Holt Cemetery

Holt Cemetery is a potter's field cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is located next to Delgado Community College, behind the right field fence of the college's baseball facility, Kirsch-Rooney Stadium. The cemetery is named after Dr. Joseph Holt, an official of the New Orleans Board of Health (famously involved with city health issues concerning Storyville, the Red-light district of New Orleans) who officially established the cemetery in the 19th century. Holt Cemetery is one of the Historic Cemeteries of New Orleans.

Holt Cemetery
Details
Established1879
Location
4901 Rosedale Drive, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Coordinates
TypePotter's Field
Owned byCity of New Orleans
Size7 acres
No. of graves2391
Find a GraveHolt Cemetery

The cemetery was established in 1879 to inter the bodies of poor or indigent residents of the city. Funeral processions to Holt Cemetery were generally around, rather than through, the city. The original cemetery was 5.5 acres, and it was expanded in 1909 to 7 acres. Nearly all of the tombs are in-ground burials.[1][2] As established, ownership of the graves at Holt Cemetery were given to the families of the deceased for the cost of digging the grave and subsequent maintenance of the plot.[3]

Most of the graves and tombs at Holt Cemetery were not commercially or professionally produced but were instead fabricated by families of the deceased, giving the cemetery a strong personal touch.[4]

The cemetery contains the remains of known and unknown early blues and jazz musicians, including Babe Stovall, Jessie Hill[5] and Charles "Buddy" Bolden. The battered remains of Robert Charles, at the center of the 1900 New Orleans race riot were briefly interred there, then dug up, and incinerated. Later, in 1973, four victims of the UpStairs Lounge arson attack, Ferris LeBlanc and three unidentified males, were buried in a mass grave at the cemetery.[6]

Over the years, Holt Cemetery has been a destination of ghost hunters, with frequent incidents of grave-robbing and reports of Voodoo and Santería rituals.[2]

The city of New Orleans conducted $450,000 in repairs and upgrades to Holt Cemetery in 2013 and 2014.[2] However, the graves and tombs themselves remain in a state of significant neglect, with human remains being evident. New burials continue at Holt Cemetery, and the graves show evidence for frequent visits and various cultural materials.[7]

The word "Holt" means "Dead" in Hungarian. The name "Holt" is of Proto-Germanic origin meaning a small wood or grove of trees.

References
  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20071117055524/http://www.nolacemeteries.com/holt.html
  2. Whirty, Ryan (September 6, 2017). "Holt Cemetery: How the Other Half Dies in New Orleans". Georges Media Group. New Orleans Times-Picayune. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  3. Huber, Leonard V.; McDowell, Peggy; Christovich, Mary Louise (1974). New Orleans Architecture (Vol. III): The Cemeteries. Gretna, Louisiana USA: Pelican Publishing. p. 60. ISBN 0-88289-020-4.
  4. "Holt Cemetery". saveourcemeteries.org. Save Our Cemeteries. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  5. Jeff Hannusch (1 February 2002). "Masters Of Louisiana Music: Jessie Hill". OffBeat magazine website. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  6. The Upstairs Fire - June 24, 1973 - 25th Anniversary Memorial Service
  7. Krummel, Jordon Andréa (2013). Holt Cemetery: An Anthropological Analysis of an Urban Potter's Field (Masters Dissertation). Tulane University. Retrieved March 26, 2020.
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