Lundi Gras, aka Fat Monday, is the day before the ultimate Mardi Gras event Fat Tuesday. Anticipation fills the air! For today's post, I thought it would be fun to take a look at The Ghosts of Mardi Gras.
While Mardi Gras might stir up visions of parades, costumes, beads there is a dark side to the festive masquerade. Elaborate masks cover the faces of of many Mardi Gras revelers. Every kind of indulgence is the order of the day before they have to be put away during the season of Lent. Seldon talked about at the heart of this jubilant season is a place where death and madness become themes of Mardi Gras itself.
Marie Laveau
"The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, Marie Laveau, was not only a powerful healer and a hairdresser during her time in the 1800s, but she also introduced Catholic teachings and practices into the Voodoo religion that still persist today. Known for her compassion, Laveau would help any and all who came to her regardless of race and financial status. A popular tradition was started years ago that if you wanted Lavaeu to grant you a wish, you had to draw an X on her tomb, turn around three times, knock on her tomb, and yell out your wish, much to the frustration of the Archdiocese and Save Our Cemeteries. People have sworn that when they left offerings at Laveau’s tomb after having their wish granted, they could hear a woman whispering in their ears and had ghostly images show up in photos of her tomb." (Whereyat)
"Born around 1801 to the freed slave Marguerite and a free (and wealthy) mulatto businessman, Charles Laveaux, Marie was the first generation of her family to be born free. Laveau’s great-grandmother came to New Orleans as a slave from West Africa in 1743 and her grandmother, Catherine, eventually wound up being bought by one Francoise Pomet: a free woman of color and successful entrepreneur.
It was not unusual for free blacks to purchase their own slaves; despite her reputation as a charitable woman and an important figure in the black community, Laveau would own several slaves. Catherine was eventually able to buy her freedom and build her own small home, where her granddaughter would become famous. After a brief marriage to another free part-black, Laveau entered into what would be a thirty-year relationship with a white Lousiana man with a noble French background, Cristophe Glapion. Interracial relationships were also not uncommon in New Orleans, although the couples were forbidden by the law to marry.
Laveau was a devoted Catholic all her life, and to her voodoo was not incompatible with her Catholic faith. The front room of her cottage housed altars filled with candles, holy images, and offerings, and she would lead weekly meetings (that included whites as well as blacks) where the participants would dress all in white, then chant and sing and leave an offering of liquor and food to the spirits.
Marie Laveau also saw individual clients, giving them advice on everything from winning lawsuits to attracting lovers, when she died her obituary in The New York Times claimed: “lawyers, legislators, planters, and merchants all came to pay their respects and seek her offices.”
Although people of all races visited Laveau and attended the ceremonies she led, the white community as a whole never accepted voodoo as a legitimate religion (which is partly why today it is still associated with the occult). Racism and a natural tendency for newspapers to seek out sensational stories led to the descriptions of Marie Laveau’s ceremonies as occult “drunken orgies” and her nickname as a “Voodoo Queen.”
Laveau was able to rise to such a prominent position in New Orleans through a combination of her strong personality, charity works, and natural flair for theatrics.
During her lifetime she performed notable acts of community service, such as nursing yellow fever patients, posting bail for free women of color, and visiting condemned prisoners to pray with them in their final hours. After her death in 1881, her legend only continued to grow.
Whether Marie Laveau was a powerful priestess with supernatural abilities or simply a clever entrepreneur who knew the value of giving people the spectacles they wanted, she is doubtless a fascinating figure for having been a black woman with great influence in the Deep South during the days of slavery. And her rise certainly wouldn’t have been possible anywhere but New Orleans." (allthatsinteresting.com)
I Been Hoodooed - Dr. John
The Devil Baby of New Orleans
"In the early days of Marie Laveau’s rise to fame, her clientele consisted mainly of negroes, country folk, and other free people of color whose long association with the practices of vodou and rootworkers made her a natural attraction to them. But at the height of her power, when her mystique was talked about constantly in the salons of the rich Creoles and white-bread Americans, Marie Laveau began to receive visits from the upper crust of society. And it was her service to this sector that embroiled her in one of the greatest legends of Old New Orleans: the Devil Baby of Bourbon Street.
