Lafayette Cemetery No.1 - New Orleans, LA (NOLA's Quintessential Cemetery)

1400 Washington Ave.

New Orleans LA, 70103

29.928633,-90.084279

In New Orleans, you will find some of the most historic and morbidly beautiful, if that is even such a concept, cemeteries in the country. Due to the city sitting well below sea level, most burials that take place here are all above ground in huge crypts or elaborate tombs. Walking through any given cemetery in New Orleans, you can quickly rate how prosperous a family was simply by looking at their graves. Some families have burial plots so grand, they would cost what an average American home would go for. Personally, I've always felt that once I am dead, I am dead. I do not want my family spending large amounts of money for a funeral and a coffin. If you care to respect my memory, then do so in your mind. I've often told my children, “Save your money, cremate me and flush me down the toilet!”

Regardless, New Orleans contains quite an extensive list of old cemeteries. Of the many in existence, the Lafayette Cemetery #1 is one of the oldest, most historic and most haunted cemeteries in the city! The cemetery is located directly across the previously mentioned Commander's Palace. Fortunately the scenery from the windows does not turn away the restaurant's patrons! If anything, many who often finish their fine meal, immediately walk across the street to view the grand plots. Screw the after dinner desert of glass of Port, let's go look at graves!
The cemetery was designed and activated in 1833 and was laid out on a simple grid system. Within twenty years, a yellow fever epidemic had caused the cemetery to become nearly full. Fortunately, the tombs in the cemetery were constructed with a shelf near the top where recently

deceased bodies were placed. The shelf didn't extend all the way to the back so when it was time to add another body to the family tomb the previous bones were pushed to the rear where they fell through, joining any remains already present! Although the idea sounds crude, for the era, this method was the only practical way to go about things. At the time, regulations limited the opening of tombs to only once a year, so temporary "storage ovens" lined some of the exterior walls of the cemetery, almost as a storage building for the deceased until the time was right to shove “ole Grandpa Joe” in his rightful spot.
The cemetery contains quite an eclectic group of buried citizens. There are society tombs for
several volunteer fireman organizations, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the German

Presbyterian Community, Home For Destitute Orphan Boys, Poydras Orphans Home, YMCA, and the New Orleans Home for Incurables. Individual family tombs in the cemetery feature Judge Ferguson of the famous Plessy vs. Ferguson “separate-but-equal” case. Also buried here is Brigadier General Harry T. Hays who led the First Louisiana Brigade. The Brunie family, buried here, were notable jazz musicians who were associated with Papa Laine and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. In total, there are approximately seven thousand people buried in the area; all contained in a single city block!
Many of the hauntings that generate from this near-ancient cemetery are your standard reports of unknown light anomalies and strange sounds being heard. Urban legend tales tell of “zombies” being buried here, which is highly doubtful but definitely fits the motif. With such an old cemetery housing so many bodies throughout the years, it is highly probable that some sort of residual energy, at the very least, remains. After you have indulged on a seven-course meal from Commander's Palace, try and take a stroll through the Lafayette Cemetery. Nothing helps digestion better than the smell of seven thousand corpses, or so I've been told!