renovated a tomb and removed its remains in 1879 and later sold the same tomb to the widow Paul. The Paul tomb is located in Quadrant Two, along the Coliseum Street wall.[12]

The turn of the twentieth century brought to Lafayette No. 1 a close-knit community of stonecutters and tomb builders, many of whom served as sextons. After J. Frederick Birchmeier retired, his colleague Hugh J. McDonald (1853-1895, sexton 1886-1895) took over stewardship of the cemetery. After McDonald’s death, stonecutter Charles Badger succeeded him. Badger was also the husband of Birchmeier’s daughter, Margaret.[14] Both Badger and McDonald were close colleagues of Gottlieb Huber, who was sexton from 1902 to 1915. The legacy of this community would continue for the next thirty years through another young protégée of these men.

Receipt from Gottlieb Huber for work in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, signed by Henry Alfortish. Image courtesy Alfortish Marble and Granite Company.

1900 – 1945: The Alfortishes
In 1911, Henry Alfortish became assistant to Gottlieb Huber at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Alfortish also worked with Huber privately, and would absorb Huber’s business after his death in 1926.[15] The influence of Alfortish and, later, his son Edward, would greatly change the cemetery. In the 1920s, Alfortish declared numerous lots abandoned and “open for sale.” He sold these lots and tombs to new clients and, additionally, provided replacement deeds for families who had lost their tomb ownership documents. It was also under the sextonship of Henry Alfortish that the wall vaults once located along Sixth Street were cleared and demolished. Numerous coping tombs located along this wall today bear Alfortish’s signature.[16]

Edward Alfortish assumed sextonship of Lafayette No. 1 in 1942. However, the role of sexton was no longer seen as relevant in the city-owned cemetery. Few burials were made compared to the heyday of Lafayette No. 1, and many of the responsibilities of sexton could be carried out by other city officials. By around 1950, no individual would serve as sexton of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 again.

The caretakers of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, from 1833 to 1950, built the cemetery as it is seen today. They designed and constructed its tombs, removed and replaced landscape features, fostered its dead and their families, and protected the cemetery from harm. Their names are placed alongside the names of Lafayette No. 1’s most famous residents, in the form of carved signatures at the bases of closure tablets and headstones. The story of this National Historic Landmark cemetery is very much their story.

Top: Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, 1904, from the Times-Picayune 1904 Guide to New Orleans. Bottom: Same view, 2016.

[1] “Ordinance Relating to Cemeteries and Interments,” Daily Creole, December 30, 1856, 4; State of Louisiana, The Revised Statutes of Louisiana (J. Claiborne, 1853), 386.
[2] “City Intelligence: Board of Health,” Daily Picayune, August 4, 1853, 1.
[3] Ibid.; Currency evaluation oriented around historic standards of living, these costs equate to approximately $20-$40 per interment and $81 (2011 dollars) for the opening/closing of a tomb or vault. (www.measuringworth.com)
[4] Louisiana State Board of Health, Biennial Report of the Louisiana State Board of Health, 1883-84 (Baton Rouge: Leon Jastremski, 1884), 40.
[5] Daily Picayune, February 15, 1855, 6; Mygatt & Co.’s Directory for New Orleans, 1857, W.H. Rainey Compiler. L. Pessou & B. Simon Lithographers, 23 Royal Street, New Orleans, 1857, 49; Gardner’s New Orleans Directory for the Year 1859 (New Orleans: Bulletin Book and Job Printing Establishment, 1858), 377; Gardner’s New Orleans Directory for 1860 (New Orleans: Bulletin Book and Job Printing Establishment, 1859), xvi.
[6] Based on a 2012 survey of all signed craftwork in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. The Isaac Bogart tomb, located in Quadrant Three of Lafayette No. 1, is documented in the 1981 Save Our Cemeteries/Historic New Orleans Collection Survey of Historic Cemeteries as having a tablet signed by Phil Harty. The tablet has since been lost.
[7] “Sudden Death,” Daily True Delta, August 15, 1861, 3.
[8] Daily Picayune, November 18, 1866, 3.
[9] Based on directories and municipal documents.
[10] “An Official Suspended,” Daily Picayune, October 9, 1878, page 2.
[11] Soard’s New Orleans City Directory for 1880 (New Orleans: L. Soard’s Publishing Co., 1880), 456; Soard’s New Orleans City Directory for 1882 (New Orleans: L. Soards & Co. Publishing, 1882), 142; Soards’ New Orleans Directory for 1883 (New Orleans: L. Soards & Co. Publishing, 1883), 452.
[12] “A Singular Case,” Daily Picayune, June 14, 1868.
[13] Receipt from J. Frederick Birchmeier to the widow of John Paul, Historic New Orleans Collection, MSS 365.
[14] Daily Picayune, February 8, 1891, 1.
[15] Times-Picayune, January 20, 1926, 2.
[16] Receipts for lots Quadrant Three, Lots 16 and 17, Quadrant 1, Lots 270-275, the Moulin, Gonea, Legien, and Bittenbring tombs. Sexton’s book, page 127. Historic New Orleans Collection, Leonard Victor Huber Collection, MSS 365.

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What th' Stone Age Boys Would Think: Albert Weiblen, 1857-1957

5/1/2016

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from "Club Men of Louisiana in Caracature, 1917," by William Kevil Patrick. Image courtesy Tulane University Louisiana Research Collection.

On May 1, 1957, and only a few months shy of his 100th birthday, Albert Weiblen passed away in New Orleans.

In his lifetime, Albert Weiblen was a revolutionary figure in New Orleans cemetery architecture. Under his carving hand, the craft of tomb building would expand from a hyper-local, individual cottage profession into a modern industry – spanning the eastern United States and powerfully altering the landscape of New Orleans cemeteries.

A German Immigrant in New Orleans
Albert Weiblen was born in 1857 in Metzingen, Wurttemberg, Germany. Sources suggest that he began his work as a sculptor in his homeland, apprenticing in the manner that was traditional for the time.[1]

Weiblen immigrated to the United States in 1883 and soon afterward began work with local marble company Kursheedt and Bienvenu. Operational from 1867 to 1901, the company was co-owned by Edwin I. Kursheedt, a prolific stonecutter in his own right who, in addition to work in New Orleans’ Jewish cemeteries and other cemetery stonework, supplied the stone for the reconstruction of the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge in the late 1880s.[2]

At this time, New Orleans’ cemetery stonecutting industry was already changing. The florid, individualized Classical-revival tombs popular from the 1840s through the 1860s had given way not only to new styles inspired by Gothic and Italianate revival aesthetics, but also to economies of scale. The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878 galvanized this trend. In this year, the construction of tombs shifted more to “cookie cutter” and slightly simplified styles, replicated by numerous carvers and builders.[3]

Examples of identical tombs built 1880 - 1900 in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 and 2. Photographs by Emily Ford.

Weiblen stepped into the cemetery craft scene in New Orleans at a time when this streamlining of tomb construction was in its infancy. New industrial technology, such as saws and machinery to cut granite and marble, new types of stronger hydraulic cements, and stonecutting technology powered by pneumatic chisels and even sandblasting, had been adopted elsewhere in the country, but were a long way off from making their debut in New Orleans cemeteries.[4] When these new tools and methods did arrive, though, it was often Weiblen who spearheaded their use.

In 1887, Weiblen left Kursheedt & Bienvenu’s and started his own marble and granite company.[5]
His first office and show room was located at 233 Baronne Street, a location he expanded by 1893.[6]

Weiblen’s big break came in 1891 when his company won the contract to construct the memorial obelisk to New Orleans Superintendent of Police David Hennessy. Hennessy was murdered on October 15, 1890, an event which sparked riots in New Orleans and led to the lynching of eleven Italian-Americans. The contest had been open to many New Orleans monument men, including Charles A. Orleans, the city’s prominent monument builder at the time.[7] The monument was described by national trade periodical Stone magazine as “one of the handsomest monuments in New Orleans”:

The monument is of Holloway granite, 26 feet high, and stands on a mound four feet high. The base of the shaft is seven feet six inches square. The die [inscribed section above the base] is highly polished. On the side facing the main avenue appears the coat of arms of Louisiana…

The shaft is surmounted by a pall or mantle and a police belt and baton exquisitely sculptured. Four beautiful marble vases, three feet high, re placed one at each corner of the mound, a gift of Ex-Mayor Shakspeare.[8]

A Rising Star Rides the Rails
By 1900, Weiblen owned a steam-powered manufacturing shop on City Park Avenue, where it crossed beneath the Illinois Central Railroad. This location was significant because it took advantage of the improved infrastructure upon which the New Orleans monument industry increasingly relied.

Marble and granite from multiple sources, including Talladega (Alabama), Elberton (Georgia) and Barre (Vermont) could all be transported by rail directly to Weiblen’s shop for cutting and processing. In one single 1908 order, Weiblen ordered more than 100 rail cars of Georgia marble. He also looked overseas for materials, importing enormous quantities of Italian marble by steamship.[9]

Hennessy Monument, Metairie Cemetery, from Stone - An Illustrated Magazine, Vol. V (June - Nov. 1892)

From this location, Weiblen had a workshop complete with powerful equipment to cut, shape, polish, and engrave marble and granite slabs. At the turn of the century, Weiblen’s equipment was not only state of the art (the largest in the South), but was also one-of-a-kind in New Orleans, where technologies were relatively slow to catch on.[10] A skilled marketer and self-advertiser, Weiblen described this equipment in detail in his advertisements, spending nearly half of one circa 1900 advertising booklet explaining its advantages over “the old-time and very laborious manner of cutting by hand.”[11]

View of Weiblen's show room on Baronne Street, from Rock Products (trade magazine) Vol. VI, No. 3 (January, 1907).