Mam’selle Laveau was often called to the ornate mansion on Dauphine Street to delight and amuse the doyenne of the famous Creole family who lived there and all her idle and very wealthy friends. The voodoo queen had been referred to the ladies by a woman of the highest social standing in the city, none other than Madame Delphine LaLaurie. The family was a well-known, old line New Orleans family who had risen to prominence through their dealings with the wealthy Americans who lived on the Uptown side of Canal Street.
The Creole family of Dauphine Street had a beautiful daughter named Camille, and according to legend, when Camille came of age she had many suitors. To her great disappointment, however, all of them were Creole. To most young women of her station, this would be a fabulous dilemma; but for Camille, it was truly disheartening. All her life she had been envious of the wealth and station of the Americans, of their fabulous homes built in the Northern style, and of their immutable business dealings, all of which ended in profit that the Americans did not hesitate to flaunt.
In her few visits to the American quarter, Camille befriended the daughter of an American family, Josephine Brody, who often invited Camille to her home for tea and other activities. It was on one of these outings that Camille, it is said, met the man who would change her life forever and gain her a place in New Orleans’ haunted history.
Mackenzie Bowes was a Scotsman by birth, though his history and how he had obtained his considerable fortune were obscure. He never made much comment on it, and the shallow Americans in whose circles he moved with such ease were satisfied to simply know that he was “obscenely wealthy” and that the money was “very old,” coming down from old Scottish Lairds and some very lucrative family relations. He had arrived upon the steps of the Brody home in the company of August Brody, the eldest son, whom he had accompanied from New York. He was looking for a place to settle down, the Brodies were told, and New Orleans seemed just the place for a man like Mackenzie Bowes.
From the moment Camille laid eyes on the handsome Scotsman, she was smitten, and she began to look for every opportunity to spend more and more time with the Brodies and their Scottish houseguest. It greatly pleased Josephine and her family when Bowes began to return Camille’s interest with an immediate attentiveness and devotion. Camille’s parents, who also became regular houseguests of the American Brodies, encouraged the romance, hoping for a fine union for their daughter. But not all were so delighted. In scorning her Creole suitors, Camille had mostly embarrassed them and wounded their pride; nearly all turned their attentions to other sultry Creole daughters. Nearly all, that is, except Etienne Lafossat Matthieu. It did not please Etienne at all that he had been set aside by Camille like a plaything that had outlasted her attention. As Camille’s romance and her stature among the Americans grew, it was clear to all, including Etienne, that marriage was imminent. When Bowes threw off his Presbyterian faith and converted to Catholicism, marriage was certain, and shortly after the plans were announced in St. Louis Cathedral.
All this while, Marie Laveau had watched with interest, and she was not surprised in the least when Matthieu came to her cottage on St. Ann imploring her aid. He wanted Camille back, he said at first, but when the voodoo queen shook her head and assured him it could not be so, then Matthieu ground his fist into the table and pronounced: “Then I want her dead!” To his surprise, Mam’selle Laveau laughed at his request. “You cannot know what you ask, boy,” she said in her heavy Creole French. “You will pay dearly for me to take her life. Are you ready for this?” Matthieu thought it through as quickly as his fevered mind could. “Then make her suffer, like she has made me suffer. She goes to the Americans to make a spectacle of herself; make a spectacle of her for all to see.”
Marie Laveau spat upon the ground and stamped the spot with her feet. “So let it be,' she said, then set about instructing Matthieu on all the things she would need to make a fetish and to effect a good curse. 'Bring these to me within a week–,' she had told him, “–and be patient after that. You will see the Scotsman ruined and Camille suffer as you have asked. Now, go!”
On a bright October morning, Camille became the bride of the mysterious Scotsman in the halls of the great St. Louis Cathedral. All the high society of New Orleans, from both quarters, attended the fabulous wedding and the celebration at the family home afterward. Yet, in the dark of her cupboard on St. Ann Street, Marie Laveau worked her charm. It would be months in coming, but Etienne Matthieu would have his revenge, and would regret the day he asked it.
