Girod Cemetery

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Girod Cemetery or Girod Street Cemetery was a New Orleans cemetery . It was named after one of the neighboring streets, which in turn was named after a deserving citizen of the city, and was located between Freret, Liberty, Cypres and Perilliat Streets.

history

The cemetery, which was established in 1822, was specially intended for Protestants, who until that time had been buried in a separate area of ​​the Catholic St. Louis Cemetery Number 1. The site on which the Girod Cemetery was to be located was purchased by Christ Church for a little over $ 3,000 and used for over 130 years. During this time, numerous prominent residents were buried in the cemetery. After the cemetery fell into a state of disrepair after a church fire and many graves were no longer cared for, it was abandoned in 1957. The remains of many people buried in Girod Cemetery who were white and had no descendants who would have taken care of an individual reburial, as well as several gravestones were transferred to the Hope Mausoleum, where the dead were transferred to a common crypt of Christ Church Cathedral were reburied. The saved tombstones were placed on the back wall of the Hope Mausoleum on Canal Street. The remains of dark-skinned people were buried in Providence Memorial Park. The place was marked with a bronze plaque.

Part of the area of ​​the former Girod Cemetery was then used to expand the city center; In 1970, another part of the area was used for the Louisiana Superdome . In times of sporting failures, it was common among sports enthusiasts to blame these on the ghosts of the dead, who felt disturbed in their eternal rest by the Superdome. In 1989 the Dominion Tower was built nearby.

Various inscriptions in the Hope Mausoleum commemorate the reburied dead. A communal plaque reads: “In loving memory of those once interred in the Girod Street Cemetery (founded 1822), whose mortal remains were removed and re-entombed in this building by Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) AD 1957, and of Rev James F. Hull DD, 1776-1833, rector of Christ Church 1816-1830 Rev. Wm. T. Leacock DD, 1797-1884, rector of Christ Church 1852-1882 Richard Relf 1776-1857, a warden of Christ Church for 52 years. Rev. John Henry Kleinhagen, 1815–1885, pioneer Evangelical & Lutheran pastor Glendy Burke 1806–1879, merchant, banker, leading citizen Jane Placide , 1804–1835, distinguished actress whose remains lie in Crypt 1083-A. “Jane Placide is additional Another board is dedicated, on which some dates of life are recorded: “To the memory of Jane Placide, d. May 16, 1835, aged 31 years. "

Well-known graves and curiosities

Various charitable societies had collective burial sites in Girod Cemetery. These included the Sobriety Benevolent Aid Society, the Home Missionary Benevolent Society, the Male and Female Lutheran Benevolent Society, the New Lusitanos Benevolent Association, and the Wide Awake Benevolent Society.

The grave of a person named Robert John Creswell, who died in 1845 at the age of 26, bore an inscription that puzzled visitors. In a city guide from 1938 it is compared with an utterance of Jabberwock and is transcribed as follows: “Alas that one whose dornthly joy had often to trust in heaven should canty thus sudden to from all its hopes benivens and though thy love for off remore that dealt the dog pest thou left to prove thy sufferings while below ". John Steinbeck , who quotes this inscription in a slightly different spelling in his trip with Charly , said: “That could be from Lewis Carroll . I almost understand what it is supposed to mean. "

When former Zulu Mardi Gras king Joseph J. Smith was buried in a baby blue coffin in Girod Cemetery in 1848 , he was followed by a half-mile-long funeral procession.

science

The Tulane University Libraries hold material on the Girod Cemetery in one of their special collections. There you will also find the materials that the local historian Leonard Huber for his book New Orleans Architecture. The Cemeteries from 1974. Huber also wrote a monograph on the cemetery with Guy F. Bernard. It was published in 1961 and was entitled To Glorious Immortality. The Rise and Fall of the Girod Street Cemetery, New Orleans' First Protestant Cemetery, 1822–1957 .

Web links

Commons : Girod Cemetery  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Where was it?
  2. ↑ a b Girod Street Cemetery (OR18) - New Orleans. on: la-cemeteries.com
  3. ^ A b Leonard Victor Huber among others: New Orleans Architecture. Volume 3: The Cemeteries. Pelican Pub, 1997, ISBN 1-56554-270-3 , p. 21.
  4. ↑ Pictures and data on Old New Orleans.com
  5. ^ Doris Ryan: Girod Street Cemetery of New Orleans Lousiana. on: usgwarchives.net , 2003.
  6. ^ New Orleans City Guide. 1938, p. 192.
  7. ↑ John Steinbeck: My journey with Charly. dtv, 1999, ISBN 3-423-08482-0 , p. 271.

Coordinates: 29 ° 56 '59.1 "  N , 90 ° 4' 44"  W.