Lore - Episode 150: Addition

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

History can be easy to brush aside or paint over, giving us the illusion of control. But just because we can’t see the past doesn’t mean it’s not there, active and powerful, working behind the scenes to remind us of our tragedy and pain. To explore this episode on Apple Maps, click here. —————————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They had discovered something unexpected. Conservators working on a painting by Pablo Picasso back in 1992 noticed odd patterns in the artist's brushstrokes, lines that didn't seem to match the overall composition of the piece. So they decided to take a deeper look. On closer inspection, these conservators noticed that tiny cracks in the surface paint revealed more paint beneath, paint of entirely different colors. And today, they know why.

Thanks to advances in x-ray technology, researchers have been able to peer beneath the top layer to see what lies under it. Picasso, it seems, painted his famous work, The Crouching Beggar, over an older landscape. And it's not the only one. It's a technique called overpainting, and usually happened when an artist didn't care for the previous work or had a better idea. For Picasso, it might have been a financial decision. The Crouching Beggar was a product of his early blue period, a time when money was tight

and new canvases were hard to buy. So he took a landscape he'd already painted and built a brand new composition on top of it. And that's life, isn't it? There's the part everyone sees, and then there are the parts beneath it all. Things can be beautiful and entertaining and valuable, and yet hide something older beneath the surface. And while we can't change the past, if we look deep enough, we can certainly gain a

better understanding of it. In the centuries of distance that piled up between then and now, and the alterations that are made along the way, it's often difficult to recognize the truth. Even the places we call home can evolve over time, transformed by the people who live there, and few cities in America demonstrate that as perfectly as New Orleans. But be careful, because history has made one truth abundantly clear. The more you dig, the more tragic things become. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore.

If there's one thing New Orleans has in abundance, it's layers. For thousands of years, people have called that little patch of dry land on the delta at the end of the Mississippi River home, who lived there, though, seems to have been a revolving door of diverse cultures. As far back as 100 BC, a Native American group known to archaeologists as the Marksville culture occupied the land there, complete with permanent structures and agriculture. About 900 years later, it was the Mississippi culture that took over. Thanks to the temperate climate, these people spent a good amount of their lives outdoors,

where they excelled at fishing and hunting. They held on for quite a while, too, watching the silt from the Great River slowly expand the land they inhabited year by year. But it wasn't until the 1690s, when Europeans first arrived, that they experienced major change, which might be one of the bigger legacies of European colonialism. More than anything else, they brought change, and it was rarely good. When the French arrived, they set up all sorts of businesses that would be expected, trading goods, hunting for furs, and exploring the larger area around the River Delta.

Some of the settlers joined local Native communities, while others branched out and built their own. One of those was Fort St. Jean, although it was hardly a blank slate. The fort was literally created by repurposing an ancient Marksville structure. Those early years of colonialism tend to be pretty confusing, looking back from our spot today. There seem to be a constant switching of powers, and it can be difficult to keep it all straight. Some colonies were a lot more straightforward, like Massachusetts or Virginia. But New Orleans, officially founded in 1718, has been more tumultuous than most.

For the first seven decades, it was in French control. Then in 1763, it changed hands to the Spanish, who held on to it for nearly 40 years. Then after a brief return to the French, the city was sold, along with a huge portion of the southern part of North America, to the United States in what is now known as the Louisiana Purchase. For sense, it's been one of the greatest American cities. But all of those overlapping cultures have given New Orleans its own flavor and texture. Take the word Creole, for instance.

It started out as a term used by the French to distinguish between those born in the colony versus those born back in France. When the Spanish took over in 1763, they treated it the same, just with citizens who weren't born in Spain. Over time, though, it took on a more racial connotation, denoting someone who shared European and Black descent, mostly from the Caribbean. And it's a word that seems to embody that shared space mentality. The community growing up in old New Orleans was multicultural, with a diverse collection

of origin stories, but all focused on new lives there in one specific place. The city would go on to become a cultural hotbed of music and food, all fueled by that mixture of cultures. And yes, it was a prominent center for the slave trade in the South, which is a scar that will never go away. But it was also home to free people of color who immigrated to the city intentionally. It was one of the few places in early America where it was impossible to look out on a crowd and visually identify slaves by the color of their skin.