When Camille and Mackenzie returned from their wedding trip, the new bride was already pregnant. Beaming with delight, the handsome couple settled down in a townhome on the Rue Bourbon, not far from the French Market. While her husband went about his affairs in the day, Camille spent hours planning the nursery that would receive her child. Nothing could dim her enthusiasm or quell her excitement–except on one occasion when she happened upon Etienne Matthieu in the market. His scowl was so dark and intense that Camille thought she would faint, and her mother, who was with her, called for the carriage to take her home. Soon, however, the shadow passed. Or so it seemed.
The Devil Takes The World - Haiku Monday
Camille’s mother, Adelaide, began to become restless in her sleep. Never one to be plagued by sleeplessness or dreams, she began to have vivid nightmares that would wake her in the middle of the night; afterward, she would be so unnerved that she found it impossible to go back to sleep. She tried desperately to keep her troubles from Camille, not wanting to intrude upon the young woman’s joy, but one day the daughter confronted her. When Adelaide told Camille about her dreams and fitful sleep, the young mother-to-be was disturbed. 'My husband is having dreams as well,' she told her mother. 'He wakes suddenly in the night, calling for me, but he will not tell me what he has dreamed, or why he cannot sleep again.'
This greatly troubled Adelaide, and when she had departed from Camille, she spied a beautiful mullatress selling fish beside the road and this immediately put her in mind of Mam’selle Laveau. As soon as she arrived home, Adelaide sent out a servant with a message for Marie Laveau.
Within a half hour, the servant returned and announced that Mam’selle Laveau was waiting to be admitted. Adelaide went to the door herself and quickly brought Marie into the house. For what seemed like an eternity the two were closeted together in the Creole parlor while Adelaide poured out her concerns and told Marie every detail of her troubling dreams. When she added that Camille’s husband was having nightmares too, a glimmer passed Marie’s dark eyes. 'I believe the child to be in the greatest danger,' Mam’selle Laveau finally pronounced. 'This is what the ancestors are telling me. When Camille is confined, and the time of her delivery comes, I alone should be called to midwife her. Otherwise, I fear there will be a great evil laid upon this child. The problem is with the husband, you know.'
This troubled Adelaide greatly, and she could not understand the meaning of it. Nonetheless assured by the voodoo queen that all would be well so long as she alone might bring the baby, Adelaide put aside her fears. She watched as her carriage clattered away down the cobblestoned streets of New Orleans, taking the mighty Mam’selle home to await the call.
Mackenzie Bowes was always a dark and mysterious man, and much about his past he kept to himself. The most that Camille had been able to wrest from him was his connection to a family of Scottish lords called Strathmore...One day, while looking through a Gazetteer, Camille came across a story about the Earls of Strathmore and the gloomy Scottish castle they called home. It was a cursed place, or so the article said, and had been associated for ages with the darkest form of malign arts. 'Glamis,' it read, 'is purported to have locked within its walls the Devil himself!' More specifically, she read of the 15th century Alexander Lyon, 2nd Lord of Glamis, who is otherwise known by his more infamous moniker of Earl Beardie.
According to this legend, which Camille read, Earl Beardie was a cruel and indulgent man, who was thrown down a stone staircase after being accused of cheating in a poker game with two Scottish chieftains. So humiliated in his own castle, the lord returned to his room in a drunken rage, and demanded his servants find him someone to play cards with immediately, notwithstanding the late hour. The servants, however, demurred, reminding their wroth liege that it was nearly the Sabbath and no man would play for fear of committing sacrilege. In response, Lord Glamis shouted for all to hear he would play until Doomsday if he wanted and ordered the servants out of the room. At five minutes to midnight, one brave servant returned, warning his lord that no man would play due to the time. Beyond irate, Earl Beardie said he would “play with the Devil himself” and ordered the servant out. At the stroke of midnight, there was a knock on the door, and a tall stranger dressed in black entered asking to join the game. The stranger sat down and placed thirteen rubies on the table. Greedy and impulsive, Earl Beardie did not object to the company. Thus began their game, the host dealing, and the guest setting the stakes. According to the legend, Lord Glamis lost it all by the sound of the morning church bell–including his soul, and for his sacrilege, is allegedly cursed to endlessly play cards till Judgment Day.