That Weiblen frequently looked outside of New Orleans for materials and technologies made him, in general, a man of his time. By 1900, the monument industry in the United States was galvanizing as a national trade. Periodicals and trade magazines illustrating the newest and best quarries, saws, cutting methods, and others flourished. Even in New Orleans, Charles Orleans and others had begun to reach outward to peers in the east, newly accessible by infrastructure. Yet Weiblen certainly had a flare for this type of resourcefulness. In 1905, he recruited stonecutters directly from Barre, Vermont, for his shop in New Orleans.[12]

The stonecutting shop on City Park Avenue holds in itself a history as visible as any of Weiblen’s tombs. Expanded into the company’s primary sales office in 1907, by the 1920s Weiblen came into possession of five marble sculptures that were once part of the old New Orleans Cotton Exchange. Two of these sculptures, caryatids from the Exchange entranceway, were incorporated into the showroom entrance. The other three, representing Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture, were scrapped for their marble, fell victim to vandalism, or were used as road fill, respectively. The caryatids, however, remain in the Weiblen building, which now houses the Orleans Parish Communication District.[13]

detail of the old Cotton Exchange Building, 1903. Image: Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

City Park showroom entrance, taken after 1920. Weiblen Marble and Granite Company Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Present-day City Park Avenue building entrance. Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

The Quarry Man
In 1911, Albert Weiblen and his son George leased an interest in a quarry at Stone Mountain, Georgia, from the Venable Brothers company. This was one of a number of savvy moves by the elder Weiblen that helped him cut down his supply chain. By the 1930s, Weiblen would lease another quarry in Elberton, Georgia. His sons, George, Frederick, and John, would all live at the Georgia quarries.[14] In the 1920s, the Weiblens – specifically George and Frederick (who died in 1927) – would begin a long journey of involvement in the carving of the Confederate monument at Stone Mountain, which would not be completed until 1970, the year of George’s death.

At these quarries, Weiblen further expanded his infrastructural advantage. By 1936, Weiblen had constructed a full-service carving shop on-site at his Elberton quarry – complete with one of the largest air compressors in the country.[15] Paired with the rail spur he had also built, this permitted Weiblen Marble and Granite to streamline its orders directly from the source. In 1940, Weiblen moved all of his manufacturing operations to Elberton. From this point on, tombs, monuments, and other orders would be ordered from catalogs by customers in New Orleans, manufactured in Elberton, and sent direct by rail to Louisiana, ready for assembly.[16]

Georgia Marble tombs designed and erected by Albert Weiblen, Rock Products (trade magazine) Vol. VI, No. 3 (January, 1907).

This advantage also allowed Weiblen to flood the New Orleans market with the products of his quarries, directly transported by rail from their source. Between 1900 and 1940, Weiblen's activities bolstered a stylistic and material shift in New Orleans cemetery architecture. Granite was much more accessible than in the past, and led to new uses as facing and coping material. Georgia marble overtook other sources for new closure tablets, copings, tomb claddings, and other elements.

Ever on the marketing edge, Weiblen Marble and Granite even coined a new name for a specific type of Georgia marble, distinguished by sweeping gray and white color patterns: Georgia “Creole” marble (now called “solar gray”). Other burgeoning New Orleans suppliers took up the source, leading Creole marble to be found in large sections of cemeteries like Greenwood, Masonic, and Metairie. Weiblen also attached his name to the granite his company supplied, which is known even today in some circles as “Weiblen gray.”

The Bowen tomb in Metairie Cemetery is an excellent example of construction with Georgia Creole Marble. Photo by Emily Ford.

The Kissgen family tomb in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was refinished with granite-rubble facing, a retrofitting style popular in from 1900 - 1930.

A Cemetery Family
Weiblen’s success was passed on to his surviving sons, George and John. George Weiblen operated the Stone Mountain and Elberton interests until his death in 1970. John Weiblen, alternately, assumed his father’s mantle as president of Weiblen Marble and Granite, after Albert Weiblen’s retirement. It was at this time, between 1948 and 1951, that the family company assumed controlling interest in Metairie Cemetery Association. While the purchase of arguably the most prestigious cemetery in New Orleans would have been a grand accomplishment, it also coincided with a larger trend among New Orleans stonecutters in the 1940s.[17]

With the monument industry widening to a national scale, and paired with other factors surrounding cemetery management and use, the traditional model of the New Orleans stonecutter that once suited in the nineteenth century was no longer adequate after World War II. This trend was present across all New Orleans cemeteries.

In Protestant Girod Street Cemetery, the position of sexton (caretaker), historically held by a stonecutter, was eliminated. This was true also of City-owned cemeteries like Lafayette, Carrollton, Holt, and Valence, in which the position of sexton was eliminated and the management of cemeteries delegated to the City Department of Property Management. The role of the stonecutter, then, was no longer supported by specific cemeteries.[18]

Across New Orleans, it became more economically feasible for stonecutters and monument men to shift paradigms from being caretakers of cemeteries to owning the cemeteries outright. Sextons of the Lafayette Cemeteries for three generations, the Alfortish family moved to Gretna and opened Westlawn Cemetery. Victor Huber, monument dealer and caretaker of St. John Cemetery, assumed controlling interest of that burial ground and opened Hope Mausoleum. In 1951, the Stewart family purchased property adjoining Metairie Cemetery and opened Lake Lawn Park and Mausoleum.[19] In this sense, Weiblen’s shift from producer of Metairie’s monuments to owner of Metairie’s business was a natural one.

John Weiblen preceded his father in death in 1956, leaving his widow, Norma Merritt Weiblen, to manage Metairie Cemetery, which she did so until the property was purchased by Stewart Enterprises, Inc., in 1968.[20]

Passing the Torch
According to son George, on the morning of May 1, 1957, Albert Weiblen “said he wanted to lie down before breakfast… took one deep breath and he was gone.” At the age of 99 years, Albert Weiblen died, leaving a legacy of innumerable monuments, buildings, statutes, and sculptures behind him. Still working on the Stone Mountain sculpture in the 1960s, George Weiblen noted that he wanted to find a way to carve his father’s name into the stone, “I don’t know how I will work his name in, but there is a way.”

Long after Weiblen’s death, the cemeteries of New Orleans bear the mark of his work at nearly every turn. One estimate suggests that nearly half the tombs and monuments in Metairie Cemetery were constructed by Weiblen’s company.[21] In fact, a street off of Canal Boulevard near Greenwood Cemetery is even named after the great monument man.

Albert Weiblen was buried in Metairie Cemetery, under a red granite monument.

Weiblen's monuments, tombs, buildings, and other projects are innumerable. Weiblen even designed and built the Cuban capitol at Havana. The collection of images below is only a small example of the work of his lifetime.

Tomb of the Elks Lodge (BPOE), Greenwood Cemetery. Weiblen and his son were also a member of the Order of Elks. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

B.C. Carbajal tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Photo by Emily Ford.

Wall vault tablet of Margareth Fick (d. 1890), St. Roch Cemetery No. 1. Photo by Emily Ford.

James family tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Photo by FindaGrave User Van Bender.

Beer family tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

Side tablet of Hofer family tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Photo by Emily Ford.

Bruning family tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

Chapman-Hyams tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

The Chapman-Hyams tomb is home to the famous "weeping angel" statue. Photo by Emily Ford.

Brunswig tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Photo by Emily Ford.

The c. 1870s McLeod family tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, was converted into a modern granite coping by Weiblen Marble and Granite Co. Photo by Emily Ford.

Barba family tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Photo by FindaGrave user Barbara Munson.

Felmeden family tomb, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Photo by Emily Ford.

Lacosst tomb, constructed of Alabama marble by Weiblen. Photo by Emily Ford.

J.A. Morales tomb, originally constructed for Josie Arlington, Metairie Cemetery. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

Klumpp family coping and monument, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. Photo by Emily Ford.

Blackman family tomb, Cypress Grove Cemetery. Photo by Emily Ford.

G.A. Schwegmann tomb, St. Roch Cemetery No. 1. Photo by Mike and Bushy Hartman.

Luca Vaccaro tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation.

Lenes family tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Photo by Emily Ford.

Vonderbank tomb, Metairie Cemetery. Photo by Emily Ford.

