Right there between super busy Florida Boulevard and North Streets is the final resting place for people who bore some of Baton Rouge and Louisiana ’s most well-known names...

Historic Cemetery Rests Between Busy

Streets in Old Downtown Baton Rouge

By Sean Griffin

As a 22-year-old LSU student, you would not expect find me spending many Friday or Saturday evenings hanging out at a local cemetery. But a trip downtown to check out the historic Magnolia Cemetery was certainly worth my time.

My visit provided an interesting glimpse into the Capital City’s past that you really cannot get any other way.

Right there between super busy Florida Boulevard and North Streets is the final resting place for people who bore some of Baton Rouge and Louisiana’s most well-known names. Buried beneath the stately oaks and broad magnolias are Burdens, Manships, Birds and Perkins. Many of today’s most prominent Baton Rouge names are right there and the dates go back a couple of hundred years.

Magnolia Cemetery, one of the oldest in the city, is located on 10 acres in downtown Baton Rouge.

Mass Grave

Ory Poret is chairman for the Board of Trustees and at 91-years-of-age he was my tour guide for my afternoon visit to the cemetery. Poret said there is more to Magnolia Cemetery than just a resting place for several Baton Rouge families.

“Besides being one of the earliest cemeteries in Baton Rouge, it’s also the site of a major conflict in this state’s past,” Poret said.

While Magnolia Cemetery is just that, a cemetery, it was also the location of much of the action during the Civil War Battle of Baton Rouge. There’s a mass grave filled with Confederate soldiers and a memorial to the deaths of more than 100 people who fell victim to an epidemic of yellow fever. Did you know that Mary Todd Lincoln (Honest Abe’s wife) lost a brother and a brother-in-law killed during the Battle of Baton Rouge while fighting for the South?

Now surrounded by the hustle and bustle of busy Baton Rouge life, Magnolia Cemetery is a reminder of the many important figures who helped shape Louisiana and its Capital City. The 10-acre plot of land runs along Florida between 19th and 22nd streets.

Origins

The land was purchased by the first official mayor of Baton Rouge John Dufrocq along with his Board of Selectmen. The land cost $3,000 in 1852. The earliest known headstone belongs to John A. Scott who died Aug. 31, 1827. (Who knows how that happened?)

“There are quite a few people here who are not able to be located anymore,” Poret said. “Some you just can’t read the headstone anymore.”

The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Foundation for Historical Louisiana appointed the Magnolia Cemetery Auxiliary Board to preserve and restore the burial site.

Poret said this important piece of Louisiana history is something most people around Baton Rouge don’t even know exists. “Magnolia is the only city-owned cemetery in Baton Rouge,” he said.

According to Poret, there are only about three to four burials at the cemetery each year these days. The plots were divided into sections and were purchased by various families to reserve a future resting place for their family members. I guess many of the people buried there were not born when their final resting place was selected for them by their forebears.

Ory Poret is the Chairman for the Magnolia Cemetery Board of Trustees. At 91 years old, Poret gladly came out to give a tour and tell about the history of the cemetery.

Battle of Baton Rouge

Established prior to the Civil War, the burial ground is historically important as the site of much of the action during the 1862 Battle of Baton Rouge. When the battle ended many of the Confederate casualties were buried in a mass grave in the cemetery very near where they fell.

Magnolia Cemetery is the only area of that historic battle that is still in tact. During the battle tombstones and other cemetery structures were used as cover from the bullets and bombs. Some evidence still exists of damage to trees and grave markers that was sustained during the battle.

The Battle of Baton Rouge took place on August 5, 1862. Union soldiers were encamped around the west side of the cemetery and the Confederates were on the east side.

Loss of life

When the battle began the northern forces were pushed to the Mississippi River levee. The Confederate side expected relief in the form of an ironclad gunboat named the CSS Arkansas that was sent down the river from Vicksburg to shove Admiral Farragut and his wooden ships back to New Orleans. Unfortunately for the South, the ironclad developed engine trouble and had to be blown up near where the Huey Long Bridge crosses the Mississippi today. The Union fleet then barraged the Southern soldiers and forced the Confederates to withdraw. More than 80 soldiers were lost on each side.

The Confederate mass grave is honored by a single marker built by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Union soldiers killed during the battle were actually removed from the site and each buried with individual tombstones in what is now a federal cemetery.

“The Union dead were carried to the other side of what is now Florida Boulevard,” Poret said. “Just across the street is the National Cemetery.”

For the past 26 years a commemorative ceremony has been held at Magnolia Cemetery to recall and honor the historic events of that fateful day and to recognize the soldiers lost. The ceremony is held each year on August 5.

Yellow Fever Memorial

Next to the cemetery’s fence that runs along Florida stands a granite obelisk accompanied by a marble angel. Below the monument and lining the expanse of the cemetery on Florida Boulevard is the mass grave of yellow fever victims.

The yellow fever memorial commemorates the deaths of 114 yellow fever victims who died in 1878. In Baton Rouge there were 213 fatalities related to the epidemic that year.

The memorial marks the death of 114 yellow fever victims who died in 1878. There were 213 fatalities related to the fever that year.

“The board of trustees for the cemetery decided that a monument was needed to remember all the victims killed by yellow fever,” Poret explained. The memorial was constructed with funds raised by the Magnolia Cemetery Board of Trustees. It was unveiled in 2008.

Along the fence on the opposite side of the cemetery stretching along Main Street is Potter’s Field where the city’s poor and unknown were interred.

Here is a little about some of the more noteworthy people buried at Magnolia Cemetery:

· Andrew Lytle- A Civil War photographer in Baton Rouge who was a spy for the Confederate side.

· David F. Boyd- President of LSU during the 1870s and credited with moving the LSU campus from Pineville to Baton Rouge.

· Bird-Perkins Family Plot- Mary Bird Perkins is buried here along with many members of the Bird and Perkins family.

· Wade Bynum- Was mayor of Baton Rouge for 25 years during the depression.

· J.W. Nicholson- Former LSU president who established the math department at the University and for whom Nicholson Drive was named.

· Lyle Saxon- famous Louisiana author who wrote Old Louisiana.

· Henry Fuqua- a former governor of Baton Rouge who died in office was initially interred in Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge, but his remains were later relocated to Roselawn Cemetery which is also in Baton Rouge.

· Dr. George Tichenor- Developer of Dr. Tichenor’s Antiseptic practiced medicine in Baton Rouge. He and his family were buried at Magnolia Cemetery but they were also moved to Roselawn Cemetery.

So if you want to hang out with some of Baton Rouge’s most noteworthy citizens why not consider visiting the old Magnolia Cemetery?

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