Chloe Historic Cemetery

FOUNDED: ca. 1850s

ADDITIONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): Chloe African American Cemetery Preservation Association

HISTORY: Chloe Historic Cemetery is a historic African American burial ground in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. Formally dedicated in 1904 when Eulalie St. Mary conveyed one acre of land "to the inhabitants of Chloe" for use as a public cemetery, historical records, oral histories, and ongoing genealogical research indicate the site served Black families earlier, following Emancipation. The cemetery contains the graves of formerly enslaved people, federal homesteaders, landowners, military veterans, church leaders, and generations of African American families whose lives helped shape the history of Calcasieu Parish and Southwest Louisiana. The cemetery is part of the historic English Bayou community, where African American, Creole, Indigenous (Atakapas), Cajun, French, and Spanish families lived, worked, worshipped, and built interconnected communities over generations. It is closely associated with the descendants of James Alphonse, remembered in a 1943 newspaper as "the last living slave of Major J.C. LeBleu," whose legacy includes becoming a federal homesteader, husband, father, and patriarch. After decades of neglect and damage, the Chloe African American Cemetery Preservation Association (CAACPA) is leading a descendant-driven effort to restore, document, preserve, and protect the cemetery. The project seeks not only to preserve a historic Black cemetery, but also to recover and honor the history of the families and community it represents.

BCN Contact Information:

Terry A O'Neal

thewriter@terryaoneal.com