BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A historic tomb at Magnolia Cemetery in Baton Rouge was desecrated within the past week, according to a Civil War historian looking to revive the monument.
The tomb belongs to the Crenshaw children, the great-grandchildren of Philemon Thomas, who became a prominent leader during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in Louisiana’s history. Thomas led the West Florida Rebellion to break the region away from Spanish rule and then built a short-lived independent republic before it was added to the U.S. in the 1800s.
Nic Clark owns Blue, Gray, and Bayous, the only Civil War-centric tour business in Louisiana. Clark said the tomb was not a random grave.
“It wasn’t just a random person’s grave that just happened to be desecrated,” Clark said. “It was one of the most prominent men in Louisiana’s history, in Baton Rouge, West Florida history.”
Cemetery’s history
Clark said burials at the site began in the 1820s…