Lore - REMASTERED – Episode 40: Everything Floats

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

In this Remastered classic episode, let’s return to the city that seems to have it all: celebration, food, the arts…and a whole lot of darkness. Welcome back to New Orleans. Researched, written, and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with additional help from GennaRose Nethercott and Harry Marks. ——————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ©2022 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved. Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

Some tragedies take no effort at all to happen. One moment life is perfect and normal and everything we expect it to be. Then it changes in an instant. No warning, no chance to avoid it. It just happens. Real disaster is one of those agents of tragedy that seems to sneak up on us and bring ruin into our lives. Fire, flood, tropical storms, just watching the news each night can give us a glimpse

into yet one more episode of pain and suffering that no one saw coming. Other tragedies, though, only exist because we have ushered them into our world. That we has sometimes been humanity as a collective and sometimes just one broken individual. Genocide or patricide, school shootings or terrorism, regardless of the source, these are tragedies that couldn't have existed without human involvement. It doesn't make them any less painful, mind you. Sometimes it even makes them worse. These moments of tragedy are thankfully very spread out.

We have a chance to breathe and move on, time to recoup, but give a city enough time and those tragedies can start to pile up. The older the place, the deeper the pain. A murder here, a disaster there. Throw in a war or two for good measure, soon its entire history can feel like one long nightmare. And nowhere is that more true than in the city that most would call the Big Easy. Underneath its eclectic architectural mix of old Creole, French, Spanish, Victorian and

even Greek revival, amidst the parties and the lights and the music that all seem to pulse through the streets like blood, there is something darker. Because there is one thing that is hard for anyone to deny. If it was tragic, painful or eerie, it probably happened in New Orleans. I'm Aaron Mankey and this is Lore. It's safe to say that New Orleans is one of those cities that just about everyone has an impression of, whether correct or incorrect. It's a cultural icon and a showcase of just how textured and diverse America's history

truly is. We can blame much of that on the age of the city. It's now over 300 years old, founded by the French Mississippi Company in 1718. Other than the early settlements of New England, many of which can claim incorporation in the early to mid 1600s. There are few places in the U.S. that are as old as New Orleans, and that age has brought the city more than its fair share of pain and tragedy. It was land that once had been occupied by the local Chittamasha tribe of Native Americans

and the Europeans, of course, took it from them. From the outset, it was seen by everyone as a valuable territory. Sitting at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River, it acted like a doorway into the heart of the continent, and for nearly 50 years, the French controlled that gate. When the French and Indian War came to a close in 1763, a treaty was signed between Great Britain, France, and Spain. One outcome of that document was that New Orleans fell under partial control of Spain, who held on to the city until the French reclaimed it in 1800.

Three years later, Napoleon sold it to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The War of 1812 brought the first major dose of tragedy to New Orleans. By 1815, the British had already burned the White House, the Capitol Building, and much of Washington, D.C. In the South, though, they had the rise set on New Orleans, that doorway into the heart of America. It was Andrew Jackson, future President of the United States, who was charged with defending the city as over 11,000 British troops marched toward it, and he found help in one of the most unlikely places.

Two brothers known across the city as pirate outlaws. Jean and Pierre Lafitte were smugglers who operated out of their blacksmith shop in New Orleans. In Star Wars terms, Jean was the Han Solo of the pair, the daring sailor and smuggler of illegal goods. Pierre, in contrast, was Lando Calrissian, managing the business and acting as the public face of the operation. But after American naval vessels captured their offshore hideouts in the fall of 1814,

the Lafitte brothers found themselves in legal hot water. They found salvation, though, in a deal with Andrew Jackson. In return for gathering troops and supplies for the approaching battle, things like sorely needed gunpowder and flint, Jackson promised to pardon the brothers and turn them into heroes. The brothers delivered the supplies, the Americans won the battle, and Jackson made good on his word, although he had to become president to do so. Today, Lafitte's blacksmith shop is a bar on Bourbon Street and one of the oldest buildings

in the French Quarter. And with a past as daring and dangerous as Lafitte's, it's no wonder that stories of ghosts still echo through the establishment. The most common sightings speak of a figure who sits at the bar near the fireplace, dressed in the attire of an 18th century sailor. But ghosts aren't unique to old bars. Just outside the borders of the French Quarter sits the historic St. Louis Cemetery No. Founded in 1789, it's the oldest and most iconic cemetery in the city.

