|
New Orleans, Louisiana has a rich and colorful history. It is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the United States. Best known for its annual Mardi Gras festival, New Orleans has another distinction. It is known as the "most haunted city in the United States".
New Orleans history is full of legends, hauntings, and ghost sightings. One of the best known ghost legends is that of The LaLaurie House. This house was built by Madame Delphine LaLaurie in 1832 and was one of the most lavishly decorated and furnished homes of the time. It was the site where members of New Orleans high society met for frequent social gatherings.
Madame LaLaurie was extremely wealthy and owned many slaves. However, Madame LaLaurie also had a reputation as being a cruel and sadistic mistress to those slaves. A steady stream of slaves were purchased and brought into the home but none ever seemed to leave. It was an open secret among New Orleans society that Madame LaLaurie and her husband, a physician, used the slaves for purposes of sadistic torture and gruesome medical experiments. This sadistic behavior went on for years unchecked, until a fire, supposedly set by a desperate slave, brought the authorities to the LaLaurie house. In an effort to put out the fire, the fireman broke into the upper floors of the house and stumbled upon a gruesome sight. In the attic were many slaves, dead and alive. Some were literally chained to the walls of the attic in various hideous conditions. Many had internal organs exposed and in various stages of dissection. Others who had died had been left, still chained, to rot. Skeletons of some slaves were found in the torure chamber along with dismembered body parts and various sadistic tools of torture.
When the information of the discovery was revealed, there was a public outcry and Madame LaLaurie and her husband were forced to flee New Orleans. While it is not known exactly what happened to the pair, some say that they fled to Paris and eventually died there. Others say that they returned to New Orleans under assumed identities and resumed their gruesome behavior.
Since the disappearance of the LaLauries, their home has been sold and renovated many times. It has been used for many purposes, both residential and commercial. Stories of the house being haunted have survived until the present. Occupants have reported seeing ghosts of murdered and dismembered slaves roaming the attic and making loud screaming and moaning noises. The ghost of Madame LaLaurie has also been sighted, walking throughout the building. One occupant even reported being awakened to find Madame LaLaurie choking him as he slept. The apparition of a black male slave, shackled and chained, has been seen walking down the long staircase from the attic numerous times by visitors to the house.
Presently, the LaLaurie house is used as an apartment building. However, the reports of haunting still persist.
Another New Orleans ghost landmark is the Griffin House. This home was originally built by Adam Griffin in 1852 but was abandoned by Griffin after only a few months of occupancy. During the Civil War, Union troops used the house as a barracks and munitions storage place. Upon inspecting the home, Union soldiers found slaves chained to the walls in the attic, left to die of starvation and untreated wounds.
While the troops were barracked in the Griffin House, two Confederate deserters dressed in stolen Union uniforms had been caught looting homes. Since looting by either Union or Confederate soldiers was an offense punishable by death, the two were arrested by the Federal Army. While being held for trial and feeling that they might receive mercy, the pair attempted to keep up the ruse of being Union soldiers since they also faced death from the Confederates if found to be deserters. Sympathetic Union soldiers supplied the two men with whiskey and they repeatedly sang "John Brown's Body", a popular song among Union soldiers. This was still an attempt to convince all that they were Union soldiers. However, once the pair realized that they were not to receive leniency and would be shot, they decided to commit suicide. They bribed a soldier to smuggle them two pistols and, lying on a bed facing each other, each fired his pistol into the other's heart. It is said that the two bled so profusely that the blood was seen seeping through the floor of the room and down the walls of floor below.
Since the end of the war, the Griffin home has housed many different commercial businesses. Those employed there throughout the years have reported seeing and hearing the two soldiers standing in Civil War uniforms singing "John Brown's Body" while holding whiskey bottles in their hands. There have also been reports of hearing the sound of marching feet, always accompanied by singing voices. After a while, the building went into disrepair because of the public's unwillingness to occupy it. Even the occasional vagrant found the house uninhabitable. One brave owner turned the building into an apartment house but the residents reported seeing what appeared to be droplets of blood drip from the ceilings and two soldiers peering at them from outside the windows. He was forced to abandon the building also.
