Travel Secrets by V

I had a great time exploring Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans Louisiana. Sun bleached and worn out tombs adorn the place. Wandering the cemeteries alone is not recommended but I did it anyways. I wanted to get a true feel of the city of the dead and I wasn’t disappointed. These cemeteries hold so much neat history. Such as, they are the origins of the expressions “Saved by the bell” and “dead Ringer”.

There are many cemeteries in New Orleans, the reason I chose this one is because I am a fan of Anne Rice and she frequently visited Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. As a matter of fact, this cemetery was the inspiration for her Interview with the Vampire series as well as the Mayfair Witches. On top of that, this cemetery was also to film Dracula 2000 and NCIS New Orleans. Over seven thousand people are buried here. Including first settlers, pirates, witches, voodoo queens and politicians.

Why are people buried above ground?

The cemeteries here are unique because the water table here is very high. If you dig a hole a few feet into the ground and it will fill with water. The casket will literally float. Settlers tried to weigh down the caskets with rocks but the minute it rains, the caskets come back up to the surface. With time, they tried to bore holes in the coffins to keep them down however this too didn’t work. Eventually they adopted the Spanish burial method of using vaults.

Saved by the bell

During the yellow fever era, people weren’t always sure if someone had died or if they were just unconscious. Custom was that when you would get buried in New Orleans, they would put you in a box above ground and a year later they would dig you back up to make sure that you were dead when they put you in there in the first place. There were many instances where people were dug up the following year and scratch marks were found all over the inside of the tomb because the person was buried alive and tried to claw their way out. In order to prevent this, they started tying bells to corpses toes. If the person was still alive, when they moved, it would ring the bell. So you would literally be, saved by the bell.

Dead Ringer

The bell technique was fool proof. As a body decomposes, it releases gases and slowly shifts into a new position. Decomposition sometimes caused the bell to ring. The person would be dug up thinking they were still alive but in reality, they really were dead. These became known as dead ringers.

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