In some ways, it has an appearance and atmosphere similar to Highgate Cemetery in London. It's a maze of small, above-ground vaults, many plain hosts to entire families. It's crowded and old and feels more than a bit creepy. But it's not what's inside the tombs that gets talked about the most. Visitors to the cemetery have frequently encountered mysterious figures. Ghosts to apparently haunt the narrow spaces between the tombs. One common sighting is a man known as Henry Vinyus. He's said to have been a young sailor who was scammed out of his family-tuned by a dishonest

landlady. When he died, his body was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. And because of that, he still wanders the cemetery today, searching. Multiple visitors have claimed to see him approach, and after asking where the Vinyus tomb is, he said to turn around and vanish from sight. Another frequent sighting is the ghost of a young man known only as Alphonse. Witnesses claim that they've seen him floating toward them and asked for help finding his home.

Others say that they've seen him gathering flowers from random graves before walking off with them. Maybe he's lonely, or perhaps he's just looking for a little beauty in such a somber place. No one really knows. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 plays host to dozens of well-known figures from the early days of New Orleans. But the most famous resident, according to most, is someone that very few graveyards

in the country can lay claim to. A real voodoo queen. When the transatlantic slave trade brought millions of people out of Africa against their will and deposited them all over the New World, these people, Africans from dozens of distinct tribal groups, cultures, and languages were forced to find a common ground. At home, they might have been rivals or even enemies. In captivity, though, unity meant survival. Today we call it the African diaspora, the dispersal of their culture and people and

beliefs throughout the world, and everywhere the seeds landed, they sprouted into something slightly different. What was known as voodoo in Africa became voodoo, hoodoo, voodun, and more, and each has its own character and uniqueness. Voodoo is considered to be a religion, with its own core beliefs and leaders. The voodoo of Louisiana has its own distinct flavors thanks to what's called syncretism. It's blending with practices and beliefs from the Catholic Church. In the same way that the Church has priests, voodoo practitioners honor kings and queens.

A voodoo queen was someone who conducted ceremonies and ritual dances, sometimes to crowds in the thousands. To earn a living, these queens would make talismans for others to purchase and use. Things like gregory bags, which were filled with all sorts of ingredients, then blessed with intention and meaning. These bags function similarly to crosses, and are even worn around the neck. One voodoo queen that is still mentioned throughout New Orleans is Julie White. She practiced in the late 1800s, and legend says that her cabin was near the borders of

Manchuk Swamp. She was more reclusive than most voodoo queens, but visitors still came for her blessing and predictions. What she preferred to dole out, though, wasn't kind words. Julie, they say, was cranky, and threatened everyone. Her favorite thing to do was to predict the destruction of local communities. In the Mississippi Delta, you never had to wait long for a flood or a storm, and Julie seemed to have an uncanny knack for prophesying some of them.

If ever there was a shining example of a warm, inviting person, Julie White was probably not it. The most famous voodoo queen, though, hands down, lived a century before Julie White, and her name was Marie Laveau. She was born in the French Quarter sometime between 1795 and 1805, to Charles Laveau, the fifth mayor of New Orleans. She married in 1819, but her husband died just a year later. And with that, Marie was forced to find new ways to support herself.

Local legend says that she worked for a time as a hairdresser, and there's some documentation that points to work as a liquor importer, but it was sometime after that when Marie set in motion a legendary career as a practitioner of voodoo. Let's put this in perspective. In 1874, she held a St. John's Eve gathering on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Estimates placed the total number of people in attendance at around 12,000. Maybe it was the power of voodoo at the time, or Marie's electric personality. It was probably a mixture of both, and people loved her for it.

She followed the same pattern as most voodoo queens. She held rites and ceremonies and crafted gregory bags for sale. Legend says that Marie learned the practice from an earlier voodoo king, Dr. John, and quickly became his cultural successor. She also had the unique privilege of being able to host voodoo rites inside the largest Catholic church in New Orleans, St. Louis Church, thanks to her friendship with the church's rector, known locally as Pair Antoine. Most people have forgotten that that friendship was built on a very noble pursuit.

