Crosses, Coffins, and Catafalques: The Business of Mourning in 19th-century New Orleans
By Katie Burlison
As we approach the modern-day “spooky season”, we are bombarded with orange blinking lights, enormous fake spiders, cotton webs, and plastic skeletons adorning house facades; yards decorated with black cats, flying witches, white-sheet clad ghosts, and foam gravestones protruding from the grass. While today, images of ghosts, tombs, cemeteries, and homes draped in black are primarily confined to the month of October, nineteenth-century Americans regularly faced their own mortality as well as the passing of multiple family members, friends, business partners, employees or fellow soldiers. Disease, war, questionable medical procedures, unregulated working conditions, and harsh punishment from enslavers were just a few dangers responsible for society’s preoccupation with mourning and memorializing the dead.
This blog post will discuss the ways in which mourning practices in America and New Orleans reflect traditions from around the world; the commercialization of mourning, which was primarily geared towards a Christian audience (white or free people of color); and the evolution of some of the local businesses that were involved in this trade, and what types of goods and services they supplied—from transportation to personal accessories to tombs.
Globally, public displays of mourning, many of which we would recognize today, have been around since the earliest civilizations. West Africans mourned their dead with “a great deal of dancing and festivities” and “the wake went on for days,” according to accounts compiled in Passed on: African American mourning stories. As the author Karla Holloway explains: “Community involvement in the African American funeral ceremony took its significance (if not its actual practices) from West African cultures that attended to death and burial as an important, public, elaborate, and lengthy social event.”¹
Enslaved people taken from West African nations and brought to Louisiana in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were all too familiar with the prospect of death, as tens of thousands had died on the miserable and dangerous intercontinental voyage alone. Holloway is not alone in pointing out the strong correlation between contemporary New Orleans jazz funerals and the mourning and dancing in West African ceremonies, particularly in the call-and-response and performative and participatory elements. The stories passed down in New Orleans native Brenda Osbey’s family are not unlike those of many of the city’s Black families: Kongolese slaves would “vent the soul’s sorrow with…weeping and wailing” before accompanying the dead to burial sites “with much rejoicing”, including beating drums and tambourines, and “dancing the soul to its new home.”²
In Europe, upon the deaths of European military heroes and royalty in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, shops, banks, and churches were draped in black fabric (with varying degrees of success), wreaths, and even statuary; elaborately decorated funeral carts carrying velvet-lined caskets proceeded down the main thoroughfares; and those lined up to watch were “all wearing mourning, the very beggars having a bit of crape on their arms.”³ That particular line comes from a description of the 1806 funeral procession of Lord Horatio Nelson into St. Paul’s Cathedral, but the same scene could be found on the streets of New York after the death of General Ulysses S. Grant.
In the early nineteenth century, New Orleans and other American cities saw a new category of commerce around mourning and burial practices, led by already established cabinetmakers and upholsterers, owners of stables and carriage “taxis”, architects, and stone carvers. One’s expression of grief and public-facing display of affection for the dead depended on their religious customs and what their economic position allowed. Before emancipation, advertisements primarily were aimed at white Christians or free people of color.
These businesses provided everything from wax candles wrapped in black paper for private mourning to velvet-lined coffins to carriages transporting mourners to cemeteries for burial services.
Funeral announcements
“Funeral tickets,” in France referred to as the lettre de faire part, were printed documents with black borders that sometimes featured engravings of a mourning figure, a weeping willow, or a tomb. They announced the date, time, and place of the funeral, and requested that the recipient not only attend the service but pray for the soul of the deceased.⁴ “Funeral Director” John Bonnet was responsible for Felix Grima’s 1887 funeral announcement (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Felix Grima death notice, April. 14, 1887. HGGHH collection, gift of the Grima Family.
Decoration
Among the offerings for interior and exterior decorations for homes and churches were wreaths and immortelles, either purchased by those closest to the deceased or neighbors and friends sending their condolences. Wax candles wrapped in black paper and a variety of black, white, and violet fabrics contributed to the mournful atmosphere inside the home where a wake or funeral took place.
Colors and fabrics for mourning clothing and jewelry depended on the time that had passed since a person’s death and/or the proximity of their relationship to the mourner, so smart purveyors kept on hand velvets, cottons, and wool, in addition to jewelry made of hair, wire, gutta percha, onyx, ivory, and mother of pearl.
Coffins, hearses and transportation
Among the purveyors of coffins and associated decoration was Louis Houdon, who in 1810 announced he was forming a partnership with cabinetmaker Joseph Fernandez, for coffin “furniture” and decoration, and “mourning hangings” that included those draped on the fronts of churches. He touted their moderate terms and reasonable prices. For those not in need of mourning accoutrements, Mr. Houdon also kept another store on St. Louis Street, where he made “the most fashionable ornaments for beds, curtains, &c…” Houdon and Fernandez recognized the value of branching out from their existing businesses to fit the changing needs of their current clientele and attract new buyers.⁵
Fig. 2. Advertisement, Le Courrier de la Louisiane, Jun 4, 1831.