In recent years, the house has been renovated and has been occupied by a family who has not had any sightings of the ill-fated pair of soldiers.
The legend of St Louis Cemetery No. 1 is one of the best-known tales of New Orleans haunting. In 1764, New Orleans was ceded to Spain. The French who lived in New Orleans tried in vain to reverse the decision. When attempts failed, a rebellion against Spanish rule broke out, led by six French men. The five principal leaders of the rebellion were eventually caught and killed by a Spanish firing squad. The sixth member also died later of bayonet wounds. After all the men were dead, Don Alejandro O'Reilly, an Irishman fighting for Spain and commander of the Spanish fleet, ordered that the men not be buried. He ordered that the corpses be left out in the open to rot.
Legend has it that late one night, Pere Dagobert, beloved priest of the New Orleans colony and friend of the slain men, went to the homes of the men and told their families to come to the church. Upon arriving, the families found that the men's bodies had somehow been brought to the cathedral. After a mass was held by Father Dagobert, the men were all buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. No one knew, or was willing to tell, just how the priest managed this feat. However, there have been reports that the voice of Father Dagobert can be heard clearly singing in the early morning in the cemetery as he keeps the watch over the bodies of the men.
The French Quarter is rich in stories of ghosts and hauntings. Probably the most bizarre of those is that of the Sultan's Palace. Jean Baptiste LaPrete constructed the home in 1836. It was an example of extravagant opulence even in a time when many lavish homes were built in New Orleans. However, due to financial difficulties, LaPrete was forced to let the home to tenants. A man claiming to be a sultan, from a country that was not specified, rented and moved into the house. The Sultan was very wealthy and decided to renovate the home in the fashion of a harem for his own pleasure. Expensive decorations and furnishings were brought in, making the house as much like a sultan's harem as possible. Women of all nationalities, races and ages were brought in to fulfill all the Sultan's desires. He went to great expense to insulate the home from the prying eyes of outsiders, barring windows and doors, posting armed guards and erecting huge iron gates.
One day a passerby noticed what he believed to be blood seeping from under the massive iron gates outside the house. The police were called and gained admittance by breaking in the door. What they found horrified them. Mutilated bodies covered the floor. Every occupant of the house had been slain and beheaded. It appeared that the people had been attacked by a group using axes as weapons. Not only had the people been killed in a violent way but the bodies of the men and women alike had also been raped and sexually mutilated in grotesque ways. So hideous was the sight that full details of the horror were never revealed by the authorities. When the Sultan's body was finally discovered, it was found that he had been buried alive in one of the lush outdoor gardens. Those responsible for the bloodbath were never found. Centuries later, tourists and visitors to the house report seeing strange apparitions, dressed in odd period clothing moving about the premises, some dripping blood from their headless bodies.
Also near the French Quarter is the Beauregard Home, a must-see stop on the list of any tourist interested in the ghosts of New Orleans. This home was owned by Madame Mineurcanal, who committed suicide by hanging herself on the third floor. Not much is known about why this happened but it is said that she also killed her pet, a little white dog, before hanging herself. Many years later, the house was sold. The family that bought the home included two children who not only saw the ghost of Madame Mineucanal often, but also told their friends about the sightings. A visiting cousin, who did not believe what the children said, mocked the children and the family for speaking nonsense. After going to bed that night, the cousin awoke screaming and holding his cheek. Upon inspection, his cheek was found to be a bright red and he reported that someone had come into his room and slapped him while he slept. Since everyone in the house had been asleep in other rooms, this was impossible. It was accepted that this was Madame Mineurcanal's way of proving her existence. Other visitors to the home reported seeing the woman's ghost in many settings- looking into a crying baby's crib and even lying in bed next to the owner of the house. They also report hearing the pitiful barking of a small dog being held by Madame Mineurcanal.
New Orleans history is full of stories like the ones chronicled here. From the cottage and grave of voodoo priestess Marie LaVeau to the hauntings at the Myrtle Plantation, New Orleans is a city rich in ghost lore and has truly earned its name as the "most haunted city in the United States".
|
| |
