Located directly across from the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Washington, land for the Hebrew Rest Cemetery was donated by Carel Wolff who was born in Poland in 1834. The family wanted Hebrew Rest to be a memorial and planted beautiful flower gardens. Gussye H. Wolff, Carel’s daughter, was in charge of planting and care of the gardens. Later, Carel’s granddaughters Miriam and Nathalie Klaus became caretakers of the gardens.

The Klaus sisters donated land to Cedar Hill Cemetery for a parking area in exchange for the town of Washington maintaining the upkeep of the Jewish cemetery, Hebrew Rest.

Throughout the 1700s, this cemetery was adjacent to the Washington Catholic Church and used as a Catholic burial ground. It was the first cemetery in Washington. After the church was moved in 1798, the cemetery was used by all creeds and races in the immediate vicinity.

During the yellow fever epidemics of the 1850s, one-third of the town’s population was lost. As a popular steamboat town, Washington was especially vulnerable to the spread of the disease. The large number of deaths from this time filled the cemetery and necessitated mass graves, which are still unmarked to this day. These mass graves give the Old Church Landing Cemetery its other popular name, the Yellow Fever Cemetery.

Cedar Hill Cemetery in Washington is a great stop on your spiritual tour of St. Landry Parish. After the Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1850s, additional space was needed for burials in the town of Washington. The land for the cemetery was donated by Judge John Moore and was part of his Oakland Plantation, currently known as Magnolia Ridge.

In 1878, additional land for the cemetery was purchased by the Morning Star Society of Washington from the Oakland Plantation owner, Willis Prescott.

Both Washington cemeteries, old and new, were for people of the vicinity without regard for creed or race. Around the turn of the century, the Tennessee Red Cedars, which are now a prominent feature of the cemetery, were planted by John Winkler.