Vampires and Ghosts in New Orleans

Their corpses were found the next morning, drained of blood. Get ready for a campfire story. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle, and we'll share spooky stories with playful banter that'll keep you up at night. So throw some wood on the fire and put a wiener on a stick. We're telling you a campfire story tonight. We're walking in the woods. There's a lot of mosquitoes tonight. I hate mosquitos. The other day I was falling asleep. I had my window open, like actual open open, and I just hear the but like in the ear, and I'm like, oh, like get out and uh because it's disgusting. I wish I had that like blood type that mosquitoes don't chase you or whatever. Does that really exist? I don't think so, but I mean it's good to dream about. By the way, Michelle is new How do you pronounce New Orleans New Orleans? New Orleans? New Orleans? But I'm sure the locals say it differently in some ways. So that's what I'm going with New Orleans. Because that's what we're going to be talking about. I mean, New Orleans is infamously one of the most haunted cities and you'd love it. It's haunted stuff. It's eating amazing foodirates food history, edwin the food. Should we get the time machine? Oh, we haven't done that any. We haven't done a time machine in so long. I hope it still works. Where are we? Oh? Well, our story begins in the earliest days of New Orleans. The air is thick with the scent of magnolias, and the sounds of jazz echo through alleys. I mean, actually, jazz hadn't been invented yet, but like I'm just setting the tone. New Orleans is actually still French and America isn't even a thing yet. That's how far back we are. We're still in the colony days. It's just a bunch of colonies. It's still a backwater fur trading colony. And like a lot of frontier towns, there wasn't enough women for all those harry, stinky frenchmen. The governor at the time, Jean Baptiste le Moin de Benville, I think maybe de Benville made a request that the government back in France send marriageable women to help increase the population of the fledgling colony. It sounds weird, but it wasn't unheard of. Actually, in the late seventeenth century, King Louis the fourteenth sponsored a program called feest Rot or King's Daughters, which put around eight hundred women into ships bound for French settlements in Canada. And there's even a painting called the Arrival of the Bride, and these women in this painting are seen disembarking in Quebec carrying a small wooden suitcase called a cassette cas quette the French way to say it is casket, which contained everything they could bring to their new home. These boxes were so small they would be carryons on a modern airplane. They're small, but anyway, back to the Governor of Louisiana, not quite what he had in mind. France drew from the country's prisons, poorhouses and orphanage and sent two hundred and fifty eight girls and women of dubious repute to New Orleans during seventeen nineteen to seventeen twenty one. The arrivals were not well received. Many were refused marriage. They want women of like a high social standing, virtuous, whatever that means at that time. So in seventeen twenty eight a whole new group of women came over of an acceptable quality to New Orleans. I don't like it either. I don't like it either. As soon as they stepped onto shore, New Orleans, people were surprised at their pale, otherworldly complexions, likely a consequence of being kept below deck out of the sun for the long voyage. I mean, we're talking about months to get across the Atlantic here. Their names became fill A la Kasquit, which evolved into the very creepy name the casket Girls, named after the little boxes suitcases that they carried. The legend says some of these girls were found to be so strange looking and unnaturally pale that their skin blistered and redden on the subtropical sunlight within moments of them emerging from the ship. And so when these women could not find husbands, the Casket Girls eventually found themselves living in the Ursling Convent on Sharp Street. The sisters there ran an orphanage in a hospital and a school on the first floor, and they lived on the second floor. So these nuns cared for like the sick and the dying during outbreaks of yellow fever. They tended to the wounded in the War of eighteen twelve, in the Civil War and so this building is haunted, haunted, But that's you know, the casket Girls were before all that. It's here that the legend says the casket girls found a home on the third floor in the attic, and their coffin like wooden boxes in their possession were stashed at the foot of their bed. At some point the nuns sealed off the third floor, shuttering the windows, and at the time people were just assumed it was to protect the virtue of the young women in their care. But then the hand mirrors the girls brought with them mysteriously vanished, and neighbors fell ill, crops failed, and cats and dogs lived together. That's the most bizarre. So whispers began that the vampire pale casket Girls had brought an evil with them from the Old Country. Eventually, the nuns threw the casket girls out and closed up the third floor attic forever. So did the casket girls smuggle in vampires from Eastern Europe, vampires who are now leaving blood drained corpses all over the Greater New Orleans metro area. Many believed that the flying vampires wanted to return to their caskets. On the convent's third floor, which is why the windows were permanently sealed with eight hundred screws made of silver that had been blessed in Rome by the Pope himself. Moving forward in the seventies, there's a story about a couple of ghost hunters who ditched a tour