I guess my point is that New Orleans was, and is, a complex city, racially speaking. It was home to Black soldiers who fought on both sides of the Civil War. And it was one of the rare places in America where slaves were allowed to maintain large chunks of the cultures they left behind when they were captured and sold into slavery there. Is that chapter of history a painful, unforgivable mess? Absolutely. But that mess looked very different in New Orleans compared to other places at the same time.

And a powerful example of those differences can be seen in the story of one man, Louis Congo, who arrived on the scene around 1724. Louis Congo wasn't his real name, mind you. It was the name he was given as a slave when he was brought to New Orleans years earlier, Louis for Louisiana and Congo for his country of birth. He worked for many years as a slave under an oppressive system, but something changed in 1724 and it altered his life forever. In September of 1722, a hurricane flattened most of New Orleans to the ground.

When the people there brushed themselves off and began to rebuild, they did so with an eye toward improvement. A new city would be laid out in a grid, new laws were put in place to guide its growth, and a new role was created to act as incentive. A public executioner. I don't know how or even why, but the man they hired to fill that position was Louis Congo. In fact, he was freed from slavery and given the new job as a paid position.

Every punishment he doled out earned him a fee on top of a salary of food and wine along with a gift of land to call his own. In fact, for over 10 years, he was the only person in the entire community who was legally allowed to hang convicted criminals, regardless of their race or place of birth. He was even tasked with non-deadly punishments too, like amputation, branding, and whipping. Sure, the job earned him almost constant hatred and abuse, but that was no different from executioners who did the same work back in Europe all throughout the Middle Ages. Sadly, Louis Congo was a rare bright spot in an otherwise bleak and tragic survey of

the city. Sometimes the pain and suffering was brought on by natural disaster, such as the great fire of 1788 that reduced 80% of the city to ash, while other times it was all a product of human nature. What's clear though is that suffering was a part of life for a very long time, and those dark marks have managed to stick around long after the people who caused them have faded away, and there's no better place to see the remnants of that tragic past than inside the walls of one of the most historic buildings in the city.

But be warned, because while you're free to check in and make yourself at home, the only residents who seem happy to be there are the shadows. Mention the city of New Orleans to just about anyone, and you're likely to conjure up images of Bourbon Street. It is, to many, the crown jewel of the French Quarter, a name that hides a little known detail. Most of the buildings in that area are actually Spanish by design. It all goes back to the great New Orleans fire of 1788 that I mentioned earlier. Yes, early New Orleans was a product of French colonialism, but when that blaze destroyed

80% of the city, it was under Spanish control, so the rebirth that took place in the aftermath followed their preferences, not the French. Just a couple of decades after the city began to rebuild itself, a man named John Davis decided that the local community needed a place to gather and celebrate. When a theater on Orleans Street burned down in 1816, he scooped up the land and started construction. The result was named, creatively, the Orleans Theater and Ballroom. For years, this theater was the place where the most elite events were held.

Masquerade balls, formal events, even European opera. If it was high class and exclusive, the Orleans Theater hosted it, and it was like that for decades. But then, in 1866, fire destroyed the portion of the building that held the theater, leaving only the ballroom intact. Within 15 years, the business generated by just the ballroom was no longer enough, and the owner decided to sell it. The buyers, though, weren't what you would expect.

Instead of another theater company or even a property developer looking to flip the space, the old building was purchased by a group of Roman Catholic nuns, known as the Sisters of the Holy Family. The first African-American religious order in the United States. They had founded a school for girls in 1850, but their congregation had been growing steadily, and they needed the space. Thankfully, the Orleans Theater and Ballroom offered plenty of that. Over the coming years, they would fill the building with a convent, an orphanage, and

their school. They did a lot of good, but also weathered many storms. In the century that they owned the building, the nuns watched as wave after wave of yellow fever raged through New Orleans. It was the sort of outbreak that rarely left anyone alone, and sadly, it reached their orphanage too. While a good number of the children survived, an untold number of others were killed by the sickness.