[1] Leonard V. Huber, Peggy McDowell, and Mary Louise Christovich, New Orleans Architecture, Vol. III: The Cemeteries (Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 2004), 55, 62; “Time Marches On, but Weiblen Memorials Remain to Remind,” Times-Picayune, January 25, 1937, 170.
[2] Emily Ford, The Stonecutters and Tomb Builders of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana (MS Thesis, Clemson University, 2013), http://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/1613/, 96.
[3] Ibid. 121-132.
[4] Ibid. 164-181.
[5] “Time Marches On, but Weiblen Memorials Remain to Remind,” Times-Picayune, January 25, 1937, 170; Soards’ New Orleans Directories, 1885-1910, these directories discourage the notion that Weiblen actually purchased Kursheedt & Bienvenu, which continued until 1901.
[6] “Albert Weiblen Marble and Granite Co., Inc.” Times-Picayune, January 25, 1937, 170.
[7] Huber et. al., New Orleans Architecture, Vol. III: The Cemeteries, 61-62.
[8] “The Hennessy Monument,” Stone – An Illustrated Magazine, Vol. V (June-November 1892), 142.
[9] “Ship Brings Cargo of Italian Marble,” Times-Picayune, July 27, 1914, 8; “A Big New Orleans Plant,” Rock Products, Vol. VII, No. 7 (January 1908), 23.
[10] “A Prominent Southern Establishment,” The Reporter, Vol. 32 (August 1899), 7.
[11] c. 1900 advertising pamphlet, Weiblen Marble and Granite Company, from Tulane University Southeastern Architectural Archive, Collection 39.
[12] “Wanted,” Barre Daily Times, July 26-30, 1905, 7.
[13] “More about the caryatids,” Times-Picayune, November 17, 1987, 12.
[14] “Fred. E. Weiblen Succumbs Here: Was Executor of Granite Work on Confederate Monument,” Times-Picayune, April 12, 1927, 3.
[15] 1936 advertising brochure, Tulane University Southeastern Architectural Archive, Collection 36.
[16] 1946 advertising brochure, Tulane University Southeastern Architectural Archive, Collection 36; “Marble Works as New Policy,” Times-Picayune, October 2, 1940, 11.
[17] “Stone Company Executive Dies,” Times-Picayune, March 23, 1956, 5; Huber, et. al., 59.
[18] “Girod Cemetery Vandals Hunted,” Times-Picayune, June 7, 1952, 3; “A Strong Fund,” Times-Picayune, August 23, 1942, 10; Ford, 116.
[19] “Lake Lawn Park Plans Revealed: One of Largest Mausoleums in US Promised,” Times-Picatune, March 8, 1950, 42.
[20] “He brings city of dead to life,” Times-Picayune, April 14, 1985, B-8.
[21] Huber, et. al., 55.

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Faces in Porcelain: Photo-Ceramic Memorial Portraits in New Orleans

4/17/2016

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Above: Ceramic portrait and brass cover, Hook and Ladder Cemetery, Gretna, Louisiana.

The art of the photograph transferred to ceramic belies a hidden history in New Orleans cemeteries. In more typical (belowground) cemeteries throughout the United States, photo ceramic portraits are often the most remarkable feature of the landscape. Here in the Crescent City, they are fewer in number and often outshined by monumental architecture.

Yet in the midst of curious tombs, grand Continental designs, and stories of intrigue, they remain: Small, uniformly-sized, concave ceramic disks onto which timeless photographs of the deceased have been fired. Happy couples, glamorous ladies, innocent children, all immortalized on their tablets and headstones. Perhaps even more so than memorial sculpture, porcelain photographs connect the cemetery visitor with the cemetery resident, gazing out from the realm of years passed.

History and Technology of Photo-Ceramic Memorial Photographs

Photo porcelain is referred to by many names – photo-ceramic, porcelain enamel portraits, ceramic pictures – but by any name, the tradition of transferring photographs to hard surfaces is deeply rooted in the history of photography itself.

The first modern photographic inventions took place in the 1820s and 1830s, most notably with the invention of daguerreotype in the late 1830s. Along with other revolutionary qualities that were improved by other inventors over time, the daguerreotype had its downside in that it was a one-of-a-kind print that could not be duplicated. In 1841, Louis Daguerre’s competition, Henry Fox Talbot, invented the calotype process, which did permit unlimited printing from a single image. The wet collodion process, invented in 1851, would further advance this technology.[1]

1850s daguerreotype image of New Orleans woman and an enslaved child (The Burns Archive via Wikimedia Commons)

1929 ceramic portrait of Italian immigrant, New Orleans. (Photo by Emily Ford)

Each of these processes often involved developing the image on a glass or metal plat which was quickly covered in protective glass. Tin-types, daguerreotypes, and other images are examples of this process of developing the image directly onto a hard surface. Such means were more ideal than paper, which deteriorated rapidly by comparison.

Europe during this time seemed aflurry with new and exciting developments in photographic techniques. Among this fervor came two photographers who invented the process that would give rise to photo-ceramic portraits. Documented only by their last names, French photographers Bulot and Cattin patented a process to transfer images from plates developed via the Collodion process onto other hard surfaces. Patented in 1854, Bulot later showcased this process at the 1867 Paris World Exposition.[2]

Bulot and Cattin’s process was only the first iteration of a “transferotype” or transferal processes of original images to hard surfaces. Most involved the same basic method in which the original image was duplicated via the collodion process, the collodion layer was then soaked until it separated from its glass plate, and slipped over the ceramic disk. After this preparation, the ceramic was fired in a kiln until it was fixed. After firing, the final product was often brushed with enamel.

Myriad modes of image transferal were patented and modified by various nineteenth century inventors, including Alphonse Louis Poitevin, Mathieu Deroche, and Lafond de Camarsac (who won a gold medal at the 1867 Paris Exposition for his process). The intricacies of each process are not necessary for this story, but are exquisitely explained by the Dutch Enamelists Society (Vereniging van Nederlandse Emailleurs) here: History of Enamel Photography

from St. Roch Cemetery No. 2, New Orleans (Photo by Emily Ford)

Photo Porcelain in the United States
In both the United States and in Continental Europe, the use of photo porcelain on memorials and monuments became popular among Southern and Eastern Europeans. In Italy in particular, it is said to have become widespread.

Evidence or literature to support why photo porcelain was more desirable among these communities is scant. In the United States, most sources suggest that photo porcelain was a way for immigrants to maintain connections to family and culture in a strange land.[3]

Prior to the 1890s, portraits were obtained by families through retailers (often photographers) who ordered their wares from specialists in Europe. This changed in 1893 when Joseph Albert Dedouch established his own patents and company in Chicago, Illinois. Dedouch’s company produced a vast number of porcelain photographs. Dedouch was so successful that his products were given a new name – “Dedos.” Over time, the finer aspects of the art developed – the addition of chromatic tints to color the photograph, and manual editing of images to improve overall appearance.

While these portraits were available in the United States in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the popularity of this medium grew in between 1900 and 1930. Many ceramic portraits in cemeteries outside of New Orleans typically mark burials from this period.

Ceramic Portraits in Southern Cemeteries: Savannah, Georgia
The cemeteries of Savannah, Georgia, depict this trend. Ranging mostly from the 1910s to 1930s, they reflect the generalities of national markets. They mark the burials of Italian and Greek immigrants, although by the 1950s their popularity in African American cemeteries is also visible.

Advertisement for Dedouch's photo ceramic memorial portraits, American Stone Trade, Vol. 22, 1922.

Ceramic portraits in Savannah Cemeteries like Laurel Grove and Bonaventure display many of the same issues these artifacts face throughout the country. Chips, impact marks, and theft are common.

Sabastiano Orsini (d. 1918), Bonaventure Cemetery.

Greek bride, d. 1918 (Epitaph in Greek). Ceramic broken, likely the result of impact.

Edward Lewis (d. 1917, aged 13), Hillcrest Abbey Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia.

Alphonse Orr (d. 1959), Laurel Grove South Cemetery.

Ceramic Portraits in New Orleans
The tradition of ceramic portraits in New Orleans, however, appears to have caught on much later. From 1910 to 1930, other trends such as Georgia marble, tree-trunk monuments, and advances in stonecutting technology appear contemporary with the rest of the country. Conversely, nearly all photo porcelain dates from the 1950s onward. Even from this period to the present, ceramic portraits are rare.

There are a number of reasons why this may have been the case. Photographers and monument companies, who would have typically brokered the sale of ceramic portraits, may have simply chosen not to tap into this market until much later. It is possible, as well, that the process of constructing, purchasing, and maintaining above-ground tombs seemed incongruous with the installation of these artifacts.

What is evident from the presence and location of these portrait is that, like the rest of the country, they remained popular among Italian immigrants and Americans of Italian descent. Perhaps the only cemetery in which ceramic portraits are commonly visible is St. Roch Cemetery No. 2, in which the New Orleans Italian community has a distinct presence.

Above: Photo porcelain portraits from St. Roch Cemetery No. 2, dating from the 1950s through the 1980s. (Photographs by Emily Ford)

Which photographers and/or monument dealers engaged in the sale of these portraits is unclear, with the exception of the Maison Blanche department store on Canal Street. In 1932, Maison Blanche did advertise ceramic portraits as jewelry miniatures for less than $2.00.[4] It is possible that the department store also retailed larger versions of this art. There is also at least one example of a “Dedo” or Dedouch ceramic, stamped with the company’s information, in Greenwood Cemetery.

Threats to Preservation
When prepared correctly, ceramic portraits are impermeable to moisture, resistant to fading, and will last more than a century without deterioration. However, there are numerous threats to the preservation of ceramic portraits.

advertisement from March 30, 1932 for porcelain miniatures. The Times Picayune (via New Orleans Public Library)

Copper patina leaching from frame and staining marble closure tablet, Greenwood Cemetery. (Photo by Emily Ford)

Vandalism and theft are the primary threats to these beautiful cemetery artifacts. These hazards come from a number of directions. Primarily, photo porcelain is pretty, and suits a market of antique purchasers. Many portraits show evidence of cracking and chipping around edges, which in many cases indicates an attempt to pry the ceramic away from its setting. Sometimes the vandal/thief can remove the entire portrait – in many cases it results instead in a cracked, chipped portrait, often obscuring the original image.

