History that Goes Bump in the Night

Recently I decided to play around with my color palette and mute things down. I came up this nocturne of a lonely Confederate Soldier on picket (9x12, oil). Ghostlike you might say.



Well, 'tis the season. If you want to know about Halloween History, I wrote about it last year. History and Haunting seem to go hand in hand though. This year, I thought it might be fun to look a some ghostly historic spots.



I guess my painting will conjure up thoughts about The Ghosts of Gettysburg, PA. Apparently, apparitions are so plentiful there, a whole industry has sprung up around them. I've tramped those fields day and night (I even got to camp on the field once) and never saw a darned thing(not in Gettysburg anyway), though I do admit to having felt a little creepy at times. However, the never ending commercialization of Gettysburg is downright scary! Click here for some other Civil War ghost hunting ideas.





You don't have to go to a battlefield to get spooked either. Sometimes a bar is just as good. Ernest Hemingway fans know he spent a bit of time in Key West, FL and that one of his favorite "haunts" was Sloppy Joe's Bar. What a lot of people don't know is that the site that Hemingway frequented is now called Captain Tony's (Sloppy Joe's moved a block or so away). Jimmy Buffet fans will recognize the name. Well, the building was once the town's morgue. If that's not eerie enough, a tree that grows through the building was the site of 75 public hangings during the riotous early years of the town. A tomb stone in the floor of the pool room is for the 16 or so bodies found during excavation of the foundation. They're still there by the way. The final straw: the bathroom is haunted. Talk about stage fright! Yikes.

So, where's your best chance to see a ghost? How about the "most haunted city in America": New Orleans. 'Nawlins is a rich gumbo with it's exotic mixture of Spanish, French, and Caribbean cultures. Not to mention all that voodoo! Naturally, it is home to the "most haunted house in America."

That would be the LaLaurie House at 1140 Royal Street. So many ghost stories, truths, half truths and outright lies swirl around the house that it's hard to make sense of it all. It was built in 1832 by Mme Louis Lalaurie and her 3rd husband, Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas Lalaurie. Things were swell until the house caught fire in 1834. Neighbors who came to help were appalled to find a number of slaves chained in their quarters and helpless. An angry mob gathered and were only dispersed by some soldiers called to the scene. The LaLaurie's escaped and eventually fled to France. They never returned to 1140 Royal Street.

In the press, the LaLaurie's were portrayed as fiend's who performed horrific human experiments on their slaves. The mutilated bodies were said to be found buried in the courtyard and under the kitchen floor. That's when the ghost stories started. Disembodied voices, footsteps, misty gray figures and a legless vision of Dr. LaLaurie himself!

The whole tale of the fiendish couple may be an apparition itself. Some contest the stories of the murderous mutilations as simply yellow journalism of the 1800's. Maybe. But why all the ghosts? Some say they are all in the minds of those who believe the stories. Are you one of the sceptics that has to see a ghost before you believe?

I'll leave you with this: I have, and I believe.

Happy haunted historic Halloween!