And if the stories that are told today are true, many of those children have stayed around. Today, the building is home to a hotel, and many guests have experienced things that can only be attributed to children, youthful laughter in empty hallways, invisible hands that tug on the shirts of visitors, the light footsteps of a child in places that should be unoccupied. The most common sighting, though, is of a little girl, playing with a ball inside the sixth floor hallway. Those that have witnessed her all tell the same story.

After stepping out of their room to find her plane, the ball will roll off down the hall and the girl will chase after it. A moment later, she vanishes. But ghostly children aren't the only unusual guests in the building. More than a few people at the modern hotel have spotted a figure that's known only as The Man. They claim he's dressed in the gray uniform of a Confederate soldier and wanders the hallway on the sixth floor.

And at night, they claim, he walks slowly past the rooms, dragging his sword along the floor. Even the old ballroom can't escape the unusual activity. In fact, the ballroom is the reason the hotel exists today. Because of the historic significance of the meeting space, the city only allowed the hotel to be set up inside the building on the condition that the ballroom be restored to its former glory. But if the rumors are true, not all of the past is fun to remember. Visitors have witnessed everything from ghostly ladies dancing beneath the chandelier to a

mysterious figure that seems to stay hidden behind the curtains that surround the room. Most common, though, are tales of the bloodstain in the middle of the ballroom's floor. No matter how many times the stain is cleaned, it's said to reappear a short while later. Perhaps most frightening of all, though, are the reports that have come in over the years from guests staying in the hotel's room 644. It's a room with a story, although there is no proof that any of it is true. Some say that one of the nuns who lived in the room took her own life there more than a century ago.

Without documentation to back it up, the story is nothing more than speculative fiction. But you can't blame people for trying. The things that have been experienced there certainly demand a backstory. For instance, many people are awoken in the night to the sounds of tortured groans and painful cries, as if someone were in great distress. Footsteps have been heard, too, causing guests to feel as if they are not alone. Most frightening of all, though, is the vision that many have claimed to see. Now some might blame the drunken nightlife of Bourbon Street, or exhaustion from a busy

day of sightseeing, and I understand the desire to find logic in the unexplainable. But it's difficult to brush off what dozens of people have seen in the middle of the night in room 644. In every case, guests have woken to find the figure of a woman standing over them, dressed in the typical clothing of a nun. They say she doesn't move, but stands very close to the bed, her head bent low to look down at them as they sleep. And each time it happens, the guests have done what you or I would do in the same situation.

They've sat up, reached for the lamp, and turned on the light, only to discover that the ghostly nun has vanished. Do or not, these experiences illustrate a deeper lesson. The past isn't always safe or fun. In fact, sometimes it can be unsettling. Marie was born well connected. Her uncle, Esteban Rodriguez-Miro, was the governor of Louisiana in the latter years of Spanish control.

Then her cousin served as mayor of New Orleans. To say that she had powerful role models would be an understatement. Her first marriage was to a Spanish royal officer named Don Ramon Lopez-Yanguelo, although it seems to have been controversial. First she was only 13 when they were married, and second it seems Ramon neglected to ask for permission from the king of Spain. My guess is that he knew that the answer was going to be no. So he went with the old adage, it's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

His disobedience earned him a post in a small, unimportant town, but within a couple of years he was able to smooth things over. But five years into their marriage, tragedy struck. A pregnant 18-year-old Marie was traveling by ship with her husband when there was an accident off the northern coast of Cuba in January of 1805. Marie survived, but Ramon did not, leaving her a widow before many women would even have been married. So she headed back to New Orleans to begin rebuilding her life.

