{"id":2359,"slug":"lafayette-cemetery-no-1-new-orleans-louisiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is the Garden District's city of the dead — the 1833 municipal cemetery laid out on the old Livaudais sugar plantation when Lafayette City was its own town, the cruciform avenues under the magnolias, the 500 wall vaults on Washington Avenue, and the 7,000 dead from 26 states and 25 countries in a single square block.","The cemetery kept the city's whole mix — non-segregated and non-denominational from the start, Irish and German immigrants, Confederate generals and the father of the public schools, the flatboatmen and the newcomers the census couldn't count. The above-ground tombs are New Orleans's signature — the water table made burial underground impossible, so the city built its dead into walls.","The tombs are the architecture — Greek Revival and Gothic family vaults, marble and stucco and cast iron, restored piecemeal by Save Our Cemeteries since 1979. The file keeps the cemetery's democracy: the municipal ground that took everyone, the plantation land that became the Garden District's dead center, and the magnolia avenues that are still the walks between the vaults.","Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is the archive's Garden District file — the 1833 cemetery on the old plantation, the 7,000 dead in one block, and the wall vaults that hold the immigrants and generals the city took in."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Lafayette is the archive's municipal file — the cemetery that took everyone, the plantation that became the dead's, and the above-ground city that's still active in the Garden District's center.","A cemetery that took everyone keeps its walls — the file's suggestion being that Lafayette's hold is the wall vaults: the 500 sealed niches on Washington Avenue, the family tombs in the quadrants, and the block where the whole city's dead are stacked."]}],"name":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY","type_label":"Cemetery","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_CEMETERY"],"groups":["cemeteries","hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The Garden District’s 1833 walled necropolis—where Interview with the Vampire filmed.","full_desc":"A cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The Garden District’s 1833 walled necropolis—where Interview with the Vampire filmed. It sits in the archive under historic cemeteries, local folklore and haunted places. 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":1794,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures between the tombs and a presence at the wall. A cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana accumulating ghost reports is almost tautological — but this is the one the record kept. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. The report is preserved in sources like 'Lafayette Cemetery No. 1'. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Cemetery_No._1","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Established 1833; the filming history is documented. Lafayette Cemetery No. 1's history is documented — the entry belongs to the verified layer beneath the ghost stories. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Lafayette Cemetery No. 1'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1833","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Cemetery_No._1","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported figures between the tombs and a presence at the wall. Cemeteries keep their stories in the stones; Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana has its version filed among them. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The account appears in 'Lafayette Cemetery No. 1'. The retelling is the record now — the legend metabolized the facts long ago.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Cemetery_No._1","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"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":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Cemetery_No._1","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Cemetery_No._1","desc":"Cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana, US","extract":"Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is a historic cemetery in the Garden District neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1833 and still in use today, the cemetery takes its name from its location in what was once the City of Lafayette, a suburb of New Orleans that was annexed by the larger metropolis in 1852. The city's first planned cemetery, it is notable for the architectural significance of its tombs and mausoleums, often containing multiple family members, and for its layout, a cruciform plan that allowed for funeral processions.\nConfined within a single city block, the cemetery contains approximately 1,100 family tombs and 7,000 people.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Lafayette_Cemetery_No_1.jpg/960px-Lafayette_Cemetery_No_1.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":29.928701,"lon":-90.085361},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}