It’s fun to visit New Orleans cemeteries with their unique architecture–most of the tombs are above ground due to the high water level. Visitors can take the streetcar down Canal Street marked “Cemeteries” to get to many of the cemeteries on its path. I have highlighted some of my favorites on the Cemeteries route below.
Greenwood, Cypress Grove, Metairie and St. Louis Cemetery #2
Greenwood Cemetery
This tumulous where the remains of fallen Elks members are interred is near the front entrance of Greenwood Cemetery. Greenwood is at the end of the line for the Cemeteries trolley.
Greenwood Mausoleums
The paths at Greenwood Cemetery are marked with names such as this one on a Mausoleum row–Rosemary. Many of the mausoleums are made of cast iron--more on “New Orleans Cast Iron Mausoleums” here.
Metairie Cemetery
Metairie Cemetery, founded in 1872, is a short walk from Greenwood. The cemetery covers 150 acres and is on the site of an antebellum racetrack.
Metairie Cemetery–Aldige Tomb
Alice Aldige, her daughter Amelie Borde, and granddaughter Amy Borde were lost at sea when the steamship La Bourgogne collided with the British steamship Cromartyshire in the Atlantic Ocean on July 4, 1898. The steamship’s crew threw women and children overboard and commandeered their life rafts. According to the Philadelphia Enquirer, women were stabbed like sheep and others were willfully drowned, inspiring the maritime law “women and children first”.
Over five hundred were lost, including all children aboard and all but one female. At the time this sinking was infamous, because only 13% of the passengers survived, while 48% of the crew did.[i]
[i] “French Liner La Bourgogne Sinks with Over Five Hundred Souls,” The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,) Jul 7, 1898, 6.
Cypress Grove Cemetery
Cypress Grove Cemetery became the first cemetery built to honor New Orleans volunteer firemen and their families. It is directly across the street from Greenwood.
Cypress Grove Cemetery
The Charles Leeds (1823-1898) Mausoleum in New Orleans’ Cypress Grove Cemetery does not have any visible markings identifying the maker. Leeds was Mayor of New Orleans from 1874-1876. Mayor Leeds died in 1898 at the age of 75 and became the first Mayor of New Orleans interred in Cypress Grove.
St. Louis Cemetery #2
You will need to walk a few slightly scary blocks from Canal Street as well as get permission in advance to visit this cemetery before you are allowed entrance.
St. Louis Cemetery #2
The son of Milan, Italy immigrant Joseph Barelli, Sr. was killed when the boilers exploded aboard the steamboat Louisiana on November 15, 1849, as it prepared to depart from New Orleans for St. Louis. Newspapers stated that a mass of iron weighing thousands of pounds was thrown 600 feet, cutting though cotton bales before leveling the iron pillars of the White Mansion Coffee House.
[i] Steamboat Disaster, The Burlington Hawk-Eye (Burlington, Iowa), 6 Dec 1849.