Lafayette Cemetery No. 1: The Garden District’s City of the Dead

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1: The Garden District’s City of the Dead

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is the crown jewel of Garden District cemeteries and one of the most photographed burial grounds in the world. Established in 1833 in what was then the independent City of Lafayette—before it was annexed by New Orleans in 1852—this one-square-block cemetery sits at the corner of Washington Avenue and Prytania Street, steps from Commander’s Palace restaurant and surrounded by some of the most magnificent homes in the American South.

History

When the City of Lafayette was incorporated in 1833, it needed its own burial ground. The site chosen was a full city block in the heart of the new American suburb, surrounded by the grand homes being built by Anglo-American newcomers who had flooded into New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase. Unlike the older Creole cemeteries near the French Quarter, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 was non-denominational from the start—and historically non-segregated, a remarkable fact for a Southern city in the antebellum period. The cemetery was devastated by the yellow fever epidemics of the 1840s and 1850s, which killed thousands of newly arrived immigrants, particularly Irish and German settlers who had no immunity to the tropical disease.

Architecture and Design

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is laid out in a grid pattern with two main intersecting paths that divide the grounds into four quadrants. The tombs are a mix of family crypts, society tombs, and wall vaults, many of them built from brick and covered in stucco that has cracked and weathered over nearly two centuries. The society tombs are among the most impressive—large, multi-story structures built by benevolent associations like the Jefferson Fire Company and various immigrant aid societies that pooled resources to provide dignified burial for their members. The live oaks that shade the cemetery add a gothic beauty that has made it irresistible to filmmakers, photographers, and novelists.

Famous Residents

Samuel Jarvis Peters, the developer who essentially created the American sector of New Orleans and helped build the Garden District, is buried here. Numerous victims of the yellow fever epidemics of 1852 and 1853 fill the tombs—in the summer of 1853 alone, over 8,000 people died in New Orleans, and many were buried at Lafayette. The cemetery also holds prominent members of the city’s German, Irish, and English immigrant communities who built the Garden District into one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the South.

In Popular Culture

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 has appeared in countless films, television shows, and novels. Anne Rice used it as a setting in her Vampire Chronicles, and the cemetery’s gothic atmosphere has made it a staple of New Orleans ghost tours and horror fiction. The HBO series Treme featured scenes filmed here. Its location next to Commander’s Palace creates one of the most unique pairings in the city—fine dining and fine dying, separated by a single block wall. After a major restoration effort in recent years, the cemetery is open to the public, and walking its paths on a quiet weekday morning—with the oaks overhead and the crumbling tombs all around—remains one of the most atmospheric experiences in New Orleans.