St. Roch's Cemetery and Chapel, New Orleans

Friday, November 7, 2025

St. Roch's Cemetery and Chapel, New Orleans

Figure 1. Saint Roch Campo Santo, New Orleans

It is with great pleasure that I present a guest blog post by my friend Nancy Jaynes (IG @New_Orleans_Cemeteries). As I wrote in my recent post on New Orleans cemeteries ("New Orleans' Cast-Iron Tombs"), I was not able to get into the chapel at St. Roch's - but Nancy did, a few weeks after my visit. It's only open for one hour each month, so timing is everything! I invited her to write a piece about St. Roch's for The Cemetery Traveler and she was gracious enough to do so. I hope you enjoy her wonderful writing and unique photos!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mark Twain first coined the phrase “Cities of the Dead” to refer to the cemeteries of New Orleans, and the nickname stuck. People sometimes refer to cemeteries in general as “boneyards.” In New Orleans, Cypress Grove Cemetery is known as “the fireman’s cemetery” because it was founded by the Firemen's Charitable and Benevolent Association as a burial place for volunteer firemen and their families. These are all nicknames. But Saint Roch Cemetery, also in New Orleans, has an actual alias.

Figure 7. Ex-voto offerings in the chapel

Its official name is Saint Roch Campo Santo, which is how the cemetery gate reads (Figure 1), but on the Findagrave website, it’s listed as Saint Roch Cemetery. Actually, there are two Findagrave listings– Saint Roch Cemetery Number 1 and Saint Roch Cemetery Number 2. According to the New Orleans Catholic Cemeteries website, “The name Campo Santo was given to the cemetery as a nod to the Campo Santo dei Tedeschi, a cemetery, church, and hospice for Germans located on the south side of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though different in design, St. Roch Cemetery No. 1 and Campo Santo dei Tedeschi each contain the 14 Stations of the Cross.” Since the Catholic church congregation that founded the cemetery was largely made up of German immigrants to New Orleans, this allusion to Campo Santo dei Tedeschi was appropriate.

Figure 3. In the chapel of Saint Roch Cemetery Number 1

New Orleans is full of numbered cemeteries, and a few of those of the same name but with different numbers are located in different neighborhoods. However, many of the numbered cemeteries simply reflect expansions into adjacent city blocks. That’s the case with next-door neighbors, Saint Roch Number 1 and Saint Roch Number 2. Number 1 was founded in 1874, and Number 2 was an expansion that opened around 1879.

Similar to the cemetery itself, the Catholic saint called Saint Roch is known by different monikers, though his birth name is unknown. Of course, different languages refer to him in different ways. Saint Roch comes from the French, but in American English is pronounced like “Saint Rock.” There’s also São Roque (Portuguese), San Roque (Spanish), Sant Roc (Catalan), San Rocco (Italian), Sveti Rok (Slovenian), Sveti Roko (Croatian), and in Glasgow, Scotland, he might be referred to as St. Rollox.

Figure 2. Chapel in St. Roch Cemetery

Saint Roch Campo Santo in New Orleans serves as the National Shrine of Saint Roch, and the story of Saint Roch is interesting, as tales of Catholic saints often are. Legend says that he was born to a noble family in Montpelier, France, at the end of the 13th century or the early 14th century. It’s said that when he was a young man, he gave away his riches to the poor following the death of his wealthy parents. Some stories say that Saint Roch joined the Franciscan order. (Clearly, his story reflects a connection to Saint Francis of Assisi.) There are many versions of the Saint Roch story, but all say that Saint Roch set out on a pilgrimage to Rome and that as he traveled through Italy, he healed the sick and performed several healing miracles. Ironically, Saint Roch fell ill while ministering to the plague-stricken villagers, which led to his expulsion from the town. (One might wonder why the plague-ridden villagers themselves hadn’t been expelled.) Thus, Saint Roch took refuge in a nearby forest.

Ex-voto offerings in St. Roch's chapel

The story goes on to say that as Saint Roch lay languishing in the forest on the verge of death, a dog found him. Some stories say that the dog brought bread every day until Saint Roch recovered. Others state that the dog fetched his owner, who then cared for St. Roch and oversaw his recovery. All the versions that I’ve read say that St. Roch then returned to France, where he was taken for a spy in disguise as a pilgrim and was jailed for several years, dying there in prison. Some versions of his story say that an angel visited him and declared that anyone who called out to St. Roch would be spared from pestilence. In addition to his name being known as a defense against epidemics and disease, he is also a patron of pilgrims, surgeons, invalids, pharmacists, those falsely accused, dogs, and bachelors. The feast day of Saint Roch is observed on the traditional day of his death, August 16th.

In New Orleans, Saint Roch Cemetery/Campo Santo was founded by the Reverend Peter Leonard Thevis (1837-1893), the pastor of Holy Trinity Church in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. A yellow fever outbreak hit the city in 1867, and Thevis urged the congregation to pray to Saint Roch, the patron saint of the ill. Over the years, Yellow Fever outbreaks claimed about 10% of the population of the city of New Orleans, so this disease posed a real threat. According to the story, Reverend Thevis had made a promise that if Saint Roch came through for his congregation, he would build a chapel to express his gratitude and honor the saint. Since not one of his flock died from this outbreak, Thevis followed through with his promise, and the chapel (Figures 2-3) is located in Saint Roch Cemetery Number 1, in a neighborhood now called Faubourg St. Roch, adjacent to Marigny. (Old New Orleans neighborhoods are called faubourgs, the French word referring to a suburb.)

Figure 4. St. Roch with dog and leg sore

Saint Roch is usually portrayed lifting his tunic or with a torn tunic, exposing a plague lesion on his leg. He is almost always pictured with a dog. The statue next to the altar in the New Orleans chapel shows Saint Roch and the dog, with bread in its mouth; look carefully, and you might see Saint Roch’s leg sore. (Figure 4). Reverend Thevis is buried under the marble floor of the chapel (Figure 5), and there is also a bas-relief depiction of him on the wall (figure 6). In 2018, the chapel was closed and renovated over the course of several years and was completed in May of 2022; since then, the chapel is open to the public only for a few hours in the middle of the day when a mass is held on the first Friday of each month.

Figure 5. Reverend Thevis burial marker

Figure 8: Ex-voto offerings in the chapel

The small room adjacent to the main chapel has been left in its state of charming shabbiness, with an abundance of ex-voto offerings (Figures 7-8). These are offerings in recognition of answered prayers or anticipated results. Leg braces and crutches are hanging on and leaning against the walls, along with many anatomical casts and replicas. There are also hearts, tiles expressing thanks, and various other tokens and mementoes. These are left by believers to express a promise of faithfulness, devotion, and thanks for the intercession of Saint Roch. The Saint Roch chapel ex-voto offerings have accumulated over the course of decades, but as mentioned above, except for a few hours once a month, the chapel has been closed to the public since 2022, so it seems inevitable that these ex-voto offerings will soon become antiquities, artifacts of past religious practices in New Orleans. I find it sad that this folkway has been forced to come to an end.