Naturally, such tales disturbed Camille, for combined with the dreams and fitfulness of her husband and mother, this seemed to her an omen of some sort. She began to wonder, but soon all thoughts would turn to her delivery: her first labor pains began, and she entered her confinement. Dutifully, Adelaide sent for Marie Laveau. Camille’s labor was long and arduous, but the patient Marie did not once leave her side. She would soothe her through her pains and pat her head with a cool towel. Sometimes she would talk to Camille in a sing-song using the strange French patois of the island Kreyola. And it seemed that Camille’s pangs were having a strange effect on Mackenzie as well, for as the pains increased and the delivery neared, Mackenzie became more and more agitated and nervous.
He insisted upon being in the room, but Marie Laveau was not one to be bullied, and no sooner did he step inside than he was put out again. The Scotsman fidgeted as the time neared and would not be comforted. At last, unable to bear it, his mind seemed to completely collapse, and he ran from the home into the dark night.
Camille suffered greatly from the labor and mercifully passed into unconsciousness before death came for her. Her grieving family was inconsolable when Mam’selle Laveau told them that Camille could not be saved, but that the child had survived. Then the voodoo queen looked at them and told them to be prepared. 'There is a curse upon this child and it has nothing to do with your poor girl,' she said. 'This is the work of years of malice and someone who hated this child enough to bring the devil out of hell to curse it.'
Then Marie Laveau revealed to the family the bundle laying in her arms. All present gasped in horror, including the family priest who had arrived in time to perform the last rites over Camille’s stiffening body. In the arms of the mambo was not a plump and blushing human baby, but a grotesque and lurid imitation, a horror, a curse.
Wails filled the room when the thing was exposed, and all could see that where light tufts of hair should be were two lumps–the early roots of horns to come. Where little hands and feet should have been were the claws of some wild animal, like a possum or a raccoon. There were scales upon its body, though its genitals were perfectly formed, and all could see it was a boy. But it was the eyes, the horrible, leering hell-like eyes that caused Adelaide to faint in despair and Camille’s poor father to turn his back.
'Take it!' he said to Marie. 'But Monsieur!' said the sly mambo, 'What of his father?' 'It's father has thankfully gone mad! He was taken in by the Ursulines just an hour ago, ranting and foaming at the mouth. He is quite beyond our help!” came the heartless reply. “This is the curse of his family, not ours!' 'As you wish,' said Marie Laveau, as she bundled the little infant to her. A barely perceptible smile crossed her full lips as she passed out into the humid New Orleans night and made her way toward St. Ann Street.
Suddenly out of the shadows came the hunching form of Etienne Matthieu. Marie Laveau stopped suddenly but was not moved by the sight she saw: Etienne’s own curse had come home to roost and he was hideously deformed. Where once a handsome Creole man had been, there was now only the bent and broken form of a cripple. His face was so contorted that Marie knew no one save she alone could stand to look upon it.
'What have you done to me!' Etienne cried and lunged for Marie Laveau. The voodoo queen held up a hand. 'Stop!' she said in a commanding voice. 'You are marked for all to see, Etienne, for Camille has died because of your hatred. Now you may be testament to her life. Go away, and do not show your face to me again. It offends me!' With that, Marie Laveau passed into the night, and Etienne passed into obscurity.
A thought came to the voodoo queen and she turned quickly on her heel, making her way to Royal Street and the familiar doorway of another renown woman, Madame LaLaurie. After the servants had let her inside, Marie was greeted in the crimson parlor of the fabulous LaLaurie home. When Marie had told her tale and shown the baby to Madame LaLaurie, the parlor rang with their laughter at what fools humans are to tamper with the will of the gods. 'But he must be baptized!' Madame said. 'I know a priest who will do it right away!'
However, the story does not end there.
It is said that Marie Laveau and Madame LaLaurie shared the care of the unwanted child between them. Sometimes the child would be kept with Marie at her home on St. Ann; other times, Madame played host to it, and, it is said, she even had a nursery made for it on the second floor of her home. Servants and slaves who caught glimpses of the baby began to whisper tales back and forth; when any came to the ears of either woman, the reaction was brutal and quick. Most of the gossips said that Marie and Madame used the baby to call to its true father, the Devil himself. But no one had any proof, and no one wanted to get close enough for it.
