Posts

Posted on

A Block of Death and Dismemberment – New Orleans

Stay away from jazz and liquor, and the men who play for fun. That’s the thought that came upon me when we both reached for the gun.

— “They both reached for the gun.” from the musical Chicago (1975) by John Kander and Fred Ebb.

715, 725, & 735 Ursulines Street (private)

While reading about the infamous 1927 “Trunk Murders,” my mind instantly began to draw parallels with the Kander and Ebb musical Chicago. The musical explores the intersection of murder, tabloid journalism, and infamy, all against the backdrop of Prohibition-era Chicago with its wild criminality and vaudeville entertainment drunk on the influences of money and illegal liquor, all underscored by the rhythms of jazz. The themes of the musical however, could easily be transplanted to many other American cities in this era, especially New Orleans.

700 block Ursulines Street French Quarter New Orleans
Northeastern side of Ursulines Street in 1999. The edge of 735, a creole cottage, is on the far left with 725 near the middle of the photo. The last balcony with lacy ironwork on the right is 715. Photo by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Throughout the early twentieth-century, much of the French Quarter was a working-class neighborhood populated by immigrants. This collection of old buildings still possessed a magical aura that attracted Bohemians like Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Lyle Saxon, and other creatives who immersed themselves in the vibrant, thrumming atmosphere and took advantage of the low rents. Less than a decade before, a pall had been thrown over these neighborhoods as they were haunted by the infamous axe man who mostly preyed on Italian immigrants adding to the city’s allure. Crime remained rampant in the Quarter.

Just a few days before Halloween 1927, housekeeper Nettie Compass stepped inside the second-floor rooms of 715 Ursulines Avenue to attend to her regular duties for the Moity family. The crowded domicile was in a bloody disarray. Compass quickly summoned some bystanders and newspaper reporter George William Healy before she proceeded further into crime scene. Healy wrote in his memoirs “we found red stains on the floor and saw a large trunk in a bedroom, partially open. When I pulled up the trunk lid, a woman’s body, arms, and legs severed from the torso, was exposed.”

Healy called a fellow reporter, Gwen, who intrepidly ventured further into the apartment where “she sighted several objects on a bed. ‘Look,’ said Gwen, holding up these objects. ‘Lady fingers.’ Four fingers had been cut from a woman’s hand … After placing the fingers back on the bed, Gwen moved to a second bedroom, found a second trunk, and opened it. It contained a second woman’s body.”

A machete-like cane knife, typically used to cut sugar cane, rested on the second torso, as if to proudly boast of its role in the killings. The rest of the apartment was strewn with the family’s personal effects and smears, trails, drops, and spatters of blood. It’s not hard to imagine the metallic reek of blood bolstered by the late October humidity surrounding the sanguine scene.

After examining the scene, the coroner, Dr. George Roeling, determined that the two women had likely been beaten with a lead billy club before they were decapitated with the cane knife and then skillfully dismembered. The victims were Theresa and Leonide “Lonie” Moity, the wives of brothers Henry and Joseph Moity. The two couples lived with their children in these small rooms where the neighbors reported frequent loud, drunken fights among the adults over money and infidelity.

In a bedroom cabinet, investigators discovered a poorly written manuscript of Lonie’s story exhorting young girls to “be careful, for marriage is a life sentence… Guess it was only my luck to be happy like this, so I warn others not to take the same risk.” Ironically, nearby a rejection slip from a popular ladies’ magazine was discovered smeared in blood.

From the scattered clues, investigators pieced the family’s torrid tale. Joseph Moity had recently left his wife, Lonie after uncovering her infidelity. At the same time, tensions between Henry and Theresa continued to simmer. A realty office operated on the ground floor of 715 Ursulines under the aegis of Joseph Caruso. After the couples moved in upstairs, Caruso and Theresa Moity began flirting in the quiet moments when Henry was out of the apartment.

Newspaper clipping of an article regarding the Trunk Murders
A clipping of a newspaper article posted to Joseph Moity’s Find-A-Grave memorial page. The children are Henry and Theresa’s, with Leonide “Lonie” and Henry Moity pictured below.

On October 26, a day before the bodies were discovered, Lonie and Theresa announced that they were moving out as they packed their belongings in a pair of trunks. Henry began drinking and, under the influence of alcohol, devised a plan to murder the women. He waited until the women and children were asleep before he entered the bedrooms and began his grisly work. Moity’s skills as a butcher made quick work of the dissection of his wife and sister-in-law. Once the deed was done, he made his way into the morning breeze of the Quarter.

Once the bodies were found, authorities initiated in the search for the women’s husbands. Joseph quickly turned himself in, revealing that he was separated from his now late wife and currently living with his sister. The search immediately turned to focus on Henry. The crew of a freighter headed out of the city turned Henry in, just two days after the murders were discovered. Henry was eventually found guilty of the murders and given two concurrent life sentences.

Henry Moity spent a number of years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary gaining the trust of the prison wardens. In 1944, after he was sent on an errand to the post office, he blithely escaped. Two years later he was arrested in St. Louis and returned to Louisiana where he was shortly released from prison. Making his way to California, he was arrested for shooting (but not killing) his girlfriend and was incarcerated in the infamous Folsom Prison where he died some years later.

New Orleans Trunk Murders
The Moity murders were national news. This article appeared in the Indianapolis (IN) Star – Sun on Christmas 1927.

Today, there is little to distinguish this typical nineteenth-century town house from its neighbors. On the subject of the torrid and bloody affair that happened within its walls just a few days before Halloween in 1927, the house is mute. Tour guides spin tales about paranormal activity here, though the co-owner recently told the Times-Picayune, “This place is absolutely not haunted. It’s a lovely house that unfortunately had this really tragic thing happen in it in the 1920s.”

Interestingly, this tale may have influenced another ghost story just a few doors down at 725 Ursulines St. In 1945, Gumbo Ya-ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales was published. Compiled from material collected by writers with the WPA’s Writers Project under the supervision of Lyle Saxon, this book enshrined a number of ghost tales that remain in the collective psyche of New Orleanians and especially ghost tour guides. The tale of the “sausage ghost” is one of those stories. Somehow, despite any documentary evidence, this story has been placed at this address.

723 and 275 Urusulines Street New Orleans
The doorway of 725 Ursulines Street, 2019. Photo by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

According to this story, Hans Muller lived and worked at this address some time ago. He was a sausage-maker and had his factory within his home. Over the years, he grew tired of his wife and one night pushed her into the sausage grinder. Customers began to complain of finding “bits of bone and cloth in their sausages.”

