Greenwood Cemetery- New Orleans

November Obscura

Greenwood is across the road from Metarie. What struck me most about Greenwood was the state it is in. The older section at least has more or less been left to crumble away. The plus to this is that you can really get a good idea of the construction of the tombs. 

 

Most are red brick barrel vaults that are then covered with a thick plaster. There were some absolutely stunning Family Tombs such as the one above, that were covered in metal siding. Alas with the constantly moist air in Louisiana, the rust has set in, but it creates a beauty all its own. 

Greenwood had quite a bit of marvelous rusted wrought iron. New Orleans is full of beautiful wrought iron on both the homes of the living and the dead. I just could not get enough of it!

In most of the older cemeteries there, the cement bases for some tombs and even walkways is made out of cement that has shells like this mixed in. Here in Greenwood, there were some family plot areas covered in these white shells.

This metal covered tomb had a lovely fresh coat of paint!

The cemetery was opened in 1852, and is located on City Park Avenue (formerly Metairie Road) in the Navarre neighborhood.

The cemetery has a number of impressive monuments and sculptures. Notables interred here include several mayors of New Orleans, Confederate Generals Young Marshall Moody, who died of yellow fever in 1866, Thomas M. Scott and James Argyle Smith, Confederate supporter and resister of Union occupation William Bruce Mumford, who was hanged for tearing down a United States flag during Union Army occupation of New Orleans during the American Civil War, Union Army Brigadier General and Brevet Major General William Plummer Benton, who was Collector of Internal Revenue in the City of New Orleans after the Civil War and died of yellow fever in 1867, jazz legend Leon Roppolo and novelist John Kennedy Toole.