Mistick Krewe of Comus - Formation & First Parade

Formation & First Parade

In December 1856, six Anglo-American New Orleans businessmen, formerly of Mobile, Alabama gathered at a club room above the now-defunct Gem Restaurant in New Orleans' French Quarter to organize a secret society to observe Mardi Gras in a less crude fashion. The inspiration for the name came from John Milton's Lord of Misrule in his masque Comus. Part of the inspiration for the parade was a Mobile Carnival mystic society, with annual parades in Mobile, Alabama, called the Cowbellion de Rakin Society (from 1830), of which businessman Joseph Ellison, was a member (a Mobile Cowbellion).

One Mardi Gras historian describes the Mistick Krewe's creation in New Orleans thus:

"It was Comus, who, in 1857, saved and transformed the dying flame of the old Creole Carnival with his enchanter's cup; it was Comus who introduced torch lit processions and thematic floats to Mardi Gras; and it was Comus who ritually closed, and still closes, the most cherished festivities of New Orleans with splendor and pomp."

Comus' first night parade – replete with torches (which later came to be known as "flambeaux"), marching bands and rolling floats – was wildly popular with Carnival revelers. So popular was the first Comus parade that the prospect of its second one attracted, for the first time, thousands of out-of-town visitors to New Orleans for the Carnival celebration.