One evening as he worked, Mr. Muller was confronted by the angry spirit of his wife and fled in terror. Disturbed by his screams, neighbors contacted the authorities, though Muller placated them by saying he’d had a nightmare. After a customer discovered part of a gold wedding band in their sausage, the police were sent to the address again. There “they found Hans Muller in his factory screaming and crying, a raving maniac.” After determining the nature of his crime, he was placed in an asylum where he later committed suicide. The next owner of the property reported that the spirit of the wife continued to return.

The sausage ghost tale is believed to be fiction as there is no other evidence attesting to the story’s validity outside of its inclusion in Gumbo Ya-ya. Is it any wonder that this house, so close to the location of the Trunk Murders, has had this strange tale attached?

735 and 737 Ursulines New Orleans
The Creole cottage containing 735 and 737 Ursulines Street, 2023. By Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Still, while these stories don’t pan out as ghost stories per se, there is an eerie postscript. In 2002, at 735 Ursulines Street a disturbed man murdered his girlfriend, likely after she revealed that she was leaving him. The man butchered her and packed her remains into “a cheap particle board trunk.” A short time later, the man moved to a new apartment on Elysian Fields Avenue (so named for the resting place of Greek heroes) with the morbid trunk in tow. After the man left that apartment, his landlord discovered the trunk and its mummified contents in 2005, leaving this dark detail among the myriad that pervade the French Quarter like the stodgy humidity and dampness that continue to linger in this tropical city.

Sources

Posted on

Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter—Conti Street

This article is part of my series, Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter, which looks at the haunted places of this neighborhood in a street by street basis. Please see the series main page for an introduction to the French Quarter and links to other streets.

Conti Street

Conti Street French Quarter New Orleans
Conti Street sign, 2019 by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

According to historian Stanley Clisby Arthur, Bourbon Street was initially called Conti Street for the Princess Conti. When Bourbon Street was renamed, this street was renamed Conti.

Sources

  • Arthur, Stanley Clisby. Walking Tours of Old New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1990. Originally published in 1936.

700 Block Conti Street

Throughout its history, the French Quarter has been no stranger to violence. In the early morning hours of 21 March 2015, gunshots rang out in this block of Conti Street. In the aftermath, two young men in their 20s lay wounded. One of them died on the scene, while the other died at the hospital a short time later.

Conti Street, French Quarter, New Orleans
A view of the 700-block Conti Street looking towards Bourbon Street. Photo 2019, by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Part of this spectacle may replay itself. Investigator and author Jeff Dwyer explains that witnesses have seen “the ghostly images of a young man who appears lifelike but quickly becomes transparent as he runs a distance of about 50 feet and then vanishes.” Others have heard “muted gunshots” as they have seen this horrible image.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunter’s Guide to New Orleans: Revised Edition. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2016. 

Prince Conti Hotel
830 Conti Street

The Prince Conti Hotel’s bar, The Bombay Club, is apparently haunted by the spirit of a madam who once operated on the premises before the hotel was opened. She has been dubbed Sophie by staff members who have encountered her in the kitchen, bar, and at Booth 3.

Bar Bombay Club Prince Conti Hotel, French Quarter, New Orleans
The bar of The Bombay Club in the Prince Conti Hotel, 2010. Photo by Gary J. Wood, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Sources

  • Gardner, James. Professor’s Guide to Ghosts of New Orleans. CreateSpace, 2020. Kindle Edition.

917 Conti Street (formerly Musee Conti Wax Museum), private

The idea for the Musee Conti Wax Museum came to Ben Weil after a visit to London’s famous Madame Tussaud’s while on a trip to Europe. He quickly imagined a similar counterpart in New Orleans illustrating scenes from local history. The museum opened in 1964 with figures created by a Parisian mannequin maker. The figures of Napoleon, Andrew Jackson, Madame LaLaurie, Marie Laveau, and Jelly Roll Morton were shipped to the city on a Pan Am jet, where some of the figures were seated in the cabin among actual human passengers. The wax museum quickly became a major tourist attraction in the French Quarter. Legions of school children visited among the silent and still figures to learn the weird and wacky and violent history of the city.

Conti Street, French Quarter, New Orleans
917 Conti Street, the building that once held the Musee Conti Wax Museum, is the grey building on the right of this photo. Photo 2021, by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Over time, stories began to spread of spirits among the wax figures. Staff and guests have heard disembodied voices within the museum and others have seen shadow figures moving about amongst the stationary figures. Others have felt the eyes of the figures follow them around the space. The museum has undergone investigations by a number of paranormal investigators who have uncovered a great deal of evidence alluding to the presence of spirits here.

Sadly, the Musee Conti Wax Museum closed in 2016 and the building was sold. Developers transformed the building into high-end private condos. Since the building’s redevelopment, it is unknown if the spirits remain here.

Sources

Wallace Parlour House
1026 Conti Street, private

In a city chock full of irascible characters, Norma Wallace is amongst the pantheon. For decades, she was one of the most well-known doyennes of the city’s pleasure palaces. She was the last, and perhaps the most upstanding and respectable, of many madams who operated throughout this city’s vice-ridden history. From this innocuous address she operated one of the city’s most famous brothels, a place where the patriarchs of prominent families brought their sons as a rite of coming of age. A place where wanted criminals might rub shoulders with the judges who might one day sentence them. Business leaders, bureaucrats, political leaders, entertainers, law enforcement, and diplomats all came to indulge in Norma Wallace’s court of young women. For a time, couples might visit to observe some of New Orleans’ first sex shows given in Norma Wallace’s parlor.

Born into a poverty-stricken family, Wallace had aunts engaged in prostitution. At a young age, she learned that she could earn a living with her womanly charms, though she quickly grew tired of actually selling herself. Within a short time, she began overseeing other ladies of the evening and quickly learned how to finesse law enforcement and the justice system to protect her business interests. With the election of increasingly conservative crime-fighting district attorneys who vowed to fight corruption, she was forced to close her house and business. In her later years, she was able to transform her infamy into fame and her name was celebrated, though she quickly grew bored. In 1974 she took her life at her home in rural Mississippi.

This infamous address fell into disrepair and decay following Wallace’s ownership. Recently, a developer purchased the home and restored it, dividing the house into condos. It is said that the odor of cigars is still smelled here accompanied by the clinking of glasses and the sound of a woman’s husky laugh. Perhaps Norma Wallace is reliving the best years of her life?

Sources

  • Gardner, James. Professor’s Guide to Ghosts of New Orleans. CreateSpace, 2020. Kindle Edition.
  • Wiltz, Christine. The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld. NYC: Open Road Integrated Media, 2000. Kindle Edition.
Posted on

Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter—Bourbon Street

This article is part of my series, Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter, which looks at the haunted places of this neighborhood in a street by street basis. Please see the series main page for an introduction to the French Quarter and links to other streets.