By 1831, as sole proprieter, Fernandez had greatly expanded his offerings to resemble a “one-stop shop”. His lengthy advertisement (Fig.2, above) includes most everything one would need for a funeral, burial, and subsequent display of mourning: coffins and hearses (from $6 to $30) in a range of sizes and materials; interior and exterior decorating; and coaches, engraved tombs and monuments, and “all articles used in funerals and funeral services.” In addition to these more substantial items, Fernandez could provide such personal accessories as scarves, gloves, and tapered candles.⁶ In regard to pricing and payment options, Fernandez presents generous terms, especially as it concerns those of lower economic status:
tapers (candles) sold “at the rate of ten bitts to a dollar; and if they are desired to be lined with paper, no more will be charged than for those without lining…
…and those who may not be able to pay in cash, will be allowed a reasonable credit; and they will obtain gratis the use of the necessary chandeliers and plate.
“All persons in needy circumstances, who may wish to have their friends decently buried, will be charged only with the actual costs, without any charge for work and labor. The poor will be served without any remuneration.”
“As to the mode of payment, Mr. Fernandez will not do as is done in certain places, where money is required forthwith, nay sometimes in advance–but he will make arrangements according to the fortune and situation of his employers. He will distress no one, and will send his bills to be collected, only when the means of his customers will allow them to pay them.”
In 1861, around the start of the Civil War, one of eleven undertakers in Gardner’s City Directory, “J. Bonnot,” began advertising for funeral services and coffins at 51 St. Ann Street, just down the block from the St. Louis Cathedral. Antoine Dubuc, secretary of the church, bolstered Bonnot’s reputation by announcing to his friends and acquaintances that he held an interest in Bonnot’s business. Previously, Bonnot had owned a “Parisian Dyeing Establishment,” which in 1845, when it was taken over by J. Hericy, offered a quick turnaround for mourners: dyeing “in black for mourning in twenty-four hours.” In 1885, twenty-four years after his initial advertisements, John/Jean Bonnot still was an undertaker. Also at that address is a Raoul Bonnot, bookkeeper for Bonnot. At least two other men, Joseph Alfred and John Johnson, appear to be in Bonnot’s employ that year, as drivers–likely of funeral carriages.⁷
Two months before Felix Grima’s death, his son Paul’s funeral services had also been arranged by Bonnot, and the original bill is in The Historic New Orleans Collection (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3. Bill issued by John Bonnot, Carriages, to the Paul Grima Succession for his burial. Historic New Orleans Collection, gift of Mrs. Alfred Grima, MSS 99.362
Tombs and monuments
Florville Foy, a free man of color, was one of the most successful marble cutters and sculptors in nineteenth-century New Orleans, eventually employing nine people. The son of French immigrant, marble cutter, sculptor (and later planter) Prosper Foy and free woman of color Zelie Aubry, the younger Foy was responsible for the final resting places of some of the city’s most well-known citizens. His full-page advertisements could be found in the annual city directories for most years he was in business (Fig. 4). Foy created tombs in St. Louis Cemeteries I, II, and III, from his own designs, as well as from those of French immigrant architect J.N.B. de Pouilly.
de Pouilly, along with well-known architects James Gallier Sr. and Jr., and James Freret, designed elaborate tombs and monuments with sculpted flowers, classical forms such as obelisks, and other decorative elements specifically related to the activities in which a family or mutual aid society were involved.⁸
Fig. 4. Advertisement for Florville Foy, Cohen’s New Orleans Directory, 1853, p. 99.
This blog post only deals with a small portion of the broad range of experiences people had with death and its aftermath during one century, and mostly in one place. Published records from this period on deaths, funerals, and family mourning customs for people of lower socioeconomic status are fewer in number and predominantly only include a name, age, and date and cause of death. Those same records for enslaved individuals before emancipation are scattered throughout the country and unfortunately difficult to gather. The most valuable historical documents are often oral histories passed down from generation to generation. Additionally, the WPA interviews were conducted and published in the 1930s, and some first-hand accounts written by formerly enslaved people have either been published or collected and archived. These family traditions are still underappreciated, and hopefully museums and historic sites like ours will continue to search for and share them.
¹Karla F.C. Holloway, Passed on: African American mourning stories: a memorial collection. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002: 174.
²Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (New York: George Braziller, 1979), 154; and Brenda Osbey, "One More Last Chance: Rituals in Jazz Funerals,” Georgia Review L.i (spring 1996): 97-107, quoted in Holloway, 175-177.
³Richard Davey, A history of mourning. London: Jay’s, 1890: 75. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015005454338&seq=9
⁴Davey, A history of mourning, 111.
⁵Advertisement, Le Courrier de la Louisiane, July 28, 1810.
⁶Advertisement, Le Courrier de la Louisiane, Jun 4, 1831.
⁷City and Business Directories: Louisiana, 1805-1929: Soards' New Orleans City Directory, for 1885. New Orleans: L. Soards, 1885. Archives Unbound, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/SC5107240078/GDSC?u=lln_pnopl&sid=bookmark-GDSC&xid=46cd876d&pg=1; City and Business Directories: Louisiana, 1805-1929: Gardner's New Orleans Directory, for 1861. Charles Gardner, 1861. Archives Unbound, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/SC5107230098/GDSC?u=lln_pnopl&sid=bookmark-GDSC&pg=74
⁸ For more on the Galliers and Freret, see the following: Series 1: Project Drawings, James Gallier, Sr. and Jr., 1801-1866, Undated, Sylvester Labrot, Jr. Collection (SEAA-001). Tulane University Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. https://archives.tulane.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/298977; and Series 2: Project Drawings for Tombs, Monuments, and Buildings, 1860s-1890s, James Freret Office Records (SEAA-147). Tulane University Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. https://archives.tulane.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/298672
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