St. Joseph Cemetery Tour to Bring Baton Rouge's History to Life

Behind the graves at St. Joseph Cemetery are stories of love, war, tragedy, creativity, young lives cut short, and influencers in the history of Baton Rouge and Louisiana.

A group within the St. Joseph Cemetery Committee charged with celebrating its 200th anniversary has been sharing these stories over the past year to emphasize its history, striving to educate people on the cemetery's special niche in the community and the urgent need to restore some of these graves.

One of the group’s upcoming events is a tour of the cemetery on Oct. 19, 2-4 p.m. As people enter the cemetery, they are also passing through the gateway to Baton Rouge's past.

St. Joseph Cemetery has an interesting history, according to Erick Swenson, president of the St. Joseph 200th anniversary celebration. More than 3,000 people were buried in the cemetery. Some notables laid to rest there include mayors, sheriffs, business leaders, the city's first doctor, Confederate and Union soldiers, and African American Reconstruction-era legislators like brothers Victor and Robert Lange. Marie Adrien Persac, cartographer of plantations on the Mississippi River, is also buried there with his family. 

St. Joseph Cemetery was also part of the 1862 Battle of Baton Rouge during the Civil War, noted Swenson. 
An 1862 topical map of Baton Rouge by civil engineer Joseph Gorlinski, which shows St. Joseph Cemetery to be amid the Battle of Baton Rouge in the Civil War.   
To preserve this history, the cemetery's anniversary committee asked Emily Ford to make an assessment and list of priorities of restoration work on tombs. Ford owns and operates Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation in New Orleans.

One of the tombs on the tour will be the Petit Jean tomb, the resting place of at least eight people. Ford recently spoke with The Catholic Commentator as she restored the tomb.

The burial place has a unique four-oven vault pyramidical design featuring a curved roof with a quarter-circular slope on each end of a flat platform.

"We chose it specifically because it was covered in modern Portland cement, which can be really harmful to historic masonry," said Ford. "And it did tear the tomb apart. We filled up my truck with so much concrete that my truck could barely haul it, and I had to borrow the dumpster. Now we're in the process of reconstructing the tomb.

"The tomb would have been absolutely destroyed if that stuff had not been removed."

Ford will be on-hand to explain the history of the Petit Jean tomb during the cemetery tour.

She noted some of the tombs in the cemetery are older than the cemetery itself because they were moved from the first Catholic cemetery in Baton Rouge. The first cemetery was established in 1792 in the Spanish Town area behind the Cathedral.Emily Ford and Corey Douglas of Oak and Laurel Cemetery Preservation do restoration work on the Petit Jean tomb. Photo by Debbie Shelley | The Catholic Commentator

As the Spanish Town area grew, neighbors complained of a "smell nuisance" and the tombs were moved to North Street when the cemetery was established there in 1825.

Reenactors will be at several of the tombs to tell about the history of the people buried in them, including the Persac family, the Lange brothers, the Joseph Leak Patin family, and Josephine Luppé and her husband Theophile Bertrand. 

Reenactors will also be at the tombs of Leon Jastremski, a Confederate soldier and three-term Baton Rouge mayor, and Francois Alzide Dubroca, a home school pioneer from Port Allen.  

Two of the featured tombs will be those of children. One is the Dollhouse tomb, built for 3-year-old Mary Lucille Barcelona, who died suddenly at midnight after having played all day. Her devastated parents did their best to fulfill her wish to have a dollhouse for Christmas by making her tomb in the shape of a dollhouse. The other child is Ellen Jane Cothell, who died when she was one year and four months old. Her love for books is captured by the tomb featuring a child reading a book.

Other tombs that may potentially be restored will be designated with informational markers.

The history of the Jesuit priests who served at St. Joseph Cathedral will also be spotlighted.

Frank Uter, retired, who was rector of St. Joseph Cathedral from 1984-1997, highlighted the Jesuits’ role in the history of the cathedral and the cemetery. He wrote about it in his book, "A History of the Catholic Church in Baton Rouge."

It was under the Jesuits that the construction of the third and current cathedral building began in 1853 and was completed in 1856. The architect was Jesuit Father John Cambiaso.
Father Edward Arroyo, Jesuit Provincial, left, and Bishop Stanley Joseph Ott at the dedication of the Jesuit memorial monument in 1990. Archive photo of the Diocese of Baton Rouge 
The Jesuits who died while serving at St. Joseph between 1849 and 1865 were buried in the cemetery.

"They were here during the Civil War, they were here during the yellow fever epidemic, they were here to build the new church," Father Uter said.

The Jesuits who were buried in the cemetery, Father Anthony Parret, Brother Henry Visconti, Father Joseph Adams, Father Vitalis Gilles, and Brother Philip Corne, all fell victim to epidemics that struck the city. 

Eventually, their remains were moved to the Spring Hill College Jesuit Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama, and a marker was erected in their memory at St. Joseph Cemetery in 1990.

Donations for the restoration work of the graves will be accepted onsite during the tour as well as online at saintjosephcemeterybr.org.

The cemetery tours will be the second-to-last event of the year-long anniversary celebration. The last one will be Sunday, Nov 2 when an All Souls’ Day Mass will be celebrated at St. Joseph Cathedral at 10:30 a.m. The Mass will be followed by a luncheon in the Parish Hall and traditional blessing of the graves at the cemetery.

This year's events have provided opportunities to learn about and help preserve the history of the cemetery, according to planners.

"This is one of the chances to celebrate the history of the cemetery – more than a fundraiser – to be connected with the important history of the community and the families," said Father Uter.
The Dollhouse tomb will be one of the graves featuring a reenactor during the cemetery tour on Oct. 19.