Many portraits were originally fitted with brass frames and covers. These are frequently removed for the value of their copper.

Damages from design are not frequently visible. Literature suggests that poor preparation of the photo transfer can lead to damage. The most frequent issue in New Orleans cemeteries stems from the brass covers and frames installed with the ceramic. Like other brass hardware, the natural patina process of copper leads to a green stain, which in some instances can spread to marble.

Examples of poor preparation, or perhaps the result of damaging cleaning, can be found in other cemeteries. Pocking, leaching, and fading appear to happen in rare instances.

Photo-Ceramic Portraits Today
Technology surrounding photo-ceramic transfers has become more streamlined and accessible over time. From European masters, to American innovators like Dedouch, the technology to transfer photographs to ceramic disks is now accessible to nearly anyone with a printer and a kiln.

As for the famous “Dedos,” the Dedouch company survived the twentieth century intact and was sold in 2004 to Canadian company PSM. The Canadian company still sells the “Dedo Classic,” although these portraits are pigmented by precision machinery, whereas the original Dedouch portraits were hand-painted for more than a century.

Preserving photo-ceramic portraits is a multi-faceted and nuanced task. It must require aspects of documentation, materials conservation, and skilled artisanship. For by preserving the antique processes by which these portraits were made, their cultural heritage as a whole is safeguarded for future generations.

Of course, it is impossible to protect resources that have never been defined. In New Orleans, no comprehensive attempt has ever been made to catalog instances of photo porcelain in cemeteries. If they are to be preserved for the future, and protected from vandalism or theft, documentation is essential.

In a world in which images have become ubiquitous yet ephemeral, photo-ceramic memorial portraits offer a connection to the most deeply personal and sentimental aspects of memorial art. The opposite of ephemeral, their tangibility and endurance create in our cemetery landscapes a memory almost even more real than the people they memorialize.

from Mount Olivet Cemetery, New Orleans. (Photo by Emily Ford)

[1] Johann Willsberger, The History of Photography: Cameras, Pictures, Photographers (Doubleday: 1977), 145; “Photographic Correspondence,” from Notes and Queries: Medium of Inter-Communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. Vol 12, July-Dec, 1855, 212.
[2] Reports on the Paris Universal Exhibition, Volume 2 (London: George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1869), 66.
[3] Ronald William Horne, Forgotten Faces: A Window into Our Immigrant Past (San Francisco: Personal Genesis Publishing, 2004). This publication may be the only book specifically dedicated to photo porcelain, although it focuses almost entirely on the cemeteries of Colma, California.
Marilyn Yalom, The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), 20-21.
[4] Maison Blanche advertisement, Times-Picayune, March 30, 1932, 26; Sears Roebuck prices from The American Resting Place, 20.

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How Cemetery Historiography Can Reinvent Cemetery Preservation in New Orleans or...

4/10/2016

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Find your tomb, Research your tomb, Restore your tomb

The text below is excerpted from a recent presentation to the 2016 Annual Conference of the Louisiana Historical Association, presented by Emily Ford, MSHP, of Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation, LL

Metairie Cemetery, 1880. Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

New Orleans cemeteries are so unique that the simple mention of them creates a picture in one’s mind. That picture is likely one of intricate aisles populated by stately, yet crumbling, above-ground tombs; long abandoned, anachronistic cities of the dead which offer up stories through their carved tablets.

Traditional histories of New Orleans cemeteries have been static, and ever tied to their place in popular culture. For example, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was founded in 1833 as part of what is now the Garden District. Over the next century, families built above-ground tombs ranging in style from simple masonry structures to grand Classical revival masterpieces. From this foundation, the interpretation of the cemetery usually branches into famous people buried therein, or a focus on specific architectural gems.

These interpretations usually rely on a few primary sources. Some cemetery records, selected newspaper articles, and general contemporary observations of the cemetery as it exists in the moment tend to dominate the narrative. What few critical analyses of cemetery architecture exist tend to be repeated through numerous secondary sources. This tends to amplify their subjects as singularly important. For example, the excellent research of Patricia Brady on the stonecutter Florville Foy published in 1993 has been so revisited that the place of Foy among hundreds of other nineteenth century stonecutters appears paramount, as opposed to part of a larger craft community.[1]

Girod Street Cemetery just prior to its demolition, 1957. Photo by Robert W. Kelley LIFE Magazine Collection (Wikimedia Cultural Commons)

Beyond the few comprehensive histories relevant to New Orleans cemeteries lie the bulk of what is currently available – histories that focus on cemetery “residents” (for example, Marie Laveau or Colonel Harry T. Hays), high architecture, or the occult. These histories rely on the basic historiographies previously mentioned and typically add curious second-hand stories or rehashed false reports. For example, the translation of the tablet of André Valsin Labarre in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 has been repeated incorrectly for more than a century, but never once has it been noticed that it is located in the wrong lot.[2]

Conversely, more dynamic and critical approaches to writing cemetery history will inevitably stumble upon landscapes which dramatically changed as their stakeholders did. For example, the landscape of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was not always one of above-ground tombs. The first stakeholders in this cemetery, predominately German and Irish immigrants, found above-ground burial to be perverse, and instead buried below ground. It was not until the 1850s, when their assimilated children gained control of the family lot, that tombs were constructed to emulate the New Orleans ideal.[3]

Facts like this not only present a more accurate history of each cemetery, but also accentuate the changing uses each lot would see over time. Sale of lots, demolition of tombs, changes in materials, adaptive reuse, abandonment, and changes in technology are a constant presence in the history of any New Orleans cemetery. Consideration of these details empowers preservationists, stakeholders, and cemetery authorities to more appropriately care for these resources. By shifting the view of cemeteries from that of static landscapes (“outdoor museums”) to one of functional cultural resources, their history and their preservation are dually served.

Entrance to Metairie Cemetery, 1901. Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

Same view as above, 2016. Construction of I-10 shifted the configuration of the historic cemetery in the 1960s.

A critical approach to cemetery history combines a multifaceted catalog of primary resources. Original records vary in their condition and availability. With regard to tomb construction, cultures of craft typically focused on the final product and not on drawings, plans, or specifications.
In order to piece together the history of a New Orleans cemetery, some creative and rigorous searching is in order. By pairing what primary resources are available with thorough and educated examination of the landscape itself, it is possible to determine the life story of any city of the dead.

Original Cemetery Records
There are between 32 and 46 historic cemeteries in New Orleans, depending on the criteria employed. Each one is unique in age, architecture, and culture. They also vary in terms of ownership and, thus, quality and location of records. In general, there are four types of cemetery ownership –

Religious: Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish, typically owned by the respective congregation, but not always
Municipal: Today owned by the City of New Orleans (in most cases), but usually originating as municipal burial grounds for independent suburbs
Fraternal: Established by mutual benevolent or trade organizations for their members and families, i.e. Masonic Cemetery, Odd Fellows Rest, or Fireman’s Charitable Benevolent Association (Cypress Grove and Greenwood Cemetery)
Private: Cemeteries owned by private corporations and operated for profit. The prime example is Metairie Lakelawn Cemetery

Records of cemetery burials, constructions, demolitions, or demographics were kept by the owning body of each cemetery. Owning bodies vary in their methods of access, preservation, and retention of records.

Records of tomb purchases, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, 1840. From microfilm, New Orleans Public Library.

Historic Images
What cemetery records cannot contribute to the preservation and documentation of cemeteries is often accessible in a variety of traditional and non-traditional photographic resources.

The use of historic photographs in the identification of property and the preservation of individual tombs has not been frequently visited. Furthermore, many photographs which can prove crucial to preservation efforts are difficult to find. When located, however, these photographs can tell the story of an entire cemetery, save a tomb from demolition, or re-unite a family with their property.

The photographs of Clarence John Laughlin are an excellent example. Recently digitized by the Historic New Orleans Collection, the photographs date from the 1930s through the 1970s. Laughlin’s prolific hauntings through New Orleans cemeteries prove to be time capsules without compare.

Identification of precise location of photographs yields not only histories of specific structures but also entire landscapes. For example, a 1920s postcard showing St. Roch Cemetery and a 1907 photograph of Holt Cemetery show an overwhelming prevalence of wooden markers. Comparison with present-day landscapes indicates enormous changes in the use of cemeteries over time – notably, the industrialization of the monument industry by mid-twentieth century.

St. Roch Cemetery No. 1 and Chapel, 1895. Photograph by Mugnier (Wikimedia Commons)

Same view, 2016.

This shift overwhelmingly transformed cemeteries from highly individualized properties maintained by families to largely mono-stylistic landscapes maintained by cemetery staff – or not maintained at all.

As we move into the twenty-first century, the presence of Hollywood in New Orleans cemeteries has created a new type of historiography.

Productions like Easy Rider, Love Song for Bobby Long, NCIS, and dozens of others with scenes taking place in New Orleans cemeteries inadvertently document them. Easy Rider is a significant example. Fortunately for historians and preservationists, Peter Fonda’s place in the arms of the statue of “Italia” provides an image taken only years before a heavy-handed “restoration” permanently damaged it.

