Lafayette Cemetery New Orleans

Lafayette Cemetery New Orleans

City of the Dead

In the United States, there are literally hundreds of thousands of cemeteries. In every town, in every village, these monuments house our dearly departed, and let both their bodies and souls stay at rest-- at least, we hope so. Few of these cemeteries house as much history and mystery as the Lafayette Cemetery #1 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Lafayette is considered one of the most unique cemeteries, and to some, one of the most haunted locations in the entire United States.

Beyond the rusted fences of the gate that encloses the Lafayette cemetery are rows upon rows of marble tombs, baked and bleached by the suns rays, overgrown with ivy from years and years of history. The tombstones, each unique in their carvings and decorations, line rows in Gothic decoration behind rusty iron fences. Located in the Garden District of the French Quarter of New Orleans, this cemetery doubles as a very historic and interesting decoration.

Lafayette Cemetery was founded in 1833 by the City of Lafayette, a city that was , at the time, outside of the city of New Orleans. The are of New Orleans and the surrounding area is quite a particular problem, that forced residents to come up with a peculiar solution. The land that New Orleans is built on sets several feet below sea level, and it's no suprise-- New Orleans is known for it's swamps and bogs. This type of topography, however, posed to be a difficult problem to solve when it came to properly burying the dead. Since the area around New Orleans sits so many feet below sea level, the land has a tendency to be very saturated with water. Since the land is so saturated with water, coffins housing the deceased had a tendency to float up from the very grave that they were buried in! And in a town like New Orleans, this becomes a problem that is unique to this very spooky city.

Since the establishment of New Orleans, the city has been literally haunted with it's tales of spirits and ghouls. In the beginning, New Orleans was a city that proved to be very difficult to establish. The swamplands are unforgiving, and very difficult to cultivate and build structures on. So, when France claimed Louisiana and began to settle it, they started to develop cost-effective means to build the city. Although their means to manage settlers to the feral lands was indeed cost effective, their methods were often scandalous and seemingly devious. At first, they decided that the best way to start a new colony would be to send over the prisoners of France. So, France sends over ships filled with murderers and rapists, thieves and crooks to the untamed city currently being administered by the Ursuline Sisters Convent. The idea was that they could both rid their nation of most of their criminals, but they could also get the to by giving them an opportunity to start anew. However, this proved to have it's own set of complications. it seems that many of the prisoners did not turn over new leaves, and crime-- murder and theft, became an issue, and the prisoners blamed this lack of discipline on the the lack of women within the city! So the prisoners were crying desperately to the Sisters of Ursuline for more women, and in turn, the sisters asked France to send women to keep them docile. And again, France devises a devilish way to obtain the needed women. With false propaganda depicting a rugged and honorable frontiersman walking hand and hand with a young dame down a winding country road, and peasant Fathers eager to get rid of one more mouth to feed, France had it's solution. And so, France sent over ship after ship of women to the new world.

However, the route taken to Louisiana at the time stopped in Savannah Georgia, a city that had been settled much longer than New Orleans. And since this city was more domestic, the women on the ships found that they could start a new life in Savannah, and not have to deal with the burdens and troubles of rouging the wild.

The day that the ships were supposed to arrive at New Orleans was a day much awaited by the prisoner inhabitants of New Orleans, some of them even literally waited on the docks. But, when the ships came, there were no women to be aboard, and they came with a grave surprise.

Inside the holds of the ships were dozens of eight by five pine crates, stacked upon each other in a shoddy fashion. When the women were aboard the ship, they inquired to the contents of the wooden containers. Officials told them that it would be all the supplies they needed to begin their lives in the New World. In actuality, each of these containers contained something sinister; the decaying bodies of the deceased. France had pulled another fast one on the settlers of New Orleans and New Lafayette. Since France at the time was influenced by Aristocratic Catholics at the