Three years later in 1808, she married for a second time. This husband, Jean Blanc, was a prominent merchant and banker, as well as an attorney and legislator in the new American version of Louisiana. He was a match for Marie in terms of connections, but also added a lot of new wealth to her name. Together, they had four children, but within eight years of their wedding, he too passed away. Marie, of course, inherited all of that money, but she also inherited hundreds of slaves.

Apparently Blanc died with a lot of debt, and so to preserve the wealth that she had left, many of those slaves were sold off, but not all of them. And that was a decision she would later come to regret, although for all the wrong reasons. In the wake of the death of her second husband in 15 years, and still not even 30 years old yet, Marie had already established a powerful reputation for herself. Part of it centered around her business acumen and ability to make wise, profitable decisions with her growing fortune, but a bit of it also involved her treatment of the slaves she kept locked up at home.

It was public knowledge that she had emancipated a number of them over the years, and those she didn't release were treated kindly, at least in front of guests. Most people in her social circle, a very powerful and very wealthy circle, mind you, viewed Marie as a generous, caring person, but they couldn't have been more wrong. In 1828, Marie married for a third time. Her new husband, Louis LaLaurie, was a 22-year-old physician who specialized in back pain and physical abnormalities. They built a gorgeous new mansion on Royal Street, with three stories, full of all the

trappings that came with life in the upper class, and of course, their slaves. But just four years in, the couple separated. Louis moved out of the new mansion while Marie carried on, business as usual, except there were rumors that her pretty facade covered up a darker truth, whispers that the oh-so-kind Madame LaLaurie, who freed slaves and gave them wine, was not in fact treating them well at all. Used by a law that stated that slaves who were shown to be cruelly treated could be taken from their master, an attorney was hired to visit Marie and gather evidence, but it

seems that she hid her secrets well and the lawyer left empty-handed. A year or so later, more accusations of the same led to an appearance in court, but her money bought her a powerful defense and she walked away unscathed. Not long after that, though, a neighbor witnessed something terrifying. According to the earliest accounts, it said that the neighbor looked out their window to see Marie chasing a young slave girl through the yard, then into the mansion. As Marie and the girl passed by various windows, the neighbor was able to follow their pursuits all the way to the top floor, and then they watched in horror as the girl was thrown or

forced to jump, plummeting to her death below. When the authorities arrived, they found enough evidence to take nine of Marie's slaves away, but almost immediately she had them repurchased by members of her extended family. And I can't begin to understand the despair those nine human beings must have felt, their hopeful rescue from an abusive home, all erased by the power of money. It was a precarious situation that was building toward collapse, and that day arrived in April of 1834. That was when a fire broke out inside Marie's mansion there on Royal Street.

At the time, the cause of the blaze was unknown, although interviews after the events made it clear. It seems that Marie kept one of her slaves chained to the kitchen stove, and rather than go on living under the abuse of someone so cruel, the cook set the room on fire, a fire that quickly spread to the rest of the mansion. It said that Marie and Louis, who happened to be in the house that day, worked furiously to save their precious belongings, but their slaves were unaccounted for. So when neighbors saw what was happening, they rushed to help, specifically looking

for human lives that needed saving, and it was during this frantic search effort that they found something that shook them to the core. Behind the locked door of the slave quarters, a portion of the mansion that was set off from the rest, the neighbors found nine men and women chained to the floor and ceiling. Some of them were covered in fresh wounds, and some even wore spiked collars designed to keep them from lowering their heads. All of them, though, were starved, emaciated, and close to death. One of the original documenters, author Harriet Martinot, wrote about the aftermath just four

years after the events. In her book, she included what she discovered about Marie's typical morning routine. Apparently, after breakfast each day, she would step into the slave quarters where her captives were chained, lock the door behind her, and then whip and beat each of them until, as Martinot wrote, her strength failed. One description in particular has caused even the most resolved historians to shudder. Contemporary newspaper accounts of the discovery claim that one of the men was found chained in a kneeling position, his head so badly beaten that opened wounds revealed portions

of his brain. Although he was still alive when rescuers found him, those wounds were said to contain live maggots, slowly feeding on him. It's a lot to take in, I know. It would be nice to believe that one individual couldn't be that cruel, but Marie Lalarie seems to have broken expectations. She embodied the drastic change in attitudes in New Orleans toward the value of human life and the autonomy of a person's body, a change that she carried even further over the line.