Marie and Antoine worked together for years to free slaves in the New Orleans area. Marie was also said to be very well connected. Countless public figures came to her for advice, and it was rumored that she also employed a network of spies throughout the city. All of those connections earned her influence and power, something that she was not afraid to use. One story in particular about Marie Laveau stands out. According to local legend, the son of a wealthy businessman was arrested and charged with

murder in the mid-1830s. The father, aware of the reputation Marie had for getting what she wanted, offered her a deal. If she could free his son, he would purchase her a house of her own. And Marie accepted the offer. It said that she spent weeks before the trial, praying incessantly at St. Louis Church. And all the while, Marie held three hot guinea peppers in her mouth. When the morning of the trial came, she used her influence to get access to the courtroom

and was said to have placed the peppers beneath the judge's chair. Filled with her prayers, they were a talisman designed to influence his mind. In the end, the wealthy man's son was acquitted of all charges, and Marie received her reward. Whether it was her voodoo powers that made it possible, or simply her political clout and nebulous connections, we'll never really know. But in New Orleans, voodoo always gets the vote. But voodoo isn't the only cultural transplant in New Orleans. In a melting pot that includes Creole, Spanish, French, and Native American influences, it

probably won't come as a surprise to hear that there are even Turkish stories whispered in the city. What is surprising, however, is just how bloody those stories are. The house that stands at the corner of Dauphine Street in Orleans Avenue was built by Jean Baptiste Le Prit in 1836. Le Prit was a plantation owner who wanted a city home, so he built a Greek revival mansion as a retreat and as a symbol of his wealth. But that wealth experienced hard times in the wake of the Civil War.

Financial troubles forced Le Prit to move out of the mansion and find someone to rent it from him. I'm sure he expected another wealthy business owner, or maybe a government official. Imagine his shock then, when it was a Turkish prince who arrived at the door. The man told Le Prit that he was Prince Suleiman, former sultan of an undisclosed country in the Middle East. Cash was exchanged, Le Prit turned over the keys, and the sultan and his household moved in.

According to the story, that household fit the stereotype one might expect from a film adaptation of The Arabian Tale 1001 Nights. The sultan had many wives, a large extended family, and a whole team of servants. He brought furniture and decorations with them, enormous rugs and tapestries, paintings, and other symbols of his wealth and power. When they had finally settled into the mansion, a pair of Turkish soldiers were assigned to stand guard outside the door, armed with scimitars. But the guards weren't able to keep the rumors from spreading, and as they did, the stories

grew more and more elaborate. It was said that the house would be quiet during the day, but after darkness fell, it would come alive. The mansion, locals said, had become a pleasure palace. Nights were filled with orgies and extravagant parties. Some whispered that young women, even boys and girls, had gone missing in the neighborhood, and the blame was placed on the sultan's appetite for carnal desires. There was no proof, of course, but neighbors loved to talk.

Neighbors always loved to talk, and they always will, I suppose. Those who walked past the mansion would often comment on the smell of incense that drifted out of the windows. But that's not all the locals managed to notice. One morning, a neighbor was out for a walk, and as he passed by the sultan's mansion, he noticed something dark on the front steps. He stopped and took a second look, and then slowly backed away in horror. Blood was everywhere.

It covered the top step and had run in small rivers down the dark stairs, and all of it seemed to have come from the narrow space beneath the door. The neighbor quickly went to the police, and they arrived a short time later. After attempts to unlock the door failed, they forced their way in. What they found inside, though, was far worse than they'd imagined. Bodies lay all about the main hall. Some of them were complete, but most were torn apart and dismembered. The floor was covered in blood, and it was easy to see how it could have managed to run

all the way to the doorway and then down the stairs outside. Everywhere they looked, there was death and gore. According to the story, the police continued on into the house and soon came upon the courtyard garden near the rear of the mansion. At first, everything seemed normal there, but then one of the officers pointed to his spot on the ground. There, protruding from the wet soil, was a human hand. It's said that the sultan himself was spared the dismemberment that his household experienced.