When Madame LaLaurie was chased from New Orleans after a fire in her home led to the discovery of horribly mutilated, tortured and dead slaves, the care of the “Devil Baby” fell to Marie–a duty she is said to have shared with her eldest children. For a few years, the fact that such a monstrous being was kept in the heart of the French Quarter was the subject of continuous gossip. The pitiful and chilling wails were not of this earth, and whenever the rain would fall, it seemed, the baby would moan and howl incessantly, to the great disturbance of French Quarter residents.
One rainy day, however, there were no howls and shortly afterward the Laveau family was seen, all dressed in black, gathered in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, where they were laying someone, or something to rest. Could it have been the Devil Baby? Most people assumed this to be the case. But if Marie Laveau buried the Devil Baby back in the 1800’s, other said, then what continued to howl and terrorize tourists and locals alike all along Bourbon Street for years to come? No, the devil child did not die; he merely grew...the devil child found himself all too at home, and so the matured scion fashioned a place of his own. According to the legends, he made no secret of his address: 1319 St Charles Avenue in the 1840’s. According to legend, the baroque mansion went up overnight, as if by fell witchery. The mansion is said to have been built so quickly that it made little sense inside: every room reputedly is on a different floor, and stairs go off in all directions but can only ever be climbed downward.
Reportedly, Camille’s diabolic child-grown man built this house for his mistress, one Madeline Freneau, whom he kept in lavish luxury. Sadly, Ms. Freneau’s beauty and lust was only surpassed by her feckless indiscretion. Distracted by the city’s many sins, the devil of New Orleans was oft busy, leaving Ms. Freneau lonely and bored. Consequently, she took another lover, one Alcide Cancienne. Failing to consider the diabolical nature or her first lover or even the common inhibition to keep her affair a secret, Ms. Freneau dined openly with Alcide in the mansion’s main dining room. During one of these occasions, the house’s master returned and asked after Alcide’s identity, who glibly named himself as Ms. Freneau’s lover. That night at dinner, Alcide told his lovely mistress that the devil had told him he could have Ms. Freneau and thirteen thousand dollars if they would take the name Mr. and Mrs. L. Ms. Freneau was delighted, and told Alcide they should be together forever. Alcide laughed at the beautiful young woman and told her he was bored with her and wouldn’t keep her even for such a fortune. Enraged, Madeline leapt across the table and killed Alcide. Her first lover then entered, laughing. He delighted in the horrific scene and celebrated promptly by eating both Alcide and Madeline.
For many years after this, the house on St. Charles Avenue sat empty, but eventually a few intrepid families dared to occupy the mansion. The reports of the haunting there were terrifying. Apparently, the fateful dinner would replay over and over again in front of residents in phantom form and both Alcide and Madeline’s ghosts haunted the house. Some say that the image of the Devil himself was embedded on the outside of the house and that blood would drip from his open mouth. Others instead have noted the eerie similarity between the graven image and that of the earlier accounts of the Devil of Bourbon Street.
In time, though, 1319 St Charles Avenue was demolished. Some say the devil finally came to collect his son. Some say the diabolic entity was slain. Others, however, say that the devil child merely moved. After all, New Orleans promises plenty of real estate for the damned." (bloodberrbon.com)
The Ghost of Arnaud's Restaurant
"The famed Arnaud’s Restaurant was opened in 1918 by Count Arnaud Cazenave, his beautiful daughter Germaine was just 16 at the time. Due to her father’s immense wealth and fame, along with her unwavering beauty, Germaine was repeatedly crowned Queen of Mardi Gras, elected more times than any other woman in New Orleans history. On one of her crowned years she had the perfect Mardi Gras gown handmade just for her, so perfect in fact, that she requested a duplicate gown that she could later be buried in. The elaborate horse-drawn carriage Easter parade to St. Louis Cathedral from Arnaud’s was another claim to fame that Germaine started in 1956, inspired by the Easter strollers of New York’s Fifth Ave that were popular at the time.
