James Hagan (1831-1908) New Orleans Stonecutter

Irish-born Hagan was a state senator, a stonecutter, a real estate developer, and a dock commissioner in his long life, and Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was deeply shaped by his work.

Detail of the F. VanBenthuysen tomb, built around 1866 by James Hagan, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 (Photo by Emily Ford)

​Along the main aisle of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, a pink granite tomb stands out from its lime-washed, marble-clad neighbors.  Surrounded by a cast-iron fence, the tomb of James Hagan and John Henderson is often noted as the last resting place of a stonecutter whose work is prominent elsewhere in the cemetery.  Yet this note, and the carved name of James Hagan, is only one small detail in the larger story of James Hagan’s life. 
 
James Hagan was not only a stonecutter but a real-estate dealer, state senator, community leader, and politician.  He lived and worked in New Orleans not only in a time of great social change but a period of high craftwork and architecture in the city’s cemeteries.  Among his signed works are some of the most ornate in Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, all marked by detailed stonework and expensive marble cladding.[1]

Sources suggest that James Hagan built the pink granite tomb not for himself but for his first wife, Mary Henderson, after her death in 1872.  Hagan married Mary Henderson in New Orleans shortly after he immigrated from County Armagh or County Antrim, Ireland, in approximately 1852.[2]  James Hagan and his brothers John, Peter, and Patrick, as well as their mother, all fled Ireland in the 1850s after famine likely forced them to emigrate.  In the Fourth District of New Orleans, formerly the New Orleans suburb of Lafayette, the Hagans joined thousands of other Irish who had formed a community along the banks of the Mississippi River in the neighborhood now known as Irish Channel.

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