Father Antonio de Sedella, better known as Pere Antoine, a Capuchin friar, passed away on January 19, 1829 amid the love and tears of the whole city. This wonderful old man, adored for his benevolence, came to the province of Louisiana in 1779. He is supposed to have performed nearly one half of the marriage and funeral ceremonies for the inhabitants of the city, until his death, at the ripe old age of 90. He lies buried at the foot of the altar of the St. Louis Cathedral, of which he was the Cure (or pastor) for the parish, for nearly fifty years. The St. Louis Cathedral, an ancient and interesting edifice of New Orleans facing Jackson Square or “Place d’Arms” as it was known in those days, stands today on the very site where the first house of worship was erected by Bienville and his pioneers in 1718. It is filled with historic lore and has witnessed the principal events which occurred since the founding of the city up to the present time. The local Masonic Fraternities took a conspicuous part in the funeral procession. A notice in the Louisiana Courier of 1829 reads as follows: “Masons of all rites and of all degrees, to you we address ourselves, remember that Father Antoine never refused to accompany to their last abode the mortal remains of our brethren and that gratitude now requires that we should in turn accompany him with respect and veneration he so well deserved.”

Judah Touro, born on June 16, 1775 in (Newport, Rhode Island, was an American businessman and philanthropist.  In New Orleans, he used his business profits to buy and endow a cemetery, and to build a synagogue, an almshouse and an infirmary for sailors suffering from yellow fever, as well as a Unitarian church for a minister named Mr.Theodore Clapp whom he greatly admired. The infirmary became the largest free hospital in Louisiana, the Touro Infirmary. He was a major contributor to many Christian charities in New Orleans, as well as to such varied causes as the American Revolutionary War monument at Bunker Hill, and the relief of victims of a large fire in Mobile, Alabama. In a New Orleans fund-raising drive for Christians suffering persecution in Jerusalem, he gave ten times more than any other donor. One profile of Touro particularly praised his willingness to give both to Jewish and non-Jewish religious causes: "An admirable trait evinced, was the unsectarian distribution of charity, while the donor ever continued a strict adherent to the principles of his faith." His $20,000 donation to The Jews' Hospital in New York City (now Mount Sinai Hospital) led to its opening in 1855.  He died on  January 19, 1854 in New Orleans.  (WIKI)