Screen shots from the film Easy Rider, showing the face of the statue of Italia, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

Statue of Italia, 2016. The statue shows surface loss, pitting, and discoloration consistent with treatment via bleach and pressure washing.

Ephemera and Oral Histories
Numerous resources exist beyond photographs and scant cemetery records. These require some amount of supporting evidence, and are best paired with observations of the built environment itself.

Some ephemeral records were produced by the purchasers of the tombs themselves. Tomb deeds, once a common part of family papers, are rare, but those that do exist show that many tombs have a chain of title. Such evidence is also present in the notarial archives of tomb builders like Hugh McDonald, Paul Monsseaux, and James Hagan.

The full potential of all of these resources is reached when paired with on-site examination of the landscape. This is achieved through painstakingly inspection of tombs for alterations, materials, and inscriptions. Larger-scale data collecting also proves fruitful. For example, while primary resources suggest stonecutter Anthony Barret predominately served a German-speaking market, database compilations of his signed work in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 confirm the breadth of his presence in the German community. These conclusions are additionally supported by oral histories and interviews with the ever-dwindling community of cemetery craftsmen and caretakers, whose potential has rarely been formally tapped.

Database table of craftsman-signed tombs in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 which relate to German heritage. From "The Stonecutters and Tomb Builders of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1," by Emily Ford

In conclusion, the hidden historical record of New Orleans cemeteries reveals dynamic landscapes that were specific to their community, and constantly shaped by that community. By resurrecting these histories, which highlight stewardship, family involvement, and participation with cemetery authorities, these values can be preserved. Through these means, we can more accurately represent New Orleans heritage and community agency for those who take interest in it and are inheritors of it.

Have questions about cemetery interment research or architectural histories of cemetery properties? Contact Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation, LLC.

[1] Patricia Brady, “Florville Foy, F.M.C.: Master Marble Cutter and Tomb Builder.” Southern Quarterly 32, no. 2 (Winter 1993): 9-20.
[2] Emily Ford, “André Valsin Labarre: Victime de Son Imprudence,” http://www.oakandlaurel.com/blog/andre-valcin-labarre-victime-de-son-imprudence (January 9, 2016). Based on in situ investigation, Archdiocese records, and 1930s WPA Index (housed at NOPL), this well-known tablet has travelled from Labarre’s actual resting place.
[3] “History and Incidents of the Plague in New Orleans,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 7 (June-Nov. 1853), 798; Bennet Dowler, Researches upon the necropolis of New Orleans, 22; George Edwin Waring and George Washington Cable, History and Present Condition of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Report on the City of Austin, Texas (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1881), 58; John Frederick Nau, The German People of New Orleans, 1850-1900, 15. Architectural histories within the landscape of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 confirm this progression from below-ground burials to above-ground tombs and (eventually) copings.

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Oak and Laurel's Saved Dates - Events in 2016

3/21/2016

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2016 is already shaping up to be a great year for Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation, LLC. More than ever before, we’ve had such exciting opportunities to share our research and knowledge of New Orleans cemetery preservation with others.

This week, we presented to the Louisiana Historical Association annual conference in Baton Rouge. If you enjoyed this presentation (or if you missed it) you can catch us at these upcoming speaking events and volunteer opportunities.

Today through April 1: Chalmette Volunteer Month
The National Trust for Historic Preservation Hands-On Preservation Experience (HOPE) Crew has partnered with the National Centers for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) and Chalmette National Cemetery for a month-long preservation volunteer event

Beginning on March 7 and lasting through the rest of the month, the project is a great way to get hands-on preservation experience and help care for this extraordinary historic cemetery. Volunteers have made enormous progress already documenting markers, cleaning headstones, and re-setting tablets that have shifted or leaned out of line.

We will be out there assisting with the effort this week. Hope to see you there!

To learn more or sign up, visit www.savingplaces.org/chalmette.

Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation, LLC will also be participating in a number of presentations this year.

On June 1-4, we will be participating in the national conference of the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF), in Durham, North Carolina. There, with Dr. Peter Dedek of Texas State University, we will present to conference attendees on the contribution of African American labor organizations to the architecture of Lafayette Cemetery No. 2. If you can’t make it to North Carolina, you can check out our brief synopsis on the topic here.

On September 15, Oak and Laurel will have the great pleasure of presenting to the Italian American Cultural Center. In this lecture, we will discuss the impact of Italian Americans on our New Orleans cemetery landscapes. Learn more here.

There are some other events coming up that we can’t wait to attend! On Saturday, April 16, author of recently published New Orleans cemetery opus Death Embraced, Mary Lacoste, will present to the conference of the International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association in New Orleans. The conference will be a great gathering of professionals in the funerary industry, and we’re excited to see Mary bring some New Orleans flavor to the event. Death Embraced is available at many local New Orleans bookstores, as well.

On April 27, we’re looking forward to seeing Dr. Daniele Maras of Columbia University present at Loyola University in a lecture entitled, “A Way to Immortality: Greek Myths of Divinization and Etruscan Funerary Rituals.” Check out details here.

2016 is going to be a great year for cemetery and funerary scholarship and research in New Orleans. We’ll see you out there among the tombs!

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Llulla’s Louisa Street Legacy: St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery and its Famous Founder

3/6/2016

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Louisa Street gate, St. Vincent de Paul No. 1 (Photo by Emily Ford)

On March 6, 1888, Don José “Pepe” Llulla died in what is now the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. At the age of 73, Llulla had made himself famous for two things: he was a renowned duelist, and he also owned St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery.

Llulla’s life was the kind from which New Orleans legend are spun. He was a valiant Spanish swordsman who frequently took up the mantles of honor and integrity on the field of one-on-one battle. Upon being knighted by the King of Spain, he was gifted a wreath of victory spun from the shining tresses of Spanish women’s hair. He once pulled a machete on a Cuban revolutionary. His legacy, then, is double-edged: Llulla’s contribution to the landscape of New Orleans cemeteries is second only to his impact on the city’s romantic imagination.[1]

The Gentleman Duelist
Pepe Llulla was born in 1815 on the island of Menorca in the Mediterranean. Today, the island is part of Spain.[2] At a young age, Llulla became a sailor. First under the mentorship of an English captain and later as an independent seafarer, Llula traversed “with whalers to the Antarctic Zone, and with slavers to the West African coast, and, after voyaging in all parts of the world, entered the service of some merchant company whose vessels plied between New Orleans and Havana.”[3] Census records suggest that Llulla settled in New Orleans around 1840, at the age of 25. At that time, he had secured a position working security for a ballroom and social hall.

Don Jose "Pepe" Llulla (1815-1888) (Wikimedia Commons)

The nature of his work in New Orleans caused Llulla to gravitate toward the art of fencing, which was practiced not only in combat but in private salons. Llulla studied under a local duelist from Alsace named L’Alouiette, whose salon he later took over and became teacher himself. From here, Llulla’s reputation as a witty, cunning, and skilled fencer and duelist only grew. Although additionally skilled with firearms, his weapons of choice were more often swords, foils, and (to a lesser extent) knives.

Accounts differ as to how many duels Pepe Llulla actually engaged in (and won), but they generally agree between twenty and thirty matches. Hearn notes that many of these ended not in bloodshed but with the retreat of his opponent. In fact, he suggests that Llulla only actually killed two men. The only match which Pepe had declined was reportedly one in which the opponent chose “poisoned pills” as his weapon of choice – a type of Russian roulette with cyanide – and this only after objection from the duel’s referees.

The "dueling oaks," in Audubon Park. Print by Harry Fenn (c. 1895) (Wikimedia Commons)

While Llulla’s opponents on the field of honor were of many backgrounds – New Orleans Creoles, Alsatians, Germans, and others – he made special efforts to combat Cubans. The man with the poisoned pills was from Havana. In another instance, a Cuban opponent chose machetes as the weapon of choice, as he believed that such weapons were not available in New Orleans. From the account, it appears as if Llulla instantly produced two matchetes, at which point the Cuban disappeared.

Beginning in the 1860s and finally culminating decades after Llulla’s death, the cause of Cuban independence from Spain had a theater in New Orleans. Cuban revolutionaries frequented the Louisiana port and sought support among the Spanish-speaking citizens of the city. Llulla’s passionate Spanish patriotism flared especially against these men, whom he saw as traitors. Reportedly, he posted flyers all over New Orleans in French, English, and Spanish languages, challenging any Cuban revolutionary to duel him personally. Llulla’s reputation and bravado prevented any takers to this challenge, although it did lead to a number of assassination attempts, one of which reportedly occurred in Llulla’s own cemetery, although he escaped unharmed. For his bravery and loyalty, Llulla was formally knighted by Kings Charles III of Spain, who awarded him “a wreath and likeness of himself made from the silken tresses of Spanish ladies’ hair.”[4]

Through his lifetime, Pepe Llulla dabbled in many different business ventures. He purchased real estate and ran a logging company. For some time, he staged bull fights in Algiers. Yet he is best remembered as the proprietor of the “Louisa Street cemeteries,” which he likely purchased in the 1840s – although one source states date of purchase as 1857.

