The History of St. Augustine Church

St. Augustine Church was built on the she purchased the immediate property site that was part of a plantation estate. of the Tremé home for $9,000 and was Originally, it was the brickyard and the major catalyst in the origins of tilery headquarters built in 1720 of the Augustine Church. Province of ’ Supervisor of Marie Aliquot moved the school the Company of the Indies and was an from the to the Tremé economic stimulus for in 1834, which at that the province. In 1731 the Henriette Delille time was briefly the site Company of the Indies devoted her life of the College d’Orleans. left and the plantation was to caring for the There, a group of sold to the Moreau family underprivileged. free colored women, and eventually came into Her funeral was at including Fortier the possession of Julie St. Augustine Church; Protégé Henriette Moreau in 1775, she is awaiting Delille, organized a manumitted slave. sainthood. themselves as Sisters Claude Tremé, a of the Presentation. Frenchman, married Julie Moreau and In 1842 the Sisters of the Presentation took title to the property. The couple were formally recognized as the order of subdivided the estate and sold off many the Sisters of the Holy Family. Henriette lots to , people from Delille, a Creole, along with two others, the Old Quarter and Haitian immigrants founded the group and devoted her life to fleeing the 1791 revolution. After selling caring for the sick, helping the poor and 35 lots the Tremé family left their instructing free and enslaved, children plantation home in 1810. and adults. She died in 1862 and her In the 1830s, the Catholic Free funeral was at St. Augustine Church; she People of Color, in cooperation with is awaiting sainthood (venerable). Martha Fortier, a postulate of the hospital Marie Aliquot sold the house to the nuns, created a school to educate free Ursuline nuns in 1836. The Ursuline colored girls in the French Quarter, nuns purchased the school under the the first of its kind in the . condition that it continue the education Marie Jeanne Aliquot, a French émigré, of colored children. They, in turn, gifted began overseeing Fortier’s school. In 1834 the property to the Carmelites in 1840,

Continued on back From the beginning St. Augustine’s origins lie in the initiatives of New Orleans’ people of Tremé on land donated by the Ursuline Sisters. who took over the school and merged it United States that has had a continuous with their school for white girls and used mixed congregation of Free People of the Tremé home for their mother house Color, slaves and whites throughout its until 1926. entire history; many ethnicities found From the beginning St. Augustine’s spiritual comfort at Saint Augustine origins lie in the initiatives of New Church. White children and black and Orleans’ people of Tremé. In the 1830’s every shade in between knelt side by side. Tremé’s Free People of Color petitioned Black and whites sang side by side in the Bishop for permission to choir of Saint Augustine as early as the build a church. The Ursuline Sisters, who 1860s, and knelt together at the altar rail owned the property adjacent to the school, for communion. donated a lot at the corner of Bayou Road On Saturday, October 30, 2004, (Gov. Nicholls St.) and Saint Claude, in the midst of a Gospel Extravaganza (Henriette Delille St.) on the condition unfolding in the St. Augustine parking lot, the church would be named Saint Archbishop Alfred Schulte, standing near Augustine, after one of their patron . the church garden area and accompanied St. Augustine Church began construction by a large crowd from around the city and in 1839, where fourteen Free People of parts of the nation, blessed and dedicated Color placed the church’s capstone. The “The Tomb of the Unknown Slave”, a church was dedicated in 1841. shrine consisting of outsize marine chains A few months before the October welded together with shackles and iron 9, 1841 dedication of Saint Augustine balls to form a huge, fallen cross. The Church, the Free People of Color began grim, rusting monument standing outside to purchase pews for their families. Upon the church honors those countless slaves hearing of this, white people in the area who perished uncounted and unnamed. started their campaign to buy pews, thus As the bronze plaque affixed to the wall the “War of the Pews” began. The white behind the shrine explains, the monument and Free People of Color each purchased was primarily inspired by the number the center pews. In an unprecedented of unmarked graves that have been political and religious move, the Free unearthed in the city over the years, but People of Color members bought all the is also dedicated to all of those who died side aisle pews. They then gave those ignominious fates during the American pews to the slaves as their exclusive place slave trade. The plaque even points out of worship. This mix of pews resulted that it is likely that there are such graves in the most integrated congregation in even in the earth beneath it since much the country. It is the oldest church in the of the parish was created by slave labor.