Bourbon Street

Named for the House of Bourbon, the ruling family of France in the 18th century, Bourbon Street has earned a reputation as the place to party in The Big Easy. Prior to the turn of the 20th century, it was one of the premiere addresses in the city. Its fortunes declined a bit with the establishment of Storyville above the French Quarter. This notorious red-light district attracted prostitution and gambling to much of the French Quarter. This street has attracted many businesses catering to an adult audience. Even with the presence of these businesses, the street is the focus of the city’s many tourists.

Bourbon Street French Quarter New Orleans
A view of the 400 block of Bourbon Street looking towards the Central Business District, 2012. Photo by Chris Litherland, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Sources

  • Bourbon Street. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 22 April 2023.

Old Absinthe House
240 Bourbon Street

Occupying a corner of Bourbon and Bienville streets, the Old Absinthe House also occupies position in both the alcoholic and paranormal history of the city. Built in 1806, this structure was originally a business and dwelling house for a pair of Spanish importers, Pedro Font and Francisco Juncadella. Eventually, noted local bartender Cayetano Ferrer took out a lease on the building and began serving absinthe, renaming it The Absinthe Room.

Old Absinthe House Bourbon Street French Quarter New Orleans
The Old Absinthe House, 1937, by Frances Johnston. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Legend holds that before the Battle of New Orleans, the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte, met with General Andrew Jackson here to arrange for his help in the defense of the city against British attack during the War of 1812. Jackson agreed to Lafitte’s services in exchange for a pardon on the charges leveled at him for his pirate and smuggling operations.

While there is little evidence that this meeting actually occurred within the walls of the Old Absinthe House, owners over the years have continued to support this legend. Indeed, they have also attributed paranormal activity here to the dashing shade of Lafitte, despite the claims of his spirit haunting many other places throughout the city and the state. Perhaps Lafitte is as busy in the afterlife as he was during his existence in this plane.

Old Absinthe House French Quarter New Orleans
Old Absinthe House in 2012. Photo by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Several sources note the presence of unexplained activity throughout the old building including doors opening and closing by themselves, and glassware and chairs moving on their own accord.

Sources

  • Duplechien, Brad. “Old Absinthe House—New Orleans, LA (The Green Fairy).” Haunted Nation Blog. 27 September 2016.
  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunter’s Guide to New Orleans, Revised Edition. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2016.
  • “Old Absinthe House: Legend says Jackson, Lafitte met here in French Quarter.” The Daily Advertiser. 4 March 1959.
  • Taylor, David. “Museum solves problem of Absinthe House secret floor.” The Daily Advertiser. 15 October 1950.
  • Taylor, Troy. Haunted New Orleans. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.

327 Bourbon Street
(formerly Temptations Gentlemen’s Club)

The elegant townhouse at this address is still (as of March 2022) boarded up with graffiti and slowly decaying. The building has being sitting in this sad state since early 2018 when Temptations was shut down permanently after the city cited the business with numerous code violations and found evidence that prostitution was taking place on the premises.

This home was built in 1835 by Judah P. Benjamin, a brilliant young Jewish lawyer who married the young daughter of a private family. While he was successful as a lawyer and planter, his wife separated from him and moved with their young daughter to Paris. In 1852, Benjamin was elected to the US Senate and he served in that capacity until Louisiana seceded from the Union in 1861. Impressed by him, Jefferson Davis appointed him as attorney general, then to Secretary of War for the Confederacy, and ultimately to Secretary of State. With the end of the war, he fled to London where he served as a barrister for the remainder of his life.

327 Broubon Street French Quarter New Orleans
327 Bourbon Street around 1937 or 1938 by Frances Benjamin Johnston.

This lovely home remained a private residence for many years following Benjamin’s ownership and may have served as a brothel at some point in more recent history. By the mid-2010s, the building had been transformed into Temptations. The owners had left much of the historic interiors intact and had also renovated the slave quarters in the back for private encounters with the club’s female employees.

Paranormal investigator Brad Duplechien toured in the building around this time and documented stories from various members of the staff. They spoke of encountering a lady in white in the main house and spoke of a certain VIP room as having an oppressive atmosphere. In the old slave quarters, they experienced doors opening, closing, and locking on their own.

Sources

  • Duplechien, Brad. “Temptations Gentlemen’s Club – New Orleans, LA (The Haunted Strip Club).” Haunted Nation. 5 October 2016.
  • Judah P. Benjamin. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 23 April 2023.
  • Litten, Kevin. “Temptations strip club owners give up on F. Q. property; club shut down permanently.” New Orleans Times-Picayune. 30 January 2018.

Bourbon Heat
711 Bourbon Street

The carriageway at the Tricou House, now Bourbon Heat nightclub. Photo by Frances Johnston, 1937, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

The spirit of a young woman who died in a fall on the stairs here is supposed to remain in this nightclub. Built in 1832 by Dr. Joseph Tricou, this former private residence has been a bar for many years. The doctor’s niece Penelope supposedly lost her footing on the stairs and tumbled to her death. Staff and patrons have heard disembodied footsteps throughout the building. A statue in the club’s courtyard is also said to move on its own volition.

Sources

  • Klein, Victor C. New Orleans Ghosts. Chapel Hill, NC: Professional Press, 1993.
  • Smith, Katherine. Journey Into Darkness: Ghosts and Vampires of New Orleans. New Orleans, LA: De Simonin Publications, 1998.

Bourbon Pub and Parade
801 Bourbon Street

Bourbon Pub Bourbon Street
The Bourbon Pub decked out in Pride regalia for one of the city’s many pride celebrations, 2016. Photo by Tony Webster, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Bourbon Pub and Parade is the largest gay bar in New Orleans and one of the premier sites for partying during the annual Southern Decadence, a six-day gay and lesbian festival held over Memorial Day weekend. Patrons here have seen, heard, and occasionally felt spirits throughout the bar area. Some patrons have been surprised by the hollow sound of a thud accompanied by the inexplicable sensation of a cane hitting the bottom of their shoe.

Sources

  • Summer, Ken. Queer Hauntings: True Tales of Gay and Lesbian Ghosts. Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe Press, 2009.

Café Lafitte in Exile
901 Bourbon Street

Cafe Lafitte in Exile New Orleans
Doorway of the Cafe Lafitte in Exile, 2016. Photo by Tony Webster, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Opened in 1933, at the end of Prohibition, the Café Lafitte in Exile is now known as the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the United States. Two of the café’s most famous patrons, writers Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote, are believed to revisit this, one of their favorite haunts. While neither writer died in New Orleans, they have been seen within the walls of the café. Ken Summers notes that another, rather frisky spirit, known as Mister Bubbles, is known to pinch some patrons’ posteriors. 

Sources

  • Richardson, Joy. “New Orleans’ Café Lafitte Haunted by Two Literary Greats.” com. 12 July 2010.
  • Summer, Ken. Queer Hauntings: True Tales of Gay and Lesbian Ghosts. Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe Press, 2009.

Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop
941 Bourbon Street

See my coverage of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop in “Encounter with a Gentleman—New Orleans.”

Lafitte Guest House
1003 Bourbon Street

Housed in an old mansion overlooking Bourbon Street and the historic and haunted Lafitte Blacksmith Shop across the street, the Lafitte Guest House is home to a handful of spirits. Some years ago, the inn’s owners were planning on going on a cruise. As they discussed the plans for the cruise, soot blew down the chimney of the room where they sat and spelled out the words “No Voyage” on the floor.

The spirit of a little girl has been seen by guests in the mirror of the second floor balcony. Guests will look at themselves in the mirror and see a little girl crying behind them. She may be the young daughter of the Gleises family who resided here in the mid-19th century. It is believed that she died during one of the many yellow fever epidemics that swept through New Orleans in the 1850s. The spirit of an anguished woman is believed to be the spirit of this little girl’s mother.

Sources

  • Kermeen, Frances. Ghostly Encounters: True Stories of America’s Haunted Inn and Hotels. NYC: Warner Books, 2002.
  • Sillery, Barbara. The Haunting of Louisiana. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2001.
  • Turnage, Sheila. Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2001.
Posted on

Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter—Dauphine Street

N.B. This article was originally published 15 June 2016 with Bourbon Street.

This article is part of my series, Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter, which looks at the haunted places of this neighborhood in a street by street basis. Please see the series main page for an introduction to the French Quarter and links to other streets.

Dauphine Street

Dauphine Street New Orleans
Tile street name set into the sidewalk. Photo by Infrogmation, 2019, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Originally the Rue de Vendome, this street was renamed Dauphine Street not long after. According to John Chase’s Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children…and other Streets of New Orleans, there is no certainty as to who this street is named for, though it was likely named for the Dauphin of France, the heir apparent to the French crown.

Sources

  • Chase, John. Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children…and other Streets of New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1949.

Dauphine Orleans Hotel
415 Dauphine Street

Like so many French Quarter hotels, the Dauphine Orleans comprises a number of buildings with varying histories and spirits. On the west side of Dauphine Street is a small group of old cottages, some dating to at least 1775. Among these buildings is the Audubon Cottage, one of several buildings where artist John James Audubon lived for a time. Another cottage was once occupied by one of the city’s infamous bordellos in the 19th century, a bawdy house under the watchful eye of May Bailey. This building is now the hotel’s bar, May Bailey’s Place.

Sanborn map 1895 of New Orleans French Quarter
The 1895 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of the corner of Dauphine and Conti Streets where the Dauphine Orleans Hotel is now located. Most of the cottages and buildings on this corner now comprise the hotel.

In 1834, merchant Samuel Hermann built a large home just across the street from the cottages. This building now houses the hotel’s offices. After these buildings were renovated, the Dauphine Orleans Hotel opened in 1971.

Investigations conducted in the 1990s by the International Society for Paranormal Research (ISPR) reported the presence of a number of spirits including a soldier’s spirit in the pool area, and several former ladies of the evening, possibly associated with May Bailey.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. The Haunted South. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.
  • “The Dauphine Hotel is really haunted.” WGNO. 30 October 2015.
  • Montz, Larry and Daena Smoller. ISPR Investigates The Ghosts of New Orleans. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2000.
  • Oswell, Paul. New Orleans Historic Hotels. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.

Gardette-LePretre House
715 Dauphine Street, private

Gardette-LePretre Mansion French Quarter New Orleans
The Gardette-LePretre House in January 1958. This photo was taken by Richard Koch for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Sometimes known as the “Sultan’s Retreat” this private residence is home to a popular legend. At some point in the early 19th century, a deposed potentate from the east took up residence here. Accompanied by scimitar-wielding guards, a harem, eunuchs and servants, the potentate rented the home and turned it into an Eastern-styled pleasure garden. One morning passersby noticed that everything had suddenly gone quiet. Ominously, and in testament to the horrors within, a small trickle of blood dripped from underneath the front door. When the police broke in to investigate they discovered all the home’s residents had been massacred in an orgy of blood and violence. Since that time, residents have supposedly dealt with odd sounds, disembodied screams, and mysterious apparitions. Sadly, there’s no evidence that these events actually occurred or that the building may be haunted.

Sources

  • Ambrose, Kala. Spirits of New Orleans. Cincinnati, OH: Clerisy Press, 2012.
  • Caskey, James. The Haunted History of New Orleans. Savannah, GA: Manta Ray Books, 2014.

Dauphine House Bed & Breakfast
1830 Dauphine Street

The Dauphine House is located about a block outside of the French Quarter in Faubourg Marigny, but I think it’s close enough to include in this look at French Quarter haunts.

This small inn, built in 1860 as a private residence, hosts several spirits. Not long after the owner purchased the home she encountered a spectral couple on the stairs, “they wore clothes from the end of the 1800s…they were standing there smiling.” She thanked them for their home and explained that she would take care of the house and the couple disappeared. A guest at the inn who was distraught over a breakup reportedly saw the couple a few times during her visit and felt they were attempting to comfort her.

Sources

  • “Haunts of the Dauphine House.” Ghost Eyes Blog. 15 January 2010.
  • Smith, Terry L. and Mark Jean. Haunted Inns of America. Crane Hill Publishers, 2003.
  • Turnage, Sheila. Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2001.
Posted on

Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter—Wilkinson Street

This article is part of my series, Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter, which looks at the haunted places of this neighborhood in a street by street basis. Please see the series main page for an introduction to the French Quarter and links to other streets.

Wilkinson Street

Also known as Wilkinson Alley, this street runs for a block between Decatur Street and Chartres Street. It was cut through this block in 1816 and named Jefferson Street, though the name was later changed to honor General James Wilkinson (1757-1825), who was appointed by Thomas Jefferson as the first territorial governor of Louisiana.

James Wilkinson by Charles Willson Peale, 1797
James Wilkinson by Charles Willson Peale, 1797.

Wilkinson is quite a controversial figure in American history. He served the Patriot cause during the American Revolution, though he involved himself in a myriad of political intrigues and scandals throughout much of his life. Some years after his death, a scholar uncovered evidence that Wilkinson had been a spy for Spain.

Sources

  • Chase, John. Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children…and other Streets of New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1949.
  • James Wilkinson. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 15 April 2023.

535 Wilkinson Street

About two decades ago, this address, originally constructed around 1895 as a warehouse for Jackson Brewery, was occupied by Shalimar Indian Cuisine. During that time, Ghost Expedition tours frequently took guests to the restaurant in search of a male spirit that was reported there. Described as a man in traditional Sikh clothing consisting of long robes, a turban, and wielding a scimitar, the spirit was believed to be a protective entity watching over the family who owned the establishment.