Winged hourglass, Hazenkampf tomb, St. Vincent de Paul No. 1 (Photo by Emily Ford)

“One of Our Finest and Best-Managed Burial Grounds”
St. Vincent de Paul Cemeteries No. 1 and 2 are located on Louisa Street, near Robertson in the St. Claude neighborhood of New Orleans. Often confused with another set of cemeteries with the same name located Uptown, these cemeteries were likely the parish cemeteries for the Catholic church of St. Vincent de Paul, located on Dauphine Street in the Bywater neighborhood.

The exact founding date of this cemetery is quite unclear. Some sources have presumed the property came into use as a burying ground in the 1830s, but an exact citation or primary source is not provided. In fact, the exact year in which Llulla purchased the cemetery remains unclear. On the far periphery of twentieth century studies of New Orleans cemeteries, St. Vincent de Paul experiences the twin historical blows of scant documentation and academic apathy.[5]

Tomb of the United Brethren Society (1860s) (above) and Benevolent Association of the Sons of Louisiana (1873) (right) (Photos by Emily Ford)

Despite its present-day low profile, St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery flourished under the management of Pepe Llulla. Wall vaults in the cemetery’s oldest sections are galleries for some of the most talented stonecarving of the 1840s and 1850s – the delicate hand-tooled flowers of Florville Foy, ornate German Fraktur by Anthony Barret, inverted torches and wreaths carved by Americo Marozzi and Audré Samonzet are all present. The integrity of these stones surpasses that of even the older, better-known St. Louis Cemeteries, which have been frequently altered over time. Most of these tablets are framed with railings of cast- and wrought-iron, accented with zinc finials.

The aisles of St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery No. 1 retain the marks of large-scale tomb development. Rows of identically-built structures line the brick-paved walkways, each bearing the alterations and changes in material that would develop over time and use. The society tombs of the United Brethren and Sons of Louisiana (signed by “Joseph Llulla, 1873”) while today faded from their Classical-revival glory, bely the historic grandeur of the landscape.

In the 1870s, St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery was described as “one of our finest and best-managed burial grounds” by the New Orleans Democrat. By this time, the cemetery had developed into a verdant landscape with reportedly excellent drainage – a constant problem in New Orleans cemeteries. Juniper and cedar trees shaded the aisles, roses and other fragrant flowers grew in the garden lot of the Hermann Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (no longer present today). Newspapers even took note that families in Uptown New Orleans had begun to purchase lots in St. Vincent de Paul, preferring it to the Lafayette Cemeteries of their home district.[6]

Above Left: 1845 tablet in French carved by German carver Vlau. Above Right: 1853 tablet for Cuban native, carved by French carver Florville Foy. Bottom Left: 1862 tablet in German carved by Italian carver Azereto. Bottom Right: 1852 tablet in French carved by Italian carver Parelli. (Photos by Emily Ford)

The cultural associations of those who buried loved ones in St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery No. 1 and 2 are strikingly diverse. While in other cemeteries it is clear that those with linguistic or national similarities typically utilized the same burying grounds – for example, French-speakers in St. Louis No. 2, Americans in Lafayette No. 1, Italians in St. Roch No. 2 – St. Vincent de Paul represents all walks of life and nations of origin. Tablets in French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and even Chinese line its wall vaults. In addition to the tombs of the French Sons of Louisiana and the Societe Francaise, St. Vincent de Paul was also once home to tombs dedicated to the members of the German Louisiana Wolthatickeits Verein and Italian Tiro al Bersaglio, although both tombs have since disappeared.

Aisles of identical tombs line St. Vincent de Paul No. 1. These were likely constructed between 1870-1880. (Photo by Emily Ford)

After Llula’s death in 1888, sources state that ownership of the cemetery was passed on to Llulla’s children – although this fact may be incorrect, as Llulla’s only son died in the 1860s, and he had but one other daughter. It is possible that his siblings obtained ownership. For this reason, it is unclear whether management of the cemetery after 1888 was effective or perhaps misguided. The landscape of the cemetery shows slowed development and little new tomb construction with the exception of some large, 1920s-style tombs near the Villere Street wall vaults. St. Vincent de Paul No. 2, which sits between Desire and Piety Streets, shows an explosion of coping construction, likely between 1910 and 1930. It was during this period that two of St. Vincent de Paul’s more famous “residents” were buried, the African American spiritualist leader Mother Catherine Seal and the Romany “queen” Marie Boscho.[7]

In 1910, ownership of the St. Vincent de Paul Cemeteries transferred to the Stewart family. Stewart Enterprises later became the second-largest funerary corporation in the world, which also owned Metairie-Lakelawn Cemetery and Mount Olivet Cemetery in Gentilly. During this time, St. Vincent de Paul No. 3 was heavily developed, including a large community mausoleum on Villere Street.

In 2005, a service building and other property belonging to St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery on Louisa Street was damaged in Hurricane Katrina and was demolished. In 2013, Stewart Enterprises was purchased by first-largest funerary corporation Service Corporation International (SCI), who now owns St. Vincent de Paul Nos. 1, 2, and 3.

Piety Street wall vaults prior to "improvement." September 2015.

Piety Street wall vaults after inappropriate "improvement" which will damage this 140 year-old structure over time. March 2016.

Iron enclosures removed from wall vaults and lying tangled in aisleway. March 2016.

A Threatened Legacy
In 2015, SCI announced that it would spend $7.2 million in “improvements” to its recently-acquired cemeteries in New Orleans, including St. Vincent de Paul. Unfortunately, these improvements have dangerously ignored preservation ethics and best practices. For St. Vincent de Paul No. 1, this has meant encasing the Louisa, Urquhart, and Piety-street wall vaults in heavy, inappropriate Portland cement-based stucco, as well as treating its 140 year-old tablets with harsh bleach and pressure washing. Perhaps most troubling, the delicate ironwork rails that once framed each wall vault have been torn out and lay entangled in the cemetery’s aisles. The extent of the damage to these vaults will only be truly visible in decades to come, when material constrictions, lack of ventilation, and material weight will destroy the historic fabric underneath.

The legacy of Pepe Llulla is one of romance and anachronistic bravado, of sword fights and burning candles on marble tombs through the night of All Saints’ Day. The place of the cemetery he built in New Orleans’ larger funerary landscape is much more important than it has been given credit for. If this fact is not soon realized, St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery will be lost before it is ever truly understood.

c. 1850 limestone tablet carved by Anthony Barret in German Fraktur lettering. This tablet was irreversibly damaged by pressure washing.

[1] The vast majority of knowledge regarding Don Pepe Llulla comes from the observations of Lafcadio Hearn, whose documentation of Llulla appears to have influenced all later writing on the man.
Lafcadio Hearn, and S. Frederick Starr, ed., Inventing New Orleans: The Writings of Lafcadio Hearn (Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 49-60.
[2] Ciaran Conliffe, “Jose ‘Pepe’ Llulla: The Gravedigging Duelist,” http://www.headstuff.org/2015/03/jose-pepe-llulla-the-gravedigging-duellist/
[3] Hearn, 52.
[4] “Death of Senor Don Jose Llulla,” States Item, March 7, 1888, p. 4.
[5] Christovich, Huber, et. al., New Orleans Architecture, Vol. III: The Cemeteries (Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 1974), 32.
[6] “A Mournful Holiday. How All Saints’ Day Was Celebrated in Our Cemeteries,” New Orleans Democrat, November 2, 1878, p. 8; “All Saints’ Day. An Outpouring of All Our Population to Decorate the Graves,” New Orleans Democrat, Nov. 2, 1878, p. 1.
[7] Author Zora Neale Hurston wrote an excellent piece on Mother Catherine, which can be read here: http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=1068.

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J.N.B. de Pouilly: Architect of New Orleans Cemeteries

2/21/2016

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As any narrative on de Pouilly does, this article relies on the groundbreaking research and thesis of Ann Merritt Masson, “The Mortuary Architecture of Jacques Nicolas Bussiere de Pouilly,” Tulane University thesis, 1992. Which exquisitely analyzed de Pouilly’s work in New Orleans cemeteries.

Detail of Caballero tomb, designed by de Pouilly, St. Louis No. 2, Square 2. Photo by Emily Ford.

One hundred and forty years ago, on February 21, 1875, Jacques Nicholas Bussiere de Pouilly died in his home on St. Ann Street.

In his seventy years of life, de Pouilly had been the harbinger of European neoclassical and revival architecture in New Orleans. We see his touch on our city streets – in St. Augustine Catholic Church, and most notably St. Louis Cathedral. But his influence was arguably greatest in the city’s cemeteries. De Pouilly’s work is present in nearly every viewpoint of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and 2, and much of Cypress Grove Cemetery. The breadth and innovation of his tomb architecture generated uncountable replications and inspirations, the products of which have shaped our burial grounds.

J.N.B. de Pouilly was born in July 1804 in Châtel-Censoir, France, southeast of Paris. While much of his early life is unclear, it is assumed that in his architectural training he was influenced by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, if not a student of the school himself.[1]

He arrived in New Orleans in 1833, a time in which the French-speaking population of the city hungered for reconnection with Continental styles. He quickly became the architect of note for the city’s First District, designing the St. Louis Exchange Hotel, among many other residential, commercial, and religious projects.

