This point sits inside Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, a walled burial ground of above-ground tombs on Basin Street.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 1724–2013
The short answer
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 on Basin Street holds the Glapion family crypt where Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, was interred after her death in 1881. Historians dispute her birth year and even whether her remains truly lie there, but Archdiocese records name this tomb as hers, and it draws more visitors than any other grave in the cemetery.
Eleven, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (New Orleans, LA) Tomb detail. — 2011 · takomabibelot · CC BY 2.0
1820s to 1881
Marie Laveau was buried in the Glapion family crypt
Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, died on June 15, 1881. Marie Laveau was interred in the Glapion family crypt, plot 347. Historians disagree on when she was born. Some say 1801, others as early as 1741. Her tomb now draws more visitors than any other grave in the cemetery. Over 80 people lie inside it, though only 15 were actually Laveau's relatives.
For decades, visitors marked three X's on the tomb's plaster, believing it would call up Laveau's spirit and grant a wish. The custom asked for three turns, a knock, and a spoken request. It grew out of an older habit of chalking three crosses on the stone. The marking is disputed ground in another way too. Author Robert Tallant questioned whether Laveau is even buried here, and some accounts suggest her remains, or those of her daughter Marie Laveau II, may lie elsewhere. The Archdiocese's own cemetery records say otherwise, naming this tomb as hers.
1960s to 2012
Pink paint covered Marie Laveau's tomb before removal
The cemetery's maze of white tombs drew filmmakers too. It appears in Easy Rider, in the acid-trip scene that Dennis Hopper shot among the crypts in the late 1960s.
Laveau's tomb kept drawing crowds and kept drawing damage. In 2012, someone painted it over with pink latex, apparently trying to cover graffiti scratched into the plaster by visitors chasing wishes. The paint had to come off by hand, since the old plaster beneath it couldn't take a chemical strip. By 2015, the vandalism had grown bad enough that the Archdiocese of New Orleans changed the rules for good. It began requiring every visitor to enter with a licensed tour guide. Drawing X's on any tomb, Laveau's included, is now forbidden.
Some visitors report headaches, cold spots, and sightings of figures in old-fashioned dress while walking the alleys. Local tradition also places Laveau's ghost on nearby St. Ann Street, dressed in white with a red and white turban, close to where she once lived.
now
Guides still lead crowds to Laveau's crypt each year
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 still takes a handful of new burials each year, and still pulls more than 100,000 visitors annually, nearly all of them led in by licensed guides. The tombs of Paul Morphy, Étienne de Boré, and Homer Plessy stand among the more than 700 crypts packed inside the walls, but Laveau's remains the one everyone asks for first. Every November 1, on All Saints' Day, families still return to whitewash the stucco and lay chrysanthemums on their own dead.
The cemetery stands open behind its walls on Basin Street, its tombs cracked white in the sun, still an active burial ground after more than two centuries.
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Early modern
from 1724
Three hundred meters off, the St. Peter Street Cemetery held New Orleans's dead from 1724, under French and then Spanish rule, before this cemetery replaced it.
A catastrophic fire in 1788 destroyed much of Spanish-controlled New Orleans and was part of what pushed the city to open this new cemetery outside its crowded center.
After fire and epidemic disease overwhelmed the city's old burial ground, Spanish officials granted land for St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in 1789, just steps from where you stand.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the British-American architect who helped design the U.S. Capitol, died of yellow fever in New Orleans in 1820 and is believed buried in the cemetery's rear ground.
Étienne de Boré, the city's first mayor and the planter who perfected granulated sugar production in Louisiana, was interred here after his death in 1820.
In 1834, the street now running past you, Basin Street, was cut through the cemetery's original grounds, shrinking it, and was later widened again around 1900.
In the epidemics of 1878 and 1905, burials happened so quickly that above-ground tombs reached 150 to 200 degrees, acting almost like natural cremation chambers.
On March 14, 1891, a mob lynched eleven Italian Americans imprisoned over the murder of police chief David Hennessy, an event that took place a few streets away.
Storyville, New Orleans's officially sanctioned vice district from 1897 to 1917, developed a few blocks away and shaped the surrounding blocks for two decades.
Homer Plessy, whose arrest led to the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, was interred in the Debergue-Blanco family tomb here after his death in 1925.
An unknown person painted Marie Laveau's tomb over with pink latex paint in December 2013, and conservators had to carefully remove it to save the old plaster underneath.
What happened at Marie Laveau's tomb in the cemetery?
Visitors long marked three X's on the plaster, believing it would call up her spirit and grant a wish, a custom that grew from an older habit of chalking three crosses on the stone. The practice damaged the tomb badly enough that it is now forbidden.
Is Marie Laveau really buried at Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1?
The Archdiocese's cemetery records name the Glapion family crypt, plot 347, as her tomb, though author Robert Tallant questioned this, and some accounts suggest her remains, or her daughter's, may lie elsewhere.
Who else is buried in the cemetery on Basin Street?
The tombs of chess champion Paul Morphy and civil rights figure Homer Plessy stand among more than 700 crypts inside the walls, alongside Marie Laveau's, which remains the one visitors ask for first.
Why was Marie Laveau's tomb painted pink in 2012?
Someone covered the tomb in pink latex paint, apparently trying to hide graffiti scratched into the plaster by visitors chasing wishes. The paint had to be removed by hand because the old plaster beneath it could not withstand a chemical strip.
How many people are buried in Marie Laveau's tomb?
Over 80 people lie inside the Glapion family crypt, though only 15 of them were actually Laveau's relatives.
What rules now govern visits to the cemetery?
Since 2015, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has required every visitor to enter with a licensed tour guide, after vandalism grew bad enough to force the change. Drawing X's on any tomb, including Laveau's, is now forbidden.
