St. Joseph Cemetery #2

2220 Washington Avenue
Office: 143 City Park Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70119504-488-5200

504-488-4989 (alt)
504-488-5209 (fax)


Gates open Monday – Saturday 8:30am to 3:30pm
Sunday & Holidays 8:30am to 3:00pm

Keep in mind:

• Bike tours and other motorized bike/vehicle tours are prohibited in our Catholic Cemeteries
• All of our Catholic Cemeteries are closed on Mardi Gras Day.  Gates close early on the Saturday before Mardi Gras due to the Endymion parade.
• No alcohol or food permitted
• Only certified Service animals are permitted in the cemetery

St. Joseph Cemeteries #1 and #2, established in 1854 and 1873.
St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 was established in 1854 by the St. Joseph German Orphan Asylum Association in order to provide a final resting place for German families who settled in the surrounding area, and to supply a stable source of income for the St. Joseph German Orphan Asylum, which had opened the previous year and was managed by the Sisters of Notre Dame. When operations first began, it was officially known as the St. Joseph’s German Orphan Asylum Cemetery but commonly referred to as St. Joseph’s Cemetery.

The cemetery’s history is interwoven with the Redemptorist Parish in the Irish Channel neighborhood, which was made up at one time of three churches, St. Alphonsus, Notre Dame de Bon Secour and St. Mary’s Assumption. The current St. Mary’s Assumption Church, located on Constance and Josephine Streets, was built for the German congregation of St. Alphonsus Parish and was constructed in 1858, and consecrated in 1860. Prior to its construction, a small wood frame church had served the congregation on the site since 1844. Upon construction of the new St. Mary’s Assumption, the original church was dismantled, reduced in size, and rebuilt in St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 for use as a mortuary chapel. It was there that masses were held for the repose of souls of those interred within the cemetery.
 
From its early history St. Joseph Cemetery No. 1 was laid out in a grid plan with clearly delineated aisles marked by family tombs and plots. However, towards the rear of the cemetery, space was initially set aside for the in-ground burials of yellow fever victims. Within the first 20 years of operation the cemetery became overcrowded, and in July of 1873 permission was granted by the city council of New Orleans to extend the cemetery to include the block behind it, bordering Sixth and Seventh Streets. Though smaller in size, St. Joseph Cemetery No. 2 was also laid out in accordance with a grid plan with many of the memorials in the form of coping style monuments.

St. Joseph Cemetery No. 2 was also quick to fill, ultimately leaving the Sisters of Notre Dame without a long-term source of revenue, and with the cost of maintaining the cemetery. In the early 1960s, during the term of Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel, they requested to be relieved of the property, and the Archdiocese of New Orleans acquired it in 1968.

In the spring of 1996, Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel, located at 2523 Prytania Street, was deconsecrated and sold to a private buyer. At that time, the Redemptorist order and the pastor of St. Alphonsus church, along with the Bon Secours Chapel Foundation—a non-profit composed of dedicated parishioners—requested the transfer of St. Mary’s Chapel out of St. Joseph Cemetery to a piece of land located at 1516 Jackson Avenue so that it could replace the function of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel. The request was granted and the chapel was dismantled and reconstructed in its present location in 1997. Today, mass and the sacraments are celebrated there six days a week as part of St. Alphonsus Parish.

In order to continue to provide memorial services for those interred within St. Joseph Cemetery Nos. 1 and 2, the St. Joseph Cemetery Memorial Chapel was constructed within the cemetery in 1998, an effort led by Archbishop Most Rev. Francis B. Schulte and Michael D. Boudreaux, the director of New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries at the time.