Wilkinson Street New Orleans
Shalimar Indian Cuisine once occupied the far left bay in the white warehouse building in the center of this photograph. Photo by Infrogmation, 2019, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The entity was frequently encountered on the second floor, where people felt sudden temperature changes and would hear the sound of heavy furniture being dragged across the third floor.

During one Ghost Expedition visit in 1997, the entity made its presence abundantly clear. As the guide was speaking with her guests on the restaurant’s second floor, a large shadow appeared and “superimposed” itself on the guide. Feeling threatened, she began to back up, eventually making her way to a far wall with the shadow still on her. Upset, several guests screamed and fled the building. Once the guide was able to regain her voice, she apologized to the spirit and the shadow disappeared.

It is unknown if the spirit has remained on the premises since the Indian restaurant has closed.

Sources

  • Montz, Larry and Daena Smoller. ISPR Investigates The Ghosts of New Orleans. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2000.
Posted on

Spectral strangers in our midst—New Orleans

Café Sbisa
1011 Decatur Street
New Orleans, Louisiana

The building that is now occupied by the Café Sbisa was originally a ship’s chandlery in 1820, where crews of ships berthed at the wharves and docks along the river could purchase supplies. As was typical in this time period, the first floor was used as retail space with the upper floors serving as a residence for the store’s owner and his family. Over the time, the building continued to serve seamen as a banking operation and a saloon with a brothel on the upper floors.

In 1899, the Sbisa family purchased the building and opened a respectable café in it. Over the years, the café has garnered a reputation for its food, drinks, and conviviality, so much so that New Orleans artist George Dureau (1930-2014) captured it in a triptych painting that hangs above the bar. The work celebrates patrons, employees, and the artist himself all within a fantastical vision of the restaurant called “Strangers in our midst: Café Sbisa, New Orleans.”

Cafe Sbisa New Orleans 2008
A highly decorated art car is parked just outside Cafe Sbisa on the afternoon of 2 August 2008. Photo by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

At times, amidst the bustle of staff and patrons, spectral strangers may make their way through the restaurant. These strangers date to the building’s notorious era during the 19th century. A tale has emerged concerning a young girl sold into prostitution by her father to pay his debts. The young girl believed that she could work to repay the debt and would then be freed. Unfortunately, she became pregnant and was shocked to learn that the debt had been compounded with charges for room, board, and clothing, thus keeping her against her will for her entire life. After giving birth, the distraught girl drowned her infant in courtyard’s fountain and hanged herself. These tragic deaths have left spiritual imprints on the space.

Patrons and staff have reported feeling their clothes tugged at by unseen hands as well as gentle shoves in the second-floor dining area. Others have watched as the chandelier has begun swinging on its own. Is this activity a sign of spectral strangers in our midst?

Sources

  • Gardner, James. Professor’s Guide to Ghosts of New Orleans. Amazon, 2020.
  • “A Ghost Tour of the Most Haunted City in the USA.” Uncover Travel. Accessed 9 April 2023.
  • Maitland, Brenda. “Café Sbisa.” Country Roads Magazine. 1 December 2008.
  • Quackenbush, Jannette. Ghost Stories and Tales of New Orleans. 21 Crows Dusk to Dawn Publishing, 2021.
Posted on

The glowing skeleton and friends—Pensacola, Florida

St. Michael’s Cemetery
6 North Alcaniz Street
Pensacola, Florida

St. Michael’s Cemetery in the heart of the most historic area in Pensacola, was first used as a burying ground as far back as the early 18th century. It is considered one of the two oldest extant cemeteries in the state with the other being St. Augustine’s haunted Tolomato Cemetery. The oldest graves date to the late 18th century and the cemetery was officially designated as a burial ground by the King of Spain in 1807. When space this eight-acre cemetery was exhausted in 1876, St. John’s Cemetery was established nearby. With so many burials, this cemetery can be considered an open-air museum of the city’s history.

St. Michael's Cemetery Pensacola Florida
The entrance to St. Michael’s Cemetery in 2007. From the Pensapedia.

Its age has perhaps led to the many rumors, some unfounded, regarding the cemetery being haunted. For years, some believed the strange greenish glow seen around some of the graves here was paranormal, though it was found to be caused by the neon sign on the nearby San Carlos Hotel. A local grocer bereaved by the death of his wife and two children, gave rise to another ghost story in the late 19th century when he would sometimes spend the night sleeping on their graves. Passersby seeing him rise from the graves assumed he was a spirit. Sometime later, after reports of a white apparition flitting through this ancient cemetery, the local police department investigated only to discover an albino fox had taken up residence here.

According to Mark Muncy, author of Creepy Florida, during World War II, several sailors on leave had a truly frightening experience as they passed the cemetery one evening. The group witnessed a glowing skeleton arise from a grave within the cemetery and begin to charge them. The entity touched one of the young men leaving behind blistered skin. The group fled. Upon return to their ship they were showing symptoms of yellow fever, despite having been inoculated against the viral disease. Interestingly, many of the early burials here were victims of the dreaded yellow fever outbreaks.

In recent years, visitors to the cemetery have reported hearing disembodied voices. Are these just the product of over-active minds or paranormal?

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. Haunted Pensacola. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
  • Johnson, Sandra & Leora Sutton. Ghosts, Legends and Folklore of Old Pensacola. Pensacola, FL: Pensacola Historical Society, 1994.
  • Moon, Troy. “Pensacola’s spooky past haunts the present.” Pensacola News-Journal. 15 October 2016.
  • Muncy, Mark and Kari Schultz. Creepy Florida: Phantom Pirates, the Hog Island Witch, the Demented Doctor at the Don Vicente & More. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2019.
  • St. Michael’s Cemetery, Pensacola, Escambia County, Florida. Find-A-Grave. Accessed 20 February 2023.
  • St. Michael’s Cemetery. Pensepedia. Accessed 30 January 2023.
Posted on

Five Hauntings in the ‘City Under Five Flags’

Pensacola occupies land on Pensacola Bay on the Gulf coast of Florida. Starting with the Spanish who created the first settlement in the continental U. S. on this bay in 1559, the city has existed under five different flags throughout its history. Besides the Spanish, the city has been ruled over by France, Great Britain, the Confederate States of America, and the United States, with each leaving their own marks, both physically and spiritually, on the city. This article looks at a selection of the haunted places here.

