The Mortuary Chapel of St. Anthony
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The climate and geography of the area around New Orleans makes it very vulnerable to outbreaks of disease. Even today, the threat of swamp-bred mosquitos spreading the West Nile virus has public health officials working overtime.
In the early nineteenth century, this problem was even more pronounced. There are 23 serious yellow fever epidemics in New Orleans between 1817 and 1860. This obviously lead to a lot of deaths, funerals, and burials. Given that the cause of yellow fever was unknown at that time, many believed that the exposure of the bodies of victims of the disease contributed to its spread. This concern was so great that on March 22, 1821, the city council passed an ordinance banning the “laying out� of the dead during funeral services. The theory was that closed-casket funerals would help prevent the spread of infection.
This presented a difficulty to the citizens of New Orleans, many of whom were from French and Spanish descent. They liked open-casket wakes and funerals. A solution to the problem was proposed in 1819, when they city offered to sell land near St. Louis Number One and Two cemeteries to the church wardens for the purpose of erecting a funeral chapel. Negotiations for the land were slow going, but on December 20, 1825, the sale was finally completed, the city selling two lots on Conti and Rampart for $425 cash.
There was stiff competition amongst the best architects of the city to win the right to build the church. The wardens awarded the contract to the French architects Gurlie and Guillot, and on October 11, 1826, the first stone was set and blessed by Friar Antonio de Sedella (the “Pere Antoine� of legend). The chapel took less than a year to build, so that the city council adopted an ordinance on September 25, 1827, prohibiting funerals at St. Louis Cathedral, effective November 1, 1827.