Instead, the killer had buried the prince alive in the garden after wrapping the man in three white sheets and binding him with rope. He had somehow managed to get one hand free before suffocating to death. To this day, no one knows who the killer was, but there are theories. One suggestion was, oddly enough, pirates. It's not likely, and not a popular theory, but it suggests that perhaps the wealth and possessions inside the house were not really the sultans after all. Still, I have a hard time imagining pirates doing whatever it is they do on land in the

middle of a large city. The more popular theory is that the sultan was actually on the run from his homeland. People whispered that he wasn't really a prince, but the brother of one, and that he had somehow stolen a portion of his brother's wealth and escaped to America. As a result, the false sultan was hunted down, and his entire household was killed for his crimes. Today, after decades of neglect, the mansion has been converted into luxury apartments. Tenants claim to have heard mysterious footsteps and the sounds of parties.

Some have even heard the faint echo of unusual music, something that they say has a Middle Eastern flavor. Others, though, have seen things. Some have witnessed groups of ghostly people passing from room to room, or body parts that vanish a moment later. Most significantly, though, is a lone figure of a man who has been seen floating through the halls before mysteriously disappearing through locked doors. Perhaps even all these years later.

The sultan is still looking for a way out. New Orleans is a big city with a deep past, and I fully admit that its history and lore is larger than the picture I've painted here today. And maybe that's the power of it, the uniqueness of it, you know? There are very few places in America that can claim as much tragedy over so many centuries, and that legacy shows. And the attraction of that legacy has never faded. Celebrities and tourists alike still flock to the city, and Rice gave it new life through

her vampire novels. And in 2010, Nicolas Cage purchased a plot in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. He plans to build a tomb shaped like a small pyramid because, well, why the heck not, right? I think we would be missing the point to think of New Orleans as simply the place where Mardi Gras happens every year, or even a center for jazz and Cajun cuisines. She's bigger than that, deeper than that, there's a darkness, you see, that floats just beneath the surface, and we'd be mistaken to ignore it. And some say that darkness still holds power.

Remember Julie White, the voodoo queen who lived on the edge of Manchuk Swamp? Like Marie Levoe, she was sought after by many in the community for her advice and oracle-like predictions. And because of that, she had quite a following. Still her final prediction left people feeling unsettled. One day, I'm going to die, she said, and I'm going to take all of you with me. Julie did die, of course, in late September of 1915. She was feared, yes, but she was also deeply loved, and so the locals gathered in large

numbers to throw her a funeral that they felt she deserved. And on the day of that gathering, September 21st, a category four hurricane made landfall, ripping through New Orleans and the surrounding area. Out of nowhere, 130 mile per hour winds and 15 foot waves ravaged the Delta region. Everyone at the funeral died, nearly 200 of them, they say, and locals from the town of Frenier were left with a grim task of gathering their bodies and burying them in a mass grave inside the swamp. Even today, more than a century later, locals say that the bodies will still occasionally

float to the surface of the water. Perhaps it's just a natural process for a swamp that's filled with hundreds of corpses, or maybe Julie White, the oracle of Manchuk Swamp, just wants us to never forget that she was right. From murder and pirates to a real voodoo queen, it's easy to think that we've dug up everything New Orleans has to offer, but as always, the well from which we pull our stories never seems to run dry. Click around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about one more unusual legend

from the city's past. New Orleans history is, sadly, built on a foundation of death and suffering. From slavery to Jean-Baptiste Le Prit's mansion to Le Fitt's blacksmith shop, it seems everywhere you look, the city has a terrible story to tell. Even the most beautiful and natural wonders of the Big Easy are stained with blood, like City Park. City Park is an idyllic, picturesque landscape where picnicking sweethearts share steaming plates of bignets, where swans float down canals under belts of arching stone bridges.

It's a place of beauty, perhaps nowhere more evident than in the looming live oaks, stretching and twisting toward the sky like something out of a fairytale. How did those trees grow so large for so long? Well perhaps because their roots are watered with blood. Welcome to the Dueling Oaks. The act of dueling goes back hundreds of years and was wildly common among young men looking to climb upward in society, especially teenage boys. The rules of a duel were simple, two people with similar weapons engaged in combat according

to an agreed upon set of rules. Dueles were the result of insults, and they didn't have to be grand offenses either. They could have been something as simple as cutting in on a dance, or a casual remark about someone's family. However, the goal was not to kill anyone, only to prove that a person was willing to die for their honor. A good number of duels ended after first blood was drawn, but deaths were also quite common, either by blade or by bullet.