Blount Building
3 West Garden Street

Blount Building Pensacola Florida
Blount Building, 2008, by Ebyabe. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

In the early morning hours of November 1, 1905, fire destroyed several buildings on Palafox Street between Garden and Romana Streets including a building owned by lawyer William A. Blount. Following the fire, Mr. Blount commenced construction on a large, and most importantly, fire-proof seven-story structure to house his firm. The Blount Building, designed in the prevalent Chicago Style, was completed in 1907. In 2015, the building underwent a major renovation and it now houses offices of several firms and businesses. A 2005 article on Pensacola hauntings states that the structure “is no stranger to unusual and unexplained activity.”

Sources

  • Baltrusis, Sam. “Ghost Hunter: Pensacola’s Most Haunted.” inweekly, Pensacola Independent News. 20 October 2005.
  • Blount Building. Accessed 23 January 2023.
  • Blount Building. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 23 January 2023.

Old Sacred Heart Hospital
1010 North Twelfth Avenue

Old Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola Florida
Old Sacred Heart Hospital, 2008, by Ebyabe. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

When it opened in 1915, Pensacola Hospital was the first comprehensive medical facility in the area. Just prior, a citizens committee was set up featuring several prominent locals, including members of the clergy, to bring about the construction of a hospital. The committee partnered with the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul to build and run the large institution. The Sisters insisted on engaging Hungarian-born architect Albert O. Von Herbulis to design the building in English Gothic style. The massive four-story building with two large wings opened in September of that year.

The Sisters operated the hospital as Pensacola Hospital until 1949, when the name was changed to Sacred Heart Hospital. In 1965, a new facility was constructed, and the institution left the large Gothic building. Several years later, the Pensacola Private School of Liberal Arts took over and operated within the building. After a decade of deferred maintenance, the building was condemned by the city for safety reasons. The following year, an investment group took over the old hospital restoring and renovating it for use as a business complex.

Today, the old hospital, now known as Tower East, is home to offices and businesses, with a popular pizza joint, O’Zone Pizza, occupying part of the old basement space. Since reopening, tales have emerged of the building being haunted. Some have suggested that the specter of one of the Sisters continues to glide through the old hospital’s halls, still going about her nursing duties.

Sources

Romana Street

Romana Street, named for the third Marques de la Romana, stretches from Pace Boulevard to the edge of Pensacola Bay and runs through much of the oldest portions of the city. From its earliest time, the city has been haunted by pirates. In its earliest days, pirates overshadowed the success and prosperity of Pensacola and even now they, and sometimes their victims, continue to the haunt the city in the form of apparitions and paranormal activity.

The legend of the ghost of Romana Street was created through the work of one of these bloodthirsty pirates. One evening in the 1820s a gang of pirates roaming the streets seized upon a young couple. Killing the man, the group tried to kidnap the young lady, but she put up a mighty resistance. With the large diamond ring she wore, the young lady gouged out the eyes of the pirate and he dropped her in pain. Enraged, he began swinging his cutlass blindly. A moment later, he was able to decapitate the young lady.

In the years since the senseless and bloody murder, people walking along Romana Street after dark have seen the specter of a young lady walking along the street without her head. Interestingly, this is not the only headless wraith in the area, a similar specter has been spotted in Government Street, and at a place called Lady’s Walk on Santa Rosa Island, just south of the city.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. Haunted Pensacola. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
  • Johnson, Sandra & Leora Sutton. Ghosts, Legends and Folklore of Old Pensacola. Pensacola, FL: Pensacola Historical Society, 1994.
  • Romana Street. Accessed 30 January 2023.

St. John’s Cemetery
610 North Spring Street

Once St. Michael’s Cemetery, near the heart of the old city, began to fill up, St. John’s Cemetery was opened in 1876. This cemetery now covers 26 acres a short distance from the city’s original municipal cemetery. Supposedly, the spirits of children and the 19th century outlaw Railroad Bill have been spotted here.

One of the most scandalous graves in this cemetery is that of Mary C. “Mollie” McCoy. She was one of the city’s best-known madams operating her upscale bordello on Zaragoza Street. After her death she was buried here, much to the chagrin of more respectable local ladies who eventually had the city remove the grave marker. But not before the marker acquired the reputation of bringing luck to the love lives of those that touched it. A new marker was erected here in 2012.

Sources

  • Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/94785186/mary-c-mccoy: accessed 19 February 2023), memorial page for Mary C “Mollie” McCoy (1843–4 Feb 1920), Find a Grave Memorial ID 94785186, citing Saint John’s Cemetery, Pensacola, Escambia County, Florida, USA; Maintained by Jimbob BillyJoe (contributor 47265124).
  • Moon, Troy. “Pensacola’s spooky past haunts the present.” Pensacola News-Journal. 15 October 2016.
  • Muncy, Mark and Kari Schultz. Creepy Florida: Phantom Pirates, the Hog Island Witch, the Demented Doctor at the Don Vicente & More. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2019.
  • John’s Cemetery. Pensepedia. Accessed 30 January 2023.

St. Michael’s Cemetery
6 North Alcaniz Street

This location has been broken out into its own blog entry and can be found at The glowing skeleton and friends.

Posted on

A Dollar and a Dime–Miss Mayhayley Lancaster

As the Research Archivist for the Troup County Historical Society, I am regularly asked to write about local history and I was overjoyed to be asked to write about one of our local celebrities. The fact that I’m able to address a figure with a paranormal bent added to my excitement in putting this article together. This article has just recently been published in the October 2022 edition Highland Living Magazine.

“A dollar and a dime—will buy the Spirit’s time!”
Miss Mayhayley Lancaster, the Oracle of West Georgia

Lewis O. Powell, IV, Research Archivist, Troup County Archives

For decades in the early 20th century, locals in search of something: an answer, a missing item or loved one, or just sheer entertainment, crowded the rough roads of rural Heard County seeking out the services of Miss Mayhayley Lancaster. Day after day, visitors lined up in her front yard for a few minutes with the self-proclaimed “Oracle of the Ages.” After pressing a dollar and a dime into her sister Sallie’s hand, the guests would be ushered into a room in the cramped cabin where they would meet with the enigmatic seer. Surrounded by walls covered in newspaper, books, knick-knacks, and other detritus, Miss Mayhayley would dole out cryptic advice over the course of about twenty minutes. While the advice was often vague, the patrons would usually leave satisfied, which was only compounded when, more often than not, the customer discovered that she was right.

In these parts, whenever Miss Mayhayley Lancaster is spoken of, her name is often qualified with the Southern honorific “Miss.” Indeed, she was unmarried, but this title affords her a good deal of the hard-earned respect and dignity that she amassed in her long and fruitful life. While she may have not always been successful in her endeavors, many of which extended outside the realm of accepted occupations for a woman of her time, she sought these pursuits with a tenacity that was unmatched, even among her male counterparts.

