Waching daily Aug 31 2018

We're at the Lafayette Cemetery off of

Washington Avenue. And we just parked

along the street. We read that there's

lots of street parking around, and just

don't park where there's the signs that

say you can't during certain hours. This is a

very famous cemetery here in New Orleans.

Died 1866. Some of them are kind of new.

There's one where someone died in 2010. This one

died in 1872. I guess it's like a family

vault. So when someone else in the

family dies, they reopen it and seal it

back. There's one with some broken up

tablets that fell off of the front.

There's one that's been fairly newly

decorated, looks like, with beads and a hat.

Somebody's been attending a little bit

to this one. There's several people in

this one. Different drawers.

Different last names. So that this must

be a shared vault, mausoleum there.

This contains almost 1,100 tombs and

almost 10,000 people. It's huge.

We're gonna take a quick walk

around. We can't really walk really quick

because we're dressed for a brunch that

we're doing on the Natchez this morning.

Wonder what the oldest one is?

The first available burial records are

dated August 3rd, 1843. Although people were using it before that.

That one says, "Papa".

Oh, look at this one. They probably had a lot

of money. That's a huge stone and like

there's a huge gated fence around it.

Like they didn't want anybody to get in.

But they didn't want anybody in.

Except the gate is missing.

Maybe it was just an entrance.

O'Brien.

In 1841, there were 241 burials in the cemetery

because of yellow fever victims. Wow.

1995 is this one. So it hasn't had

time to weather.

Whoa! Look at this one.

Like it's like the whole family goes down the

row, like as to when they died. Like the

newest one died in 1986. Like this is the

whole entire Coffey family. C-O-F-F-E-Y.

Then up here it says Gassenberger-Hogan-Gerstner.

It says that in 1847, 613 more people were buried here

that died of the Yellow Fever.

And in 1853, over 8,000 people died because of the Yellow Fever

and often left bodies at the cemetery gates.

Oh! They just left them at the gate?

They didn't even bury them?

They were hoping to get them buried here, I guess.

Here's a really new one.

Some of the tombs say how

they died. Like Yellow Fever, lightning strike, or whatever.

They get kind of detailed.

There's some beads left at this one.

Oh, the Poydras Orphans.

"All Souls Sheltered At Poydras Home".

Ahhhh. It's an orphans grave.

And I just thought this one was cool.

Husband of Carey.

Look at all the stones around that one. I wonder why?

Maybe they pray for them with the stones,

or something.

Prayed for them, and leave a stone or something.

Sumpter Turner.

Died of cholera. October 27th of 1867.

Wow, that's a rough way to go then.

Oh, look they fought in World War two.

World War one and World War two.

A lot of the tombs are decorated with statues.

There's a Captain N. Taylor Squires, C.S.A.

Confederate States of America.

Killed near Franklin, LA., on Oct. 2nd, 1863.

Aged 25 years and seven months.

It looks like he was a casualty in the Civil War.

Some of them are in pretty bad shape and disrepair.

I know that they've tried to repair the

cemetery quite a bit and keep it up.

Its had some really bad days and they've

done a lot to fix it up, and

repair what they could and restore it.

It says, "Family Tomb".

There's several people that it shows

are entombed here.

Edward W. Sewell.

A native of Cork. (Ireland)

Was killed at the Battle of New Hope Church.

Says this person was a native of

Germany.

Banschbach.

This is a different style of grave. They're kind of an

open-top with ground in it. With earth in it.

Someone in this block was with the

Lafayette Hook-And-Ladder Fire Company.

This person was drowned in the

Mississippi River and body not recovered.

This is a big tomb here, and it says,

"The Jefferson Fire Company, Number 22 1852".

And it has an old pump fire engine on the front of it.

There's someone that it says died of

yellow fever. Mary Love and Edwin Given.

This one looks like it's all in German.

Well that was interesting. There's a lot

of history there. And you're not gonna see

another cemetery like that anywhere,

except for New Orleans.

And it's just kind of sad to see all the

people that died of cholera and yellow

fever back then, too.