To her, enslaved human beings were not just her personal property, they were the soulless targets of her abuse and cruelty. In the nearly two centuries since the events took place, many people have speculated as to what her motivation might have been. And some people always seem to land on insanity, that only someone who had lost all touch with reality could do such a thing. That sort of excuse paints over a darker reality. While Marie Lalarie might have been an edge case, the brutal abuse of slaves wasn't atypical.

In fact, it was, sadly, the norm. And Marie knew this. In the moments when her mansion was ablaze and neighbors were rushing to help her and the rest of the people inside, Marie attempted to send them away, claiming that they needed to mind their own business. She feared discovery more than the flames, and when that happened, she fled. It's said that Marie, along with her estranged husband, climbed into their carriage and escaped the scene, heading for the harbor and a ship that would eventually carry them to Spain.

Away from the mob, away from the consequences of her actions, and away from the wreckage, both human and otherwise, that she left behind. Madame Marie Delphine Lalarie would never set foot in New Orleans again while alive. But that doesn't mean she was forgotten. She taught the world just how tragically wrong things can go when the powerful have no regard for human life, when wealth and privilege are used as a shield for cruelty to hide behind, and when the many are left to clean up after the few. And hopefully, that's a lesson we'll eventually master.

Things often look different beneath the surface. There might be a lost work by a famous artist hiding beneath the paint, or a layer of archaeological importance just below the topsoil, but there could also be rots and decay, and shadows that are better left buried. New Orleans certainly is a city with layers, and while it's easy to fall in love with the modern surface, with all its charm and music and grand celebrations, it would be wise to remember that there is darkness beneath that beautiful façade. Not to glorify it, but to use it as a roadmap for change.

And Madame Lalarie is one of those dark stains. The trouble is, her story has been changed over the years. If you've heard about her before today, and listened with a bit of confusion to my account of the fire and discovery of her tortured slaves, then we have a bit of restoration work to do. Because time has a way of altering the image, muddying the details, and hiding the truth. So let's dig deeper. I mentioned earlier that Martineau wrote her account of the events just four years after

the fire. And that's good. The closer a source is to the actual thing it's discussing, the better. Throw in contemporary newspaper accounts and public records, and the picture that unfolds is pretty much the one that I showed you today. But in the century since then, new writers have appeared to paint their own layers on top of the truth. Stories that add gore and violence and a lot more drama.

Some have described the scene inside the slave quarters as a sort of medical facility, with Madame Lalarie working beside her husband the physician to perform experiments. Others have described bodies with grotesque disfigurements, like eyes that have been purposefully gouged out, or body parts that have been cut away, like ears and fingers. One wild embellishment even claimed that one of the victims had a hole in their skull, through which Lalarie had inserted the handle of a wooden spoon. But it's fiction, decorative additions made over the last five decades or so to make the legend more attractive to fans of horror.

It's story, yes, but not the story, not the truth. That doesn't mean the true story is lacking for darkness. It just means that we don't need to invent any more of it on our own. One truth we do know is that the house was sold in the aftermath of the fire, and the money was sent back to Marie, back in Spain. And for a while, the old mansion sat empty. Maybe people were afraid to step inside it after hearing about what had taken place there, or perhaps it was the rumors of the ghostly screams that could still be heard inside the

place at night. But the house was eventually repaired, and not long after, it was sold and resold through the mid-1800s. Over the years that followed, it would transform into a music conservatory, a furniture store, a bar, and even high-end apartments. But the first thing it was used for, after it stopped being a home in the years following the Civil War, was a school for girls of color. And there are stories from that period in the mansion's life.

