{"id":2361,"slug":"greenwood-cemetery-new-orleans-louisiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Greenwood was the cemetery the firemen built. The Firemen's Charitable & Benevolent Association — New Orleans's volunteer companies, businessmen who fought fires for free — opened the 150-acre ground in 1852 as yellow fever filled Cypress Grove across the street, the city burying 8,000 dead in a single epidemic year. It was New Orleans's first above-ground cemetery built without walls — the tombs standing in open acreage like a city that forgot to fence itself.","The monuments map the city's loyalties — the 1887 Firemen's Monument at the entrance honoring the volunteers who died at their posts, the Elks' tumulus, and New Orleans's first Civil War memorial: the 1874 Confederate tomb where the Ladies Benevolent Association reinterred 600 soldiers moved out of the Union cemetery at Chalmette — a low mound topped by the infantryman resting on his rifle over busts of Lee, Jackson, Johnston, and Polk.","Greenwood holds the whole range of the city's dead — William Bruce Mumford, hanged in 1862 for tearing down the Union flag, among them. The 20,000-plus tombs along Canal Street carry the whole social register of the nineteenth century — society vaults, fire companies, fraternal mounds — the firemen's ground grown into one of the great cemetery cities of the dead.","Greenwood Cemetery is the archive's firemen file — the 1852 above-ground city the volunteer companies built during yellow fever, holding New Orleans's first Confederate memorial and 600 soldiers moved out of the Union ground."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Greenwood Cemetery is the archive's Firemen's file — the FCBA's 1852 wall-less necropolis on Canal Street, where the 1874 Confederate monument marks 600 reinterred dead and the firemen's own Gothic monument guards the gate.","A cemetery built without walls keeps its mounds — the file's suggestion being that Greenwood's hold is the tumulus: the earthen vaults and monuments of a city that buried its firemen and its soldiers in the same open ground."]}],"name":"Greenwood Cemetery","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY","type_label":"Cemetery","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_CEMETERY"],"groups":["cemeteries","hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The City of the Dead’s firemen’s tumuli and the firemen’s ghost.","full_desc":"A cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana, Greenwood Cemetery is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The City of the Dead’s firemen’s tumuli and the firemen’s ghost. Its signature presence is Fireman — the figure the file’s accounts keep returning to. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"New Orleans","county":null,"state":"Louisiana","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.05342,"lon":-89.934502,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Southern Gothic batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1796,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a fireman’s figure and figures among the vaults. Cemeteries keep their stories in the stones; Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana has its version filed among them. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. Sources including 'Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)' keep the claim in circulation. Whatever walks there, it walks often enough to keep the reports coming.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":"Fireman","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_Cemetery,_New_Orleans","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Established 1852; the firemen’s monuments are the site’s signature. The burial ground's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. The detail is preserved in 'Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1852","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_Cemetery,_New_Orleans","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported a fireman’s figure and figures among the vaults. Greenwood Cemetery's dead are the site's permanent residents; the reports are how the living say they keep noticing. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. The report is preserved in sources like 'Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)'. The story outranks the documentation, which is how you know it's folklore.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_Cemetery,_New_Orleans","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"Fireman","claimed_identity":"Fireman","verified":null,"summary":"Reported a fireman’s figure and figures among the vaults. The burial ground at New Orleans is exactly the setting the account needs — old graves, older grief, and a story that won't settle. The file keeps Fireman on the roster; the sightings keep the name alive. The report keeps its place in the record.","behavior":"Reported a fireman’s figure and figures among the vaults.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_Cemetery,_New_Orleans","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Public cemetery; generally open during daylight hours. Be respectful of active burials.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Greenwood Cemetery (New Orleans)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_Cemetery,_New_Orleans","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Greenwood Cemetery","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood_Cemetery","desc":"Topics referred to by the same term","extract":"Greenwood Cemetery may refer to the following cemeteries in the US (sorted by state, then city):\n\nGreenwood Cemetery (Montgomery, Alabama)\nGreenwood Cemetery (Tuscaloosa, Alabama)\nGreenwood Cemetery (Orlando, Florida)\nGreenwood Cemetery (Tallahassee, Florida)\nGreenwood Cemetery (Atlanta), Georgia\nGreenwood Cemetery (Galena, Illinois)\nGreenwood Cemetery (Rockford, Illinois)\nGreenwood Cemetery Chapel, Muscatine, Iowa\nGreenwood Cemetery (Council Grove, Kansas)\nGreenwood Cemetery in Lexington, Kentucky, predecessor of Cove Haven Cemetery\nGreenwood Cemetery (Shreveport, Louisiana)\nGreenwood Cemetery, New Orleans, Louisiana\nGreenwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Michigan)\nGreenwood Cemetery (Jackson, Mis","img":null,"score":89},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":1}}