Miss Mayhayley came from a line of formidable women. Her great-grandmother, Mahala Whaley Lancaster, came to Troup County after drawing several lots here in the 1827 Land Lottery. Her husband’s death while racing horses enabled her and her children two draws in the lottery. With a number of children in tow and imaginably, quite a bit of fortitude, she settled her family in the primeval wilderness that was the county in its earliest days. They persevered and planted roots in both Troup and Heard counties. Decades later, a family member intimated that Mayhayley was not the only family member with that name to tell fortunes.

Mahala Lancaster passed away on the eve of the Civil War. Her great-granddaughter, who was named for her, entered this world fourteen years later in 1875. Miss Mayhayley’s parents were John W. B. Lancaster and his wife, Eliza Harriet Thaxton. The Lancasters and the Thaxtons were neighbors in Heard County and the families remained close after their marriage with John’s sister Nancy Mahala also marrying a young Thaxton boy. Miss Mayhayley was John and Harriet’s third child of eleven, and the only one born with a caul.

In European folk tradition, the caul, a piece of the amniotic sac that is found covering an infant’s face after birth, was taken as an omen that the child would go on to accomplish great things. Some traditions also suggested that the caul indicated the child would be a seer and possess a “second sight.” Miss Mayhayley would proudly proclaim that it was that that provided her abilities. While her abilities were well-known throughout the region, they were not the only things that made Miss Mayhayley special.

Mayhayley Lancaster
An undated studio portrait of Miss Mayhayley, courtesy of the Troup County Archives.

Like her many siblings, Miss Mayhayley attended the local public school in the Walnut Hill and Frolona communities of rural Heard County. She proved an apt student and even received an award on her graduation. She always had a mind for business and throughout her life engaged in buying a selling everything from land to livestock to seeds. Throughout her life she would frequent sheriff’s sales on the steps of the local county courthouses and by the time of her death she had amassed nearly 600 acres in several counties. Willis Hemmings, who grew up just down the road from Miss Mayhayley, recalls that he first met her when she visited his mother selling vegetable and flower seeds. Mrs. Hemmings purchased some squash seeds with Miss Mayhayley’s promise that they were the best seeds that money could buy. The fine crop produced by the seeds endeared the eccentric neighbor to the family.

Within her community, Miss Mayhayley looked after many of the children serving as a teacher and a mentor. She would often hire young people, like the young Willis Hemmings from down the road to work for her, paying them with a dime for their services and teaching them the value of hard work and money. After attending law school in Atlanta in 1911, she began to practice law throughout the region and was one of the earliest female lawyers in the area. Running on a progressive platform, she ran unsuccessfully three times for the state legislature. Within her busy schedule, she also found time to write a column for the local newspaper where she expounded on issues of the day. During the infamous 1915 trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan, a young factory employee, she supported Frank’s claims of innocence against the waves of anti-Semitism and public furor aroused by the case, even producing the ire of populist editor Tom Watson. When Frank was ultimately lynched by a mob in Marietta, she was reportedly devastated.

Despite her eccentricities, Miss Mayhayley was a beloved figure in the region. She would often visit town attired in gaudy dresses decked out with costume jewelry and crepe ribbons, fanciful hats, feather boas, with the look rounded out by outdated, high-topped Victorian style boots. At other times her clothing might be confined to an old military jacket and moth-eaten Army hat with an assortment of dirty aprons and colorful feed sacks. Her strange appearance only added to her reputation.

That reputation as a fortune teller and seer got a tremendous boost when she appeared at the Coweta County Courthouse in Newnan to testify against John Wallace in 1948. A frequent customer of Miss Mayhayley’s, Wallace was accused of the murder of one of his sharecropper’s, Wilson Turner. When Wallace consulted the seer to find the whereabouts of a stolen cow, she provided Turner’s name. On Wallace’s orders, Turner was arrested and then released from jail, at which point Turner was chased by Wallace and his cronies down the road towards Coweta County. At a tourist court, just over the county line, Turner was attacked by his pursuers and pistol whipped by Wallace. The body was taken back to Meriwether County where Wallace disposed of it in an old well.

When Wallace discovered that the sheriff of Coweta County was investigating, he revisited Miss Mayhayley seeking her help in finding Turner’s body on his vast property as he had forgotten where he stashed it. As everyone, including miscreants, visited the oracle, law enforcement frequently visited her as well to gather information that was revealed during her meetings with clients. After finding that Wallace visited Miss Mayhayley regularly, the sheriff consulted her and discovered that she knew about as much about the murder as Wallace did. When Wallace faced a jury for his crimes, the seer was brought in as an expert witness for the prosecution. Her testimony was considered key to his guilty verdict and brought her nationwide fame.

Mayhayley Lancaster
An undated portrait of Miss Mayhayley, courtesy of the Troup County Archives.

Visitors from around the country began to flock to her packed-earth front yard wanting her assistance. Even the rich and famous began to visit her cabin. Alabama-born actress, Tallulah Bankhead visited her while she was staying with a friend in nearby Carrollton. Bankhead had lost a valuable diamond ring and Miss Mayhayley exclaimed “Sunset!” after hearing her story. She went on to describe a quilt in which the ring had fallen. Upon her return to Carrollton, Bankhead quickly packed her bags and returned to Sunset, her family’s home in Alabama. There, in a trunk in the attic was her precious ring folded up in a quilt matching the fortune-teller’s description.

Not only was she instrumental in finding lost rings and murderers, but she was helpful in providing aid to the living. A local sheriff’s deputy and friend recalled seeing a car with Alabama plates pull up to the cabin during World War II. A family stepped out with the grieving matriarch. She had been told that her youngest son had gone missing in Europe. The family was quickly ushered inside and after a long while they emerged looking relieved. One of the family members told the deputy that, according to Miss Mayhayley, the son was alive and that he would call his mother within a few days. Several weeks later, the family returned to report that the son had indeed called and would be returning to Alabama shortly.

During this same time a couple ladies from LaGrange decided to take the journey out to the ramshackle house for fun one afternoon. During their consultation, Miss Mayhayley asked if they knew a particular lady, and one of the ladies responded she was her neighbor. She was asked to carry a message to her to let her know that she needn’t worry about her son, who was serving in the war.

Years of successful business-deals and fortune telling left Miss Mayhayley a very wealthy woman. Just prior to her death in 1955, she built a magnificent new home in Franklin. Shortly after moving in, she experienced a heart attack and died a few days later. A large crowd filled the small Caney Head Methodist Church in the community of Roopville for her funeral and she was laid to rest in the cemetery there.

Mayhayley Lancaster's grave
Miss Mayhayley’s grave in the churchyard at Caney Head Methodist Church, Heard County, Georgia. The money at the foot of the headstone is a dollar and a dime, her fee. Photo 2010, by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

Her grave still draws visitors today who will leave a dollar and a dime in front of her marker which bears the words, “Neither did His brethren believe him.” Though, even today, people still believe in Miss Mayhayley.