There had already been tales of unusual activity in the building, but these schoolgirls seemed to have experienced more than their fair share. Oftentimes the activity was benign, like doors that opened and closed on their own, or the sound of footsteps in the empty halls. But every now and then, according to the tales, the experiences were a lot more violent. In fact, one of the more mysterious things to happen wasn't isolated to one or two of the students, and it wasn't easy to ignore. It seems that a good number of the girls approached their teachers privately to complain of abuse,

and every time they would pull up their sleeves to reveal large bruises and vicious scratches. Horrified, the teachers would naturally ask the girls who did this to them, and their answer was always the same. With fear in their eyes, each girl would give the same inexplicable answer. Explicable, that is, if one didn't know the history of the house. They described their attacker as… That Woman. It's not often that we return to an old topic for a fresh tour, but if there's one place

to break the rules, it's New Orleans. And I know, I've probably still managed to leave out one or two of your favorite stories, but that's the beauty of the place, isn't it? No matter how deep we dig, there's always something new to discover. In fact, I've got one more tale from the Big Easy that I think you'll love. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. New Orleans is a city filled with historic buildings, but not all of them are very old. And a great example of this can be found at 616 St. Peter Street.

It's called the La Petite Theater, and it holds the record for being the longest continually operating community theater in America. But that's not all it holds, of course. The land the theater stands on was bought by a group known as the Drawing Room Players, partly because of its pedigree. That's because a theater had already stood there way back in the late 1700s, but was destroyed in a fire, something that was all too common for theaters in the days of open-flame stage lighting.

To that, the lot was home to a Civil War barracks, a cafe, and a whole list of other businesses until it was torn down and the lot was sold in 1922. So for the Drawing Room Players, their new theater was a sort of callback to the old days, a restoration, as it were, to bring a little bit of the past into the present. Although if the stories are true, they didn't need any help doing that. Some of the oldest memories of the past seem to be sightings of Civil War soldiers. Others have seen figures dressed in uniform walking down hallways inside the theater, and others have heard the rhythmic marching of boots on wooden floors.

There's even one Civil War apparition that's been seen so often posing in front of an invisible mirror that those who know about him call him the Vayne One. Being a theater, some of the unusual activity can be noticed by other senses than sight. For instance, there have been many reports of eerie piano music when no one else is in the building. Some people think it's the ghost of a composer named Louis Moreau Gottschalk who performed in the original theater that stood on the plot of land there more than two centuries ago.

Others think it's just a bit of overactive imagination. As always, I'll let you decide that for yourself. But the most talked about remnant of the past, hands down, is Caroline. I don't know exactly when her origin story is supposed to have taken place, but the tale is one that's been whispered about in the theater for decades. Caroline worked there at the La Petite and is said to have fallen in love with a stagehand whose name has been lost to time. One night, though, after meeting her lover on the catwalk above the stage, Caroline plummeted

to her death. Some say it was an accident while others believe it was murder. History, as we've already discussed, has a way of letting a bit of drama creep in, so it's difficult to say what the truth really was. But it's easy to see why that story has stuck around. That and the modern sightings attributed to her. Many who have worked there in the past claim that her spirit still wanders throughout the theater.

Some even say that she is spotted most frequently on the catwalk, leaving cold spots for modern stagehands to notice. But the most frightening story about Caroline was reported just a few years ago. According to the tale, one of the theater's directors was working alone there late at night when he noticed the curtain at the right side of the stage move out of the corner of his eye. It was almost as if someone were brushing against it. Walking over to the curtain, this director expected to find a coworker hidden behind

the thick fabric. But after looking behind it and finding nothing, he returned to the stage. And as he watched, just a few feet away, it began to move again, as if being pushed by an invisible hand or body. But the most disturbing feature of this sighting was the direction of the movement. According to him, the curtain looked as if it were being brushed against by something as large as a human body. And whatever it was, it was moving slowly from the top to the bottom, as if something

or someone had fallen from above. This episode of lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Taylor Haggardorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is 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. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and

I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, The World of Lore, dot com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi.

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