Adorned in her favorite royal gown, Germaine Cazenave Wells’ spirit is frequently seen moving about the Mardi Gras museum inside of Arnaud’s Restaurant where her memorabilia is lovingly displayed, including her past gowns resting on the shoulders of mannequins with her resemblance. Even without her specter strolling about, it sounds like the visions of the museum itself are enough to startle one at first. Her father’s spirit likes to hang around the bar, perhaps she is there to join him for a drink and celebrate their favorite holiday?" (Ghost City site)
Madeline Freneau & The Devil House
"Sometime during the 1820s, according to legend, the Devil himself took a mistress in New Orleans, named Madeline Freneau, and built her a luxurious ornate mansion to accommodate her. While the Devil provided Freneau with a lavish lifestyle, she ultimately grew bored of him and took on another lover, Alcide Cancienne. The couple did not keep their affair a secret from the Devil. So one night while they were having dinner in the ballroom, Cancienne told Freneau that the Devil had made him an offer: he would give him Miss Freneau along with $1000, and all they had to do in return was adopt the name Mr. and Mrs. L. However, Cancienne said he had refused the deal because he had already grown tired of her. In a fit of rage, Freneau killed Cancienne, and then the Devil came in afterward to devour them both. Before the mansion was torn down in the 1930s, reports claimed that the ghosts of Freneau and Cancienne would replay the events of that dinner, and an image of the Devil was seen outside the house with blood dripping from its mouth." (whereyat)
Julian Eltinge The Ghost of Galatoire's Restaurant
"Julian Eltinge, whose given name was William Julian Dalton, was a famous cross-dressing actor during the early 1900s. Having given a special stage performance before King Edward VII and staring in Hollywood films like 1918’s The Isle of Love with Rudolph Valentino, Eltinge was considered to be one of the highest paid actors at that time. He had dined at Begue’s Restaurant—which is now Tujague’s—in 1917 when he was performing in the city, and he autographed a photo of himself that ended up being framed and hung in the restaurant for nearly 100 years. In 2013, the picture was taken down and put up in the attic during renovations. After that, a couple had taken a picture of themselves while dining at Tujague’s and noticed a ghostly face that had appeared behind them, right where Eltinge’s photo used to be. The owner has since rehung the photo and Julian Eltinge has not reappeared since." (Whereyat)
The Ghosts of Toulouse Street
This ghost story begins with the doomed Guillaume Marre and his soon-to-be-widowed new wife Mary Alice arriving in the French Quarter in 1803. They bought neighboring buildings in the 500 block of Toulouse Street, opening a feed store at 508 Toulouse above where they also lived. Next door, at 514 Toulouse, they opened an oyster-shucking house which naturally smelled to high heaven. This being 19th century New Orleans, Marre soon died of yellow fever, leaving the property and fortune to his widow. Mary carried on the businesses and eventually remarried to the chubby, balding Frenchman, Joseph Baptandiere in 1806, her third foray into wedded bliss. It wasn’t long before her wayward hubby entered into a placage, the tradition whereby men of European descent took on mistresses of native or mixed blood. Joseph’s mistress was the fetching Angelique DuBois, who some sources say was also employed at the Toulouse Street feed store where she lived in a small attic room. Angelique grew quite attached to Joseph and eventually demanded he leave his wife (who controlled all the money) and marry her. Joseph refused and in 1810 the pair had a heated argument at the feed store. Angelique ran to the third floor where, it is surmised, she threatened Joseph she was going to spill the beans to the missus about their affair. In a rage, Joseph supposedly choked her unconscious and threw her limp body down to the courtyard below where she died of a broken neck. To cover his misdeed, Joseph stuffed the body into a sewer hole that had been dug in the courtyard and covered her up with dirt. But his foul deeds were witnessed by a teenage slave looking out a fourth-floor window onto the courtyard. The young man fled after Joseph spotted him, leaving the murderer no choice but to kill himself to escape punishment. He went back to the third floor and hung himself from the balcony. The slave returned later and pointed out where Joseph had stashed the body of his mistress Angelique. Despite the scandal of adultery and murder that now attached itself to her home, the thrice-widowed Mary continued to run the businesses and live in the building until her death in 1817 at the age of 35.
