You are here

Louisiana » New Orleans » Downriver Faubourgs/Neighborhoods » St. Roch Cemetery and Chapel

St. Roch Cemetery and Chapel

-A A +A
1875 dedicated. 1725 St. Roch Ave.
  • (Photograph by Karen Kingsley)
  • (Photograph by Karen Kingsley)
  • (Photograph by Karen Kingsley)
  • (Photograph by Karen Kingsley)

The cemetery and its chapel are the only ones in the United States dedicated to St. Roch, the fourteenth-century French saint who ministered to plague sufferers. German immigrant Father Peter Thevis of Holy Trinity Church purchased the land to build the cemetery and chapel in thanks to St. Roch for saving his congregation from the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1867 (3,107 people died in New Orleans that year). The interior of the diminutive stuccoed brick Gothic Revival chapel is dimly lit by tall narrow windows, and its lower walls are faced with metal panels painted in imitation of wood. The cemetery, laid out like the Campo Santo dei Tedeschi, the German cemetery in Rome, is surrounded by a brick outer wall containing vaults and chapel-like niches for almost life-size sculptures of the Stations of the Cross that were installed in 1948. Two sturdy castellated Gothic Revival towers guard the cemetery’s entrance. An extension to the cemetery and St. Michael’s Mausoleum were added soon afterward.

Nearby at 1835 St. Roch Avenue is the cruciform Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, which faces the two-block-long St. Roch Playground.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Karen Kingsley and Lake Douglas
×

Data

What's Nearby

St. Roch Market
Make It Right Houses
Historic Sts. Peter and Paul Church
Sun Oak
Claiborne House

Citation

Karen Kingsley and Lake Douglas, "St. Roch Cemetery and Chapel", [New Orleans, Louisiana], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/LA-02-OR49.

Print Source

buildings of new orleans book

Buildings of New Orleans, Karen Kingsley and Lake Douglas. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018, 69-70.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,