Tomb of Héloïse and Abelard, Père Lachaise Cemetery. From Manuel et Itinraire du Curieux dans la Cimetiére du Père la Chaise, printed by Emler Frères, 1828.

De Pouilly had also transported with him from France the grand styles of Parisian funerary architecture, namely those present in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Founded in 1804, the rolling greenery and stately Greek and Egyptian revival monuments of the cemetery had already become a matter of great interest by the 1830s. Pattern books of Père Lachaise monuments were available by order, and de Pouilly quickly fell into cemetery projects for his French-speaking clients seeking a part of this revolution of funerary architecture.

De Pouilly combined architectural styles and motifs from Greece and Rome, notably the inverted torch, acroterion, and pedimental styles. He also designed Egyptian Revival tombs, best known of which is the Grailhe tomb in St. Louis No. 2. But de Pouilly’s often converged, modified, or entirely reinvented his influences. His combination of revival details and command of materials resulted in definitively unique structures. Conversely, many of his designs were near-exact replications of Père Lachaise monuments.[2]

While Père Lachaise and Creole cemeteries like St. Louis may appear stylistically similar, de Pouilly had the significant task of fundamentally shifting the function of his New Orleans tombs from their Parisian prototype. Although the monuments of Père Lachaise appear to be tombs or mausoleums, their design accommodates instead for below-ground burial. That the architect’s designs kept their Parisian aesthetic while having been fundamentally re-worked to allow for above-ground burial is among the more impressive of his professional achievements.[3]

That de Pouilly worked so prolifically in cemeteries is, in itself, notable. New Orleans cemeteries were (and are) overwhelmingly landscapes of vernacular design, meaning that tombs are created by the builders and seldom by formally-trained architects. There are exceptions: Pietro Gualdi designed the Societa Italiana tomb, and Father John Cambiaso is presumed to have designed the Jesuit tomb (now demolished), both in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. However, this influence was rare. With dozens of tombs attributed to his design, de Pouilly truly stands alone in his role within New Orleans cemetery history.

Yet de Pouilly did work with builders. Based on de Pouilly’s own documents as well as signed work in situ, he contracted stonecutters and tomb builders who served a similar niche as his. Namely, Paul Hippolyte Monsseaux and Florville Foy were the primary executers of his designs. Both Foy and Monsseaux operated stonecutting shops next to the St. Louis Cemeteries – Monsseaux’s workshop was likely next door to de Pouilly’s building depot across from St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. These French-speaking (and in Monsseaux’s case, French-born) builders created many of his best-known works, including the Iberian Society and Grailhe tombs.

The Charbonnet tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 (1836) was manufactured in Paris and sent to New Orleans. The internee was born in San Domingue (Haiti), indicating strong cultural and stylistic ties within Francophone funerary art. Photo by Emily Ford.

In addition to the French St. Louis Cemeteries, de Pouilly worked also in American-dominated Cypress Grove Cemetery (est. 1840). In Cypress Grove, de Pouilly additionally contracted with granite magnate Newton Richards to build the memorial of fallen firefighter Irad Ferry (died 1837). He relied, too, on Monsseaux and Foy to construct such masterpieces as the Maunsel White tomb. De Pouilly clearly had a strong grasp on the value of trade and materials, based on his choice of craftsmen and his apparent innovations in the world of cast stone.

De Pouilly’s career was marred by two construction disasters in the 1850s – first, the collapse of the central tower of St. Louis Cathedral while de Poilly was head architect, and second the collapse of a balcony at the Orleans Theatre. From this point onward, his rising star waned, but it appears never to have faded in New Orleans cemeteries.

The tomb of the New Lusitanos, designed by de Pouilly. The final tomb was simpler than the architect's original drawings, owing to the client's sensibilities. Photo taken in 1957, just prior to the demolition of the cemetery. (LIFE Magazine, Robert W. Kelley)

In 1874, de Pouilly composed the final drawing in his only surviving sketchbook – a tomb he designed for himself and his family. This tomb, like many depicted in his prolific sketches, would never be constructed. Instead, de Pouilly was interred in a family wall vault in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Although the location was surely not intentional, the wall provides a lovely view of a number of de Pouilly-designed tombs. In a nearly-illegible detail to his memorial tablet, the signature of Florville Foy can be detected as the carving hand of de Pouilly's final tablet.

De Pouilly’s obituary on February 22nd spoke grandly of a man who lived honestly and in service of his profession:

It is a name that will be treasured with fond recollections in the memories of a numerous host of friends and admirers of a man whose noble career should serve as an exemplar to future travelers through a world where principle too often yields the victory to the persuasions of temptation. The noble dead live forever; they leave behind a reputation to which time adds dignity unto dignity, rectitude unto rectitude. J.N. de Pouilly was born in France in the year 1805. On arriving at the age of manhood he adopted the honorable profession of architecture, and in 1833, at the age of twenty-eight, he came to this country and practiced his calling in this city.

Some of our most prominent buildings remain as trophies of his professional skill. He planned the Cathedral, the St. Louis Hotel, the Citizen’s Bank and the church of St. Augustin, besides many other structures of importance.

From Pere la Chaise, by Mary Martha Sherwood, printed by F. Houlston and Son, 1823.

St. Peter’s lofty dome cenotaphs the name of Michael Angelo [sic]: Sir Christopher Wren’s greatness is sepulchred in the mightiness of St. Paul’s. Mr. De Pouilly fashioned no wonders such as these, but yet a greater, the enduring fabric of an honest life, and will be entombed in the constant remembrance of devoted friends.

After a painful and lingering illness, Mr. De Pouilly, hoary with the winters of seventy years, and surrounded by children and other relatives, bade farewell to things of earth. This sad event occurred yesterday, Sunday, 21st.[4]

Burial vault of J.N.B. de Pouilly, St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, Square 1. Photo by Emily Ford.

The Daily Picayune made no note of the many cenotaphs de Pouilly himself had helped write, in the tablets and along the aisles of our cemeteries. But if 140 years is a sufficient measure of the timelessness and impact of one’s work, his name certainly engraved upon many more memorials than just his own.

Below is a gallery of only a portion of de Pouilly’s work, and a few tombs inspired by his designs. Photos by Emily Ford unless otherwise noted.

Tomb of the Iberian Society (1843), St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Constructed by P.H. Monsseaux.

Left, Caballero tomb. Above, tomb of Blineau et Carriere. Both located in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.

Tomb of the Cazadores (1836), St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Historic descriptions of its tomb depict it as grandiose. It has seen better days.

Left, A.D. Crossman monument (1859), Greenwood Cemetery. Photo by Mike and Bushy Hartman (FindaGrave). Above, Grailhe tomb (1850), St. Louis Cemetery No. 2.

Duplantier family tomb, St. Louis No. 2.

Above, Delachaise tomb (1850s) St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Left, Societe Francaise tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (Wikimedia Commons User Infrogmation)

Tomb of Irad Ferry (1837), Cypress Grove Cemetery. Constructed by Newton Richards.

Above, Kohn tomb, photo by FindaGrave user AJ. Left, Maunsel White tomb (1869), both in Cypress Grove Cemetery. The tomb of Maunsel White was constructed by Monsseaux.

Above, Orleans Artillery tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (Wikimedia Commons user Infrogmation). Right, Puig tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 2

[1] Ann Merritt Masson, “The Mortuary Architecture of Jacques Nicolas Bussiere de Pouilly,” 5-7.
[2] Peggy McDowell and Richard E. Meyer, The Revival Styles in American Mortuary Art (Popular Press, 1994), 59.
[3] Masson, 30-35.
[4] “In Memoriam – J.N. de Pouilly,” Daily Picayune, February 22, 1875, 2.

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Mardi Gras in New Orleans Cemeteries, Part Three: Dancing with the Dead

2/7/2016

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The top of a Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club parade float passes St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, 2009. (Wikimedia Commons)

Over the past week, New Orleaneans have been treated to nightly parades in neighborhoods Uptown and downtown, on the West Bank and in Metairie. Today, Krewe of Thoth will ride down St. Charles Avenue, followed by Bacchus and others this evening. The fever pitch of Mardi Gras is upon us, culminating on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day.

In the spirit of the season, we’ve mused on the place of cemeteries in Mardi Gras traditions – from the last resting places of Dead Rexes to the incorporation of death and cemeteries in costuming and floats.

Seldom do Mardi Gras celebrations themselves take place in New Orleans cemeteries. But once or twice in a blue moon, amidst Storyville revelry or between the pages of a Gayarré novel, such things have happened. Today, on this Sunday before Mardi Gras, we explore the few instances of Mardi Gras dancing on the graves.

Illustration of the St. Louis Cemetery Marchers Parade, from Buddy Stall's Louisiana (1991)

The St. Louis Cemetery Marchers
In one of the St. Louis Cemeteries, the dead were entertained by an especially satirical parade in 1911, when maskers dressed as deceased voters processed through the cemetery gates to follow the tail of the parade of Rex.

