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

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).