Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

BROTHER
MARTIN HIGH
SCHOOL
Below: St. Aloysius, 1869 to 1969.
Bottom: Cor Jesu High School, 1954
to 1969.
New Orleans’ colonial history as a French
and Spanish settlement resulted in a strong
Catholic tradition. Many late nineteenth and
early twentieth century European immigrants,
such as the Irish and Italians, were Catholic.
The large number of Catholic parishioners
prompted the need for parochial schools midway
through the nineteenth century.
It was just after the end of the Civil War
that four Brothers of the Sacred Heart moved
into the upstairs of what was once the Spanish
officers’ quarters in the Colonial Period at the
corner of Barracks and Chartres Streets in the
French Quarter. The Brothers converted the
house into a school, opening St. Aloysius
College in 1869. While it served the families
living in the French Quarter and the
Faubourg Marigny, it quickly outgrew the
facility when the immigrants began arriving in
the 1880s. In 1892, the Ursuline Sisters
decided to move their girls’ school from the
edge of the French Quarter to uptown New
Orleans. Needing more space for their
expanding student body, the Brothers of the
Sacred Heart bought the Ursulines’ building
on the corner of Esplanade Avenue and North
Rampart Street. Over the next thirty years, as
enrollment continued to increase, the
Brothers purchased adjacent lots on the same
block to expand the school to accommodate
150 high school boys. Eventually, an intervention
by the city of New Orleans enabled the
Brothers to erect an entirely new building
with construction of a new St. Aloysius starting
in 1924. In 1925, the former building was
demolished. The Brothers then began construction
of a larger building that was the
equal of any educational institution in the
city. This new building, which faced
Esplanade Avenue and was completed in the
summer of 1925, allowed the fifty-six-yearold
school to increase its student body considerably
over the next fifteen years until it
was the largest private school in the city and
one of the largest in the south. The student
body continued to grow until the school
boasted over 800 students.
Faced once again with the need to expand
further, the provincial council voted in the fall
of 1967 to merge St. Aloysius with its sister
Brothers of the Sacred Heart school, Cor Jesu,
in the Gentilly section of the city at 4401
Elysian Fields Avenue. The Brothers named
the merged school Brother Martin High
School in honor of Brother Martin Hernandez,
S.C., who had been principal of St. Aloysius
from 1934 through 1949 when he became
provincial of the Brothers and then president
of Cor Jesu for one year. The Cor Jesu facilities
were expanded during the 1968-1969
school year to accommodate the additional
students coming from St. Aloysius. That
school year was special at Esplanade and
Rampart. Not only was it the final year of St.
Aloysius High School, but it also marked the
100th anniversary of the school.
Today, Brother Martin High School, located
at 4401 Elysian Fields Avenue, remains a private,
all-boys Catholic college-preparatory
high school owned and operated by the
Brothers of the Sacred Heart, an international
religious community headquartered in Rome
and founded in Lyon, France, in 1821.
Accommodating students from eighth to
twelfth grade, Brother Martin is committed
to a holistic approach to education. Along
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