On the morning of Sept. 11, 1871, the sexton of Greenwood Cemetery entered the cemetery to find an unusual gathering. A pale, motionless figure was stretched out on a board wearing a sheet with candles burning at his head and feet. Surrounding him were “shaggy demons” dancing wildly.
The Daily Picayune noted that, in general, ghosts avoided Greenwood Cemetery compared to other cemeteries and didn’t “torment the sexton with unusual visitations and horrid apparitions.” Fearing for his life, the sexton darted from the cemetery in terror. His first reaction was to call the police. His second response was to call for Voodoo Priestess Marie Laveau to exorcise the demons. However, before Laveau could arrive, it was discovered that the evil spirits were just a drunken party of young men.
The sexton clearly took comfort in knowing that if the police couldn’t handle the situation, Marie Laveau could.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Greenwood Cemetery was founded in 1852 to serve the growing middle class and as a response to the popularity of its fellow cemetery Cypress Grove, founded in 1840 by the Firemen’s Charitable and Benevolent Association.
With the devastating yellow fever epidemics, Greenwood’s 150 acres satisfied a need for more burial space. It was the first above-ground cemetery built in the city without the typical wall vaults. Instead, Greenwood was enclosed by an iron fence.
Although Metairie Cemetery has more land, Greenwood has the most burial plots in the city. The new Greenwood Garden Mausoleum can accommodate 14,000 burials and provides areas for service and meditation.
MONUMENTS TO THE DEAD
Greenwood is instantly identifiable by some of its striking tombs and monuments at the entrance on City Park Avenue. It’s most iconic is the Lodge No. 30, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks tomb. The tomb is a grassy mound called a tumulus and was erected by architect Albert Weiblen. Under the mound is a marble chamber that holds 18 vaults. The granite entrance is fashioned in the Greek Doric style with a clock frozen in time worked into the pediment, the hands pointing at 11 o’clock. At any Elks ritual a toast is read at 11, the “golden hour of recollection” in memory of their “absent brothers.” At the top of the tumulus is a majestic bronze elk. At the dedication in 1912, the Elk’s antlers were decorated with roses, carnations, and purple and white ribbons (the order’s colors).
Also at the entrance is the Firemen’s Monument, erected by the Firemen’s Charitable and Benevolent Association in 1887. This neo-Gothic design consists of arches and is surmounted by a steeple. Designed and erected by local architect Charles A. Orleans, the structure is 46 feet tall and made from granite. The 6-foot-high marble statue of a volunteer fireman was designed by Alexander Doyle. The names of 23 volunteer fire companies are engraved on the base.
Multiple mayors, governors and baseball players are buried in Greenwood, as are many famous (and infamous) people, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Kennedy Toole, who wrote “A Confederacy of Dunces;” Storyville madam Willie Piazza; New Orleans Public Schools Superintendent Warren Easton; musician Sam Butera; Zatarain Spices founder Emile A. Zatarain Sr.; and beloved local legend Ruthie “the Duck Girl” Moulon. Some lesser-known tombs, however, are equally compelling.
EVERY TOMB TELLS A STORY
Near the front entrance is Peter Peterson’s tomb. Born in Copenhagen in 1814, he came to New Orleans as a teenager and was a bit of a hellraiser, working as a sailor and bar owner. He married Eveline Wilson and became a reformed man. When she died in 1867 at the age of 44 from cancer, Peterson devoted the rest of his life trying to find a cure. He immediately purchased his own mahogany coffin, and the suit he was to be buried in, keeping the coffin propped behind a door in his house. Every Sunday for 19 years, he visited his wife’s grave and brought fresh flowers, spending hours at her tomb. Peterson built the tomb in a tumulus style like the ancient Scandinavians out of 115 tons of rough granite, standing 14 feet high. Peterson had his name engraved on the table, “Lastly myself. Erected to the everlasting memory of my true wife,” and the number “18—” with the remaining numbers to be filled in at his death, which was in 1886.
The “Buddha tomb,” located in the back of the cemetery, features a beautiful crossed-legged buddha. This tomb is home to Gee Nee Tong born in Canton, China in 1904 and his wife Adra. Tong, who was a pilot, met Adra in 1942.
Adra was a burlesque dancer who danced with the famed Minsky’s, the Palace of Burlesque in New York, and was famous for her “snake dance,” a dance with seven boa constrictors.
The couple opened a Chinese restaurant in the French Quarter. In 1969, Tong wrote a cookbook called “Chopsticks Unlimited” with Mayor Victor Schiro writing the introduction.
Tong was the first Chinese-American man to be admitted to the Grand Lodge of Masons in Louisiana and when he died in 1973, he received Masonic services. Adra continued to run China Town Cafe, dying in 1980.
The most tragic tomb in Greenwood, which was known for decades as the “suicide tomb,” is largely forgotten today.
In October 1858, Sylvester Rupert’s 4-year-old daughter Lizzie died of yellow fever. Lizzie was originally buried in a grave, but Rupert built her a brick tomb and had her body exhumed and placed inside. At the mouth of the tomb, instead of the typical brick covering or tablet, Rupert built a wood door and carved his daughter’s name on it. He visited the grave every few days, unscrewing the door and opening the coffin to see his daughter’s decomposing body.
As a ship carpenter, he had been struggling to find a job, and one morning in January 1859, he told his wife if he didn’t find work, he wouldn’t return. He didn’t. Frantic, his wife raced to Greenwood but couldn’t find him. Finally, she noticed that the door to Lizzie’s tomb didn’t fit square in its frame. She pulled it open to find her husband’s body.
Moving his daughter’s coffin to the side, he used a brick as a pillow, wrapping his coat around it. Rupert screwed a metal trunk handle on the inside of the tomb’s door and closed it using a rod and wire he brought. He laid down on the slab and drank a bottle of laudanum. For years, this tomb attracted visitors because of its tragic tale. Today, it is just a pile of bricks.
Greenwood Cemetery is rich with a mix of different tombs and symbols. Strolling the multiple aisles, one will find the largest assortment of iron tombs in the city, numerous variations of Woodmen of the World tombs, and several multi-vault tombs, including the Police Mutual Benevolent Association tomb constructed of white marble and featuring a New Orleans police officer’s cap and badge with the crescent moon and star carved on the pediment and olive branches below; the Swiss Society tomb, containing 30 vaults with corner downspouts in the form of angels blowing horns; and the New Orleans Typographical Union tomb, the first labor union in the region.
TREASURES WORTH SAVING
Nick Black, sexton of Greenwood and Cypress Grove cemeteries and owner of NOLA Cemetery Renewal, is passionate about not only Greenwood Cemetery but all the cemeteries in New Orleans, believing that one of our cemetery’s greatest obstacles is the misinformation surrounding our burial practices, citing many tour guides circulating falsehoods that over time have been taken as facts. “We knew more 200 years ago than we do today,” Black said.
Black is hopeful, however, that with accurate information about our historic cemeteries and community engagement, measures can be taken to care for and restore many of the city’s abandoned tombs. As with any cemetery in New Orleans, Greenwood is not just a place to bury and mourn the dead but an exploration into the collective history of its citizens through impressive monuments, grand and modest tombs, and weather-worn statues. Every grave tells a story, and every grave deserves reverence.
Learn more about New Orleans’ historic cemeteries and support their preservation by booking a tour through the Preservation Resource Center and Save Our Cemeteries:
https://prcno.org/new-orleans-cemetery-tours/