The details of this event are discussed in two New Orleans histories, although primary accounts of the parade are scant. In what James Gill refers to as one of the “drollest examples” of political satire in Mardi Gras parades, marchers dressed as skeletons emerged from the cemetery holding signs marked, “Count me in for several votes,” “I’ll be with you on election day,” and “Dead, but still a voter.”[1] According to Buddy Stall’s New Orleans, the marchers labeled themselves “The Graveyard Pleasure Club,” “Girod Cemetery Voters League,” and “the Tombstone Brigade.”[2]

Aisle in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, c. 1920. (Library of Congress)

The members of the St. Louis Cemetery Marchers were anonymous, although one marcher later revealed his identity to be Edouard F. Henriques, a local judge. He and other members were members of the Good Government League, part of the Progressive movement in Louisiana and, in the next year, supporters of “Bull Moose” presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt, much against the dominant Democratic "machine" in New Orleans.

The Marchers emerged from St. Louis Cemetery (presumably No. 1, or possibly No. 2) after having “entertained the sexton” with their antics. They caught up to Rex and followed along its route, as one parade-goer remarked, “Their silent message is more meaningful than any spoken word I can imagine.” They continued behind the parade until police forces peacefully disbanded them, just before they reached City Hall.

The Elks Burlesque Circus
In the days leading up to the St. Louis Cemetery Marchers 1911 procession, a bigger, louder ruckus was taking place just blocks away. At Elks Place and Canal Street, a great circus would take place, complete with lion tamers, elephants, and acrobats. On the Friday before Mardi Gras, this circus paraded through the city, marching uptown as far as Felicity Street, and back through the Central Business District.[3]

Elks Place, c. 1906. The towering building at rear was the Criminal Courts Building, demolished in the 1930s. The New Orleans Public Library now stands at this spot. (New Orleans Public Library)

The enormous circus and parade were organized by the New Orleans Lodge No. 30, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, known casually as the Elks Lodge, and for whom Elks Place is named. If you live in New Orleans, you probably know them for their tomb, which looks out on the intersection of Canal Street and City Park Avenue.

Elks Lodge (BPOE) tumulus. (Wikimedia Commons)

The 1911 circus and parade, complete with a petting zoo of baby elks, was held as a fundraiser for an imposing tomb the Elks Lodge hoped to construct in Greenwood Cemetery. Elks members costumed as clowns and even traveled abroad to learn how to care for circus animals – said one article, “Quite a number of the antlered herd are taking corresponding lessons on how to manage elephants and camels.[4]

The big top Mardi Gras-season fundraiser was as ambitious as the organization’s tomb plans. The Elks Lodge memorial is a tumulus: a burial chamber which has been covered in earth, making it resemble a hill or burial mound. While New Orleans is no stranger to tumuli – at one point in time, they were quite common in cemetery landscapes – the Elks Lodge tumulus is one of the most iconic of these structures in American cemeteries.

The tumulus was constructed by Albert Weiblen at the cost of $10,000 – essentially $250,000 in 2016 dollars.[5] Its subterranean walls were topped with a giant boulder of Alabama granite, on top of which a nine-foot-tall bronze elk was erected. Two years and some minor (but noticeable) foundational issues later, the cemetery landmark was completed.

Today, organizations with communal tombs and society burial places often find great difficulty in raising the capital needed to restore their deteriorating cemetery property. Perhaps it’s time once again to bring the circus to town for the benefit of our historic cemeteries.

Circus parade, c. 1900, location unknown. (Library of Congress)

Tintin Calandro: The Mad Musician of the St. Louis Cemetery
Our final Mardi Gras cemetery story is exactly that: a story. On this blog, we like to keep things factual, but in the spirit of the prankishness and surreality of Carnival, we recall the tale of Tintin Calandro.

Celebrated New Orleans author Charles Gayarré (1805 – 1895) is memorialized in the city as its premiere 19th century historian. A beautiful terra-cotta memorial to him sits at the divergence of Esplanade Avenue and Bayou Road. He is best remembered for his History of Louisiana (1866), but he did write two novels as well, Fernando de Lemos, Truth and Fiction (1872) and Aubert Dubayet (1882). Featured in both of these novels is Augustine Calandrano, more frequently referred to by the narrator as Tintin Calandro, French revolutionary exile, talented violin player, and eccentric sexton of St. Louis Cemetery.

In Fernando de Lemos, Tintin Calandro is a “genius of madness,” each night serenading his ghostly charges:

Trumpet-playing angel, tomb of Louis Prima, Metairie Cemetery. (Photograph by Emily Ford)

… I have been thinking how glorious my cemetery looks by moonlight. There is nothing then to equal it. What a scene worthy of the angels! When it is thus one sea of serene radiance, I love to perform on my violin for the dead. Beginning, I see at first a haze or vapor settling on each tomb, then shadowy forms glide upward through brick, marble, or granite.

An immense assembly gathers or my concert. Some stand up, some sit down, others recline on their own tombs, as on sofas. The little children, how daintily they look, God bless them! Sometimes they dance before me, moving their tiny feet in harmony with my music… They sing in chorus, “Good-night, Tintin Calandro; good-night, dear Tintin Calandro,” and they vanish. Ah! if you could only see such a sight, you would like to dwell forever in my cemetery.[6]

Calandro and Fernando de Lemos have a special  relationship in which they spend nights in the cemetery, discussing philosophy, love, ethics, and other profound topics amidst the tombs.

Toward the end of Calandro’s life, it appears his fits of insanity worsened. Nearing his own death, the old sexton fought frailty and his better senses in order to go to the cemetery for a final concert, on Shrove Tuesday:

                He said that the ghosts were going to have a Mardi Gras ball and he wanted to open the event by playing an overture, after which an orchestra of spirits would supply the music… [the narrator] accompanied the musician to the cemetery. There Tintin greeted the ghosts, bade them be silent and seated, and then seating himself and his companion on a tombstone, he began to play.

                … In the spell which overcame him he saw the ghosts whisking past in the dance, and the mad excitement grew upon him until the sound of the violin was hushed. Then Tintin apologized to his visionary audience, and allowed his friend to escort him home.

On the way home, Calandro related to his companion that one of the ghosts was “the former head of the orchestra at the St. Philip Theatre, and he had gone mad through family troubles, finally dying from the shock.”

“Thank God, I am not mad – not from grief,” said Tintin, and this he kept on repeating all the way home.[7]

The romance of Tintin Calandro’s character was so captivating that it seems that in more than one instance New Orleaneans confused him for having been real person. One wonders if Calandro may have been inspired by an actual sexton, although no source speculates on who that might be.

Having witnessed the French Revolution in the 1790s, Calandro would have been one of the first sextons of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, which was founded in 1789. Records from this early period are scant; the names of early sextons difficult to locate. That Calandro’s character is Italian is also strange, as few Italian stonecutters or sextons resided in New Orleans prior to the 1850s.

Tomb of Charles Gayarré, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. (Photograph by Emily Ford)

1853 advertisement for Etienne Courcelle, architect, stonecutter, and sexton of the St. Louis Cemeteries. From Soard's New Orleans Directory, 1853. (Scanned from Tulane University's Louisiana Research Collection)

Etienne Courcelle was sexton of the St. Louis Cemeteries in the 1850s, as was Etienne Demourelle. Little documentation of their lives exists – certainly none to suggest that they played violin within the cemetery walls. Both Courcelle and Demourelle are buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, as is Charles Gayarré himself. The Mardi Gras ball at the cemetery has certainly had some distinguished attendees over the years.

It’s ever tempting to wonder who inspired Gayarré to create the remarkable character of Tintin Calandro. For a researcher of New Orleans cemeteries, the desire to believe one of New Orleans sepulchral caretakers had the soul of a genius that may have touched the life of one of the city’s great authors is compelling. Whether Tintin Calandro ever did exist under a different name may never be known.

But over the next few days, while indulging in the balls, parades, costumes, and debauchery of Mardi Gras, it’s nice to imagine the mad romantic soul of Tintin Calandro, philosopher, musician, sexton, and madman, reclining on his tomb on Mardi Gras night with his violin.

[1] James Gill, Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans (University Press of Mississippi: 1997), 166.
[2] Buddy Stall, Buddy Stall’s New Orleans (Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 1990), 167-169.
[3] “Elks Announce Route of Parade Preceding Burlesque Circus,” Daily Picayune, February 20, 1911, p. 2.
[4] “Elks’ Circus to be a Feature During Carnival Week Here: Parade and Performances to be Filled with Features Farcy, Freakish and Funny,” Daily Picayune, January 15, 1911, 30; “Circus Catches: Pokorny’s Little Elks Arrive for Big Show,” Daily Picayune, February 17, 1911, 7.
[5] “Elks’ Tomb to be Erected on Fine Greenwood Cemetery Site,” Daily Picayune, August 7, 1911, 7.
[6] Excerpt from Fernando de Lemos, Truth and Fiction, featured in The Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, No. 1 (June, 1886), 112-114; James A. Kaser, The New Orleans of Fiction: A Research Guide (Scarecrow Press: 2014), 92.
[7] “Tintin Calandro: Judge Gayarré Tells the Story of the Mad Musician of St. Louis Cemetery,” Oachita Telegraph, January 20, 1887, 1.

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The Legacy of Jewish Stonecutters in New Orleans: H. Lowenstein and Edwin I. Kursheedt

Building an Historic Landscape: Sextons of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, 1833-1945

What th' Stone Age Boys Would Think: Albert Weiblen, 1857-1957

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J.N.B. de Pouilly: Architect of New Orleans Cemeteries

Mardi Gras in New Orleans Cemeteries, Part Three: Dancing with the Dead

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