Soon after the deaths of Joseph and Angelique, their ghosts began to appear. The ghost of Joseph was spotted hanging by the neck from the third-floor window and the ghost of Angelique was seen wandering the third floor right after sunset. In the mid-1800’s during the yellow fever epidemic, the building was turned into a quarantine hospital for doomed victims. In order to escape a lingering, agonizing death, many patients were said to throw themselves from the windows of the upper stories to end their suffering. To combat this, metal bars were put on the windows and remain there to this day.
In 1989, the building became home to the famed O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub and the ghosts were frequent visitors to the ensuing rowdy Celtic evenings. The ghost of Angelique herself was seen in the courtyard, described as slender with brown hair down to her waist. They say she liked to posthumously flirt with handsome young men, touching their hands or caressing their necks. She was also said to fling bottles across the bar when she was feeling petulant. The sewer hole where Joseph dumped her corpse became a brick-lined planter the area around which people found noticeably colder. Her murderer haunted the balcony over the Ballad Room where Daniel O’Flaherty would perform his Celtic music. Visitors reported feeling pushed while others said they were scratched by the ghost of a portly, tall man. It was said that as you climbed higher into the house towards the top floors, the more intense his malevolent presence could be felt.
The less menacing spirit of Mary would also materialize on the balcony to listen whenever O’Flaherty would play the song “Red is the Rose.” She would often appear in the kitchen and restaurant to oversee that all was running smoothly and could be seen peering through a second story window down into the courtyard where Angelique had landed. It was said Mary would throw books off the shelves in the complex’s Celtic gift shop whenever a pretty young woman would walk in. Apparently, her experiences in life left her prone to fits of ethereal jealousy. The eternal love triangle isn’t the only haunting of the premises. People reported flashing lights, coughing and moaning coming from the sealed off floors that once housed the dying yellow fever patients as well as the cries of sick children calling for their mothers.
O’Flaherty’s never reopened after Hurricane Katrina and the buildings were vacant for several years before being redeveloped into residential apartments. Today, the ground floor of 514 Toulouse is home to the New Orleans Creole Cookery restaurant. Several of the places where ghostly activity had been observed disappeared during renovations; the balcony over where Mary listened to music is gone and the raised, brick planter where Angelique was buried ain’t dere no more. However, Mary, Joseph and Angelique are still very active according to the staff, as are the yellow fever victims. An employee tells how a female patron recently ran in fear from the stairs in the courtyard, telling people she had heard ghostly children crying “Mommy! Mommy!”
One long-time employee, when I told her I was a bit of a skeptic told me, 'Don’t be a skeptic…they’re real.' She went on to relate a long list of recent patron and staff encounters with the ghosts, including seeing Mary floating through the courtyard and of hearing the children’s cries for their mothers, even saying of Angelique 'the bitch is even in the bathroom!' " (nola.com)
Blue Spirit Blues - Bessie Smith
The Haunted Mardi Gras Parade
Last but not least there is a story of a New Orleans parade that takes place at Mardi Gras which is hosted by The Krewe Of Mid City that seems to attract tourists from beyond the grave. In 1974 when I was New Orleans I stopped into Pat O'Brien's for a tall cool Hurricane cocktail. While I was enjoying this libation at the outdoor bar in Pat O's courtyard, a tourist sat down at the bar and showed me some photos of a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade he had taken. After a quick glance I, I noticed that the images consisted of manifested spirits mingling amongst the large crowds of parade goers at this particular parade. It kind of shook me up so I ordered another hurricane cocktail and thought about the ghosts of Mardi Gras all afternoon.
I Am The Ghost of Pontchartrain - Haiku Monday
Haiku Monday's debut Mind Smoke Records release, The Ghost of Pontchartrain Expanded Edition, is an imaginary movie soundtrack for a ghost story that takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. Follow the dark trail of Sammy Thibadeaux, the Ghost of Ponchartrain, as he returns home to his former life of underworld voodoo and murder. Salvation is at hand!