Regardless of what weapons were used, one thing was true above all else. New Orleans was the dual capital of America. More face-offs were carried out here during the 18th century than in any other city in the country. In fact, dueling was so common, swordsmanship schools started popping up all over the city just to train teens how to wield a blade. Most duels occurred in New Orleans' French Quarter on Royal Street behind St. Louis Cathedral, but town officials didn't love all that violence going on in the middle of the city,

so a new dueling spot was found near a pair of live oaks in City Park. And it became a hotspot. An article from the March 13, 1892 edition of the Times-Democrat newspaper was published with the following quotes. Between 1834 and 1844, it said, Scarcely a day passed without duels being fought at the oaks. Why it would not be strange if the very violets blossomed red of this soaked grass. One particular Sunday in 1839 saw no fewer than ten duels under the oaks, seven of which

were fought by one young man. His name was Bernard de Marini, and he won the hand of a woman named Anna Matilda Morales. In response, her other suitors all challenged de Marini to duel by sword. One by one, de Marini took each of them down with his unmatched skills. The eighth duel was carried out after a misunderstanding at a dinner party. A gentleman had moved his sister's chair, unacceptably close to another attendee's place setting. The slighted person slapped the woman's brother with a glove and demanded honor, so

the two men met under the dueling oaks where the brother was killed. There's also a commonly told story about a European scientist who is in town for a visit. He was there to observe the Mississippi River, but he called it a tiny rill compared to the Great Rivers of Europe. While a Creole man had been listening and didn't take kindly to people insulting his river, so he challenged the scientist to a duel. The Creole man emerged the victor after slashing the Europeans cheek. The offending incidents seemed trivial, but were often followed by serious, even deadly

violence. And much of that violence was carried out by hotheaded young men eager to prove themselves in their social circles or to prevent being branded cowards. Teenage boys weren't the only ones ready to die for their honor. Upstanding men of renown also lay down their lives under the oaks. The honorable AWP show, Judge of the Parish of Assumption, challenged a man named Robert C. Martin Esquire to a duel to defend his good name. And there, beneath the dueling oaks, Martin shot P. Show, killing him instantly.

The amount of blood shed under that pair of trees is innumerable. In 1850, the city started putting an end to the practice of dueling, and by the turn of the century, the oaks were once again a peaceful place. Though they were able to withstand sword fights and gunshots, they couldn't handle an angry mother nature. In 1949, a hurricane severely damaged one of the oaks to the point where it had to be torn down. The other still stands today, 300 years old, 70 feet tall, and with a girth of 25 feet.

All that remains to remind us of what transpired there is a single sign referencing the area's past significance. Well, that and the ghosts. Visitors to the oaks have captured all sorts of phenomena on camera, including glowing orbs at dusk and dawn. The solitary oak also bears something that resembles a grumpy, distressed face in its trunk, as though it stands in judgment of its sordid past. People near the trees have felt a presence passing by them, like an invisible person

walking past when no one is there. Others have even reported feelings of extreme sadness in the places where people have died. Senior Don Jose Yoya, also known as Pepe Yoya, was one of the most accomplished duelists of the period and the owner of a cemetery in the park. He only ever killed two men, having spared the others after pressing his blade against their throats. Still, there was a popular rumor that his cemetery was filled with the bodies of all the men he had killed.

Those who have walked its grounds have reported a spirit wielding a sword or a cane among the tombstones, believing Pepe Yoya still roams the land. Although the men who died at dueling oaks knew what they were getting into, it seems their spirits are still restless. We may never know what's keeping them tethered to this realm, what they are still searching for that they have not yet found. Good men, of course, tell no tales. And unfortunately, neither do the trees.

This episode of lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with additional help from Jenna Rose Nethercotts and Harry Marks, and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. You can find more information on all of that over at LorePodcast.com. I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think

you would enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, GrimandMild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.