Posted on

Reappearance of the suave Zouaves—Manassas, Virginia

Manassas National Battlefield Park
6511 Sudley Road
Manassas, Virginia

Some years ago, a reporter for the local Manassas Journal Messenger poetically described a sighting of the apparition of a Zouave on the Manassas battlefield,

A shadow emerges from the among the trees bordering the barren field. The sky is black, and clouds are scudding across the face of the moon. But the moon provides enough light to make out a figure of a man in loose pantaloons scouring the battlefield, searching for something. In a moment, fleetingly, the field is bathed in light as the face of the moon clears. A chill runs down your spine as you realize the man appears to have no head!”

Van Gogh Zouave 1888
Painter Vincent Van Gogh celebrated the Zouave’s exotic dress in this portrait of a French Zouave from 1888.

Under the reign of Queen Victoria, the design pendulum swung in the direction of opulent decoration and exotic elements. Victorians took delight in adapting foreign ideals into the Western design language. Even on the battlefield, some military units adopted the fanciful dress and unique training of the French Zouave regiments.

Originally, these regiments were composed of Berbers in French occupied-Algeria, a group of warriors with a fierce reputation, called Zwawa in their language. Even after dropping the units, the French continued to create units attired in similar uniforms and trained in exotic fighting techniques, calling them Zouaves. The idea spread to many other Western armies and was eventually adopted by various military units during the Civil War, especially a number of New York regiments.

One of the best known of the New York Zouave regiments was the 5th New York Infantry Regiment, under the command of Colonel Gouveneur K. Warren. At the Second Battle of Manassas, this regiment was in the V Division of the Union Army of Virginia under the command of General John Pope.

This regiment was known as Duryee’s Zouaves, as they were sponsored by Abraham Duryee, a prominent mahogany importer.

It was bedizened in the classic Zouave uniform, the rage style of the day: white leggings, baggy red pants, blue jackets with red braid, and tasseled red fezes. Duryee had stocked the regiment with an array of officers of impressive potential; eight of them would advance to the rank of general. These officers drilled the regiment tirelessly, until it rightfully claimed a place alongside the U.S. Regulars in proficiency. Hard fighting and marching on the Peninsula had chiseled the original 848 men down to a hardened five hundred, plus sixty new recruits.

Winslow Homer The Briarwood Pipe 1864
American painter Winslow Homer painted these soldiers from the 5th New York Infantry in this 1864 painting, entitled The Briarwood Pipe.

In late August of 1862, just a little more than a year after the First Battle of Manassas or Bull Run (the two sides named battles differently, with the Union naming battles for the nearest body of water—Bull Run Creek in this case—while the Confederates named battles for the nearest town or settlement—Manassas in this case), Confederate troops under General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson captured the Union supply depot at Manassas Junction (now just Manassas) and dug in awaiting the arrival of a wing of Robert E. Lee’s army under Major General James Longstreet.

General Pope, in hopes of “bagging” Stonewall Jackson, sparred with his troops in several small battles before confronting them on the same terrain where First Manassas had been fought. On the morning of August 29, Pope found Jackson dug in along an unfinished railroad line and hurled his men at this position throughout much of the day, though they were time and time again repulsed. That afternoon General Longstreet’s troops arrived to join the fray.

About 4 PM on the afternoon of August 30, the 5th New York found themselves suddenly pelted with bullets after an afternoon of confusion and frustration. Soldiers from Texas and Georgia poured volley upon volley on the nattily dressed New Yorkers, leading one private to remark later, “Not only were men wounded or killed, but they were riddled.” The Federal troops, who had held a hill throughout much of the day, retreated only to be pursued by Confederates who slaughtered them as they fled downhill. Another private noted, “Very few, if any, of that regiment reached the hill beyond. I saw men dropping on all sides, canteens struck and flying to pieces, haversacks cut off, rifles knocked to pieces. I was expecting to get hit every second, but on, on I went, the balls hissing by my head.”

Forty minutes after the assault began, the regiment mustered on Henry Hill, about a mile from where they had been scattered by the Federals. The regiment had counted about five hundred soldiers, though about sixty gathered around the regimental colors. Much of the regiment were “dead, dying and wounded, scattered in the bloodstained stubblefield a mile to the west.” One of Hood’s Confederates, who had been a part of the attack, said it was a “ghastly, horrifying spectacle,” while another reflected that the dead and dying in red pantaloons and blue jackets reminded him of a wildflower dotted Texas hillside in the spring.

Memorial to the 5th NY regiment Manassas battlefield
Memorial to the 5th New York Regiment near the New York Avenue section of the battlefield. Photo 2006, by AndyZ, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Years later when survivors of the Zouave massacre returned to the battlefield to dedicate a monument to their fallen comrades, one posited, “War has been designated as Hell, and I can assure you that where the Regiment stood that day was the very vortex of Hell.” In ten minutes, the New York 5th Regiment had lost about three hundred, with about half of those killed. This was the single greatest number of casualties for a single regiment during the entire war.

In the section of battlefield, now known as New York Avenue, where the New York troops had been decimated, a spate of sightings took place in the mid-1970s. There were so many reports of sightings of a ghostly Zouave that parapsychologist Arthur Berger was led to investigate this phenomenon. He published the results in his 1988 book, Evidence of Life after Death: A Casebook for the Tough-Minded. One witness saw an apparition in typical Zouave dress on several nights. As he tried to approach the figure, it “dissolved.” He returned with his father and they didn’t see anything, though after the witness brought his daughter along, they saw a mysterious figure that seemed to beckon from the wood line.

Another witness, who was part of a reenactor group camping on the battlefield, saw a figure wearing what seemed to be a Zouave uniform in the woods. It raised its hand and appeared to move towards her. She quickly fled. Her husband saw a similar figure later that night with a green glow that was “floating above the ground in figure eights.”

Several of these witnesses returned on a later night and observed forty or fifty Zouaves in the New York Avenue Field through their binoculars. The soldiers were described as having white faces and dark holes instead of eyes. When the soldiers began to approach the group, they fled in terror.

Berger accompanied many of these witnesses to the battlefield one night to investigate these events. While the witnesses saw Zouaves, the investigators did not see them. However, they photographed the areas where the apparitions were reported. When these photos were developed later, they were blank. Other photos taken when nothing was on the field developed clearly.

Do images of the suave Zouaves continue to return to the battlefield where so many of them lost their lives?

Sources

  • Berger, Arthur S. Evidence of Life after Death: A Casebook for the Tough-Minded. Aventura, FL: Survival Research Foundation. Reprinted 2010.
  • Hennessy, John J. Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma. 1993.
  • Sandlin, Claudia. “Ghosts march through time at battlefield, legend says.” Washington Post. 26 October 1989.