New Orleans Cemetery Tour: New Orleans Cemeteries & Graveyards

The New Orleans cemetery tour is famous or infamous and NOLA is famous for its cemeteries depending on what news is being reported or what fake stories vs true history tour guides and others decide to spread. A common myth of cemeteries in New Orleans is that the above ground tombs are used due to the high water table in the area which is demonstrably FALSE. New Orleans has burials underground going back before the first formal burial ground was established in the city.

Many tourists often believe that the oldest cemetery in New Orleans is St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 which is historically wrong. The first "official" formal burial ground the Catholic Church established in New Orleans was St. Peter Cemetery, which opened in 1723, and that graveyard is currently bounded by the contemporary French Quarter map of St. Peter, North Rampart, Toulouse and Burgundy streets. The burials at St. Peter were underground and still under the current buildings as the city took the property over leaving the buried bodies that remain there just a few feet under the ground.

St. Peter Cemetery was unfortunately not the last burial ground to be desecrated and destroyed by the government of the city of New Orleans. The first Protestant Cemetery in New Orleans, the old Girod Street Cemetery, was founded in 1822 and was closed down in 1940 when it then remained derelict until it was officially torn down on January 4, 1957. Both the city of New Orleans and many of the area residents removed large quantities of the memorials, bricks and art to use in building walls, decorating gardens and other purposes. The location of the old Girod Street Cemetery is now where the Superdome Parking Garage and Champion's Square complex are currently located and certainly there are still graves remaining underneath that area.

Unlicensed "tour guides" along with local residents and tourists have desecrated, damaged and destroyed tombs. There are many reports and evidence showing broken tombs with human remains strewn about the graveyards to satisfy the morbid curiosity of people or as a consequence of grave robbers. Human remains have even been stolen and sold by a self proclaimed "witch" along with many others engaging in this practice as human bones can fetch tempting amounts of money on the black market. Due to the many acts of destruction on the tombs and cemeteries in the New Orleans area some of them have been closed to access without a licensed tour guide. The best organization to book cemetery tours with is Save Our Cemeteries who have been a leading force in preserving, repairing and maintaining our cemeteries along with providing ACCURATE history and facts about the burial practices of the area.

Black and white photographs of Girod Street Cemetery are by William Russell showing the Girod Street Cemetery in 1956. (Courtesy of Hogan Jazz Archive)

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[daveoelke]

Digging down only 2 feet will cause water to start seeping in. In the old days undertakers were known to drill holes in the coffin and place heavy stones inside them as well. So even though bodies can be buried underground, many people dislike the idea that their loved ones may be waterlogged and only 2 feet underground, if that much. Of course, “coping” may have been a drier choice with soil added on top and less depth for the coffin.

[conditionallyunconditional]

Very nice tour! I've run into gypsies & witches there too. Some are good but some aren't. Be careful even being a local there. Vudu & Majik is a different spiritual awakening. Protect yourselves.