in the convent and decided to hide out in the courtyard with the intention of spending the night just to monitor the third floor windows for any sort of vampire shenanigans, and then their corpses were found the next morning, drained of blood, but allegedly poked on. Paul the Second even reblessed the anti vampire screws in nineteen eighty seven when he visited, and today if you look up at the third floor of that building, you can see that the windows are still shuttered to this day. What's okay, that's cool? I mean, do you think of the casket girls imported old world vampires? Imagine this twist. Imagine those nuns bringing those girls who are the vampires. Oh, I don't know, I know, either the girls or the vampires or there's tiny vampires in their in their bags. That's just such a good story. Also, like what if it wasn't vampires, but disease. There are some theories, of course. Unsurprisingly, life in the French colonies was far less romantic than the girls probably thought it was going to be when they showed up. You know, we got a bunch of stinky frenchmen that are fur trappers that are gone all the time, probably don't really know how to be husbands. Plus the month long trip across the Atlantic, a lot of them died from yellow fever and other travel related diseases along the way. And of course, because they were women of virtue, they were kept under deck of the ship to protect them from the world and save their virtue, you know. Hence that's probably why they were pale and sickly when they came out. Also, the weather in the colonies was hot and humid, and that's very different from France, so like that's going to cause disease as well. A lot of these women probably just went back to France when they didn't find suitable husbands, because. So they had to get to the colony for example, Right, they have to get there and find a husband otherwise or would they be like out on the street. Like no, they'd be sitting at the convent. Okay, Okay, the. First round of women that came weren't virtuous, so they didn't have the convent, so they I mean, basically, that makes everybody a sex worker if you're not quote unquote virtuous. History. Baby, I'm sure. People are gonna talk about us this way. They're gonna think that we are so weird for doing things that we're doing right now. Why are we using dinosaur bones as fuel right when we have the sunlight and water, like you could use hydro power. But anyway, in conclusion, that's not to say that some of the Casket Women didn't have successful marriages, because apparently people have tracked descendants from them, and those are descendants are like Madonna and Angelina Jolie. Oh wow, yeah, they kind of do look like they kind of do. Both of them do look like vampires. But their descendant from the original Casket. Girls coming this summer. Honestly, it's a great story. I'd watch it. Well, Michelle, I have this other thing about New Orleans. Tell me Jean Lafitte's old Absinthe house. Woo okay, yeah, okay, this sounds good. We're gonna go back to eighteen o six and this building has just been finished. People are using it as a place to barter, to sell Spanish booze, and like a regular grocery store. It's kind of an interesting shot. This is how people used to buy things back then, just by bartering, here's what I want, here's what you want. Here you go anyway. So this place had two stories, right, the first floor. In eighteen thirty six was turned into a bar, and since then it went through prohivision times. They also went back to selling alcohol, hired amazing bartenders, and it has this huge, huge list of very famous people that visiting. I'm saying Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Franklin, Frank Sinatra, a ton of people. But for such a famous place, ghosts are automatically assumed they're going to be there. Out of all the ghosts that people say they claim to see around these areas, there is this ghost of a man, Jean Lafitte's. So think of Captain Jack Sparrow, but then add like this guy who has a good heart. He's smart, he's a leader, he knows what to do, he manages multiple ships and crew. He's a pirate. Right, he gets contacted by the British and he's like, hey, we need to beat the Americans. So this was the War of eighteen twelve. Man. Yep, okay, I'm going to use Americans in this context because this is what the people from Europe coined the New World as Americans, and also wasn't a new world. It was technically new to them world, if we want to be politically correct. He gets contacted by the British and he's like, hey, we need help beating the Americans. So we need your help because you know all area New Orleans, you know the all the stuff about it, you know behind around backwater, safe areas for the ships, everything. And this guy's like, you know what, No, I can't help you. Because he's kind of liking the Americans. People should be thankful for that, but instead he's still kind of hated by the people in the ports and all the areas around there. They're like, come on, guy, like you're stealing things, like we don't like you. So they like try to destroy his like warehouse or post place or wherever. So he kind of starts being like, oh, kind of against people, like oh, why are you treating me like this? I just you know, I'm kind of on your side. What's the deal. So he's being rejected after his stuff got destroyed. John was like, oh dang, you guys aren't cool anymore. But then guess who steps in, none other than Katain Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson was like, hey, man, you're a criminal. You're gonna go to jail if he keeps stealing stuff, but I need your help to beat the British the pirate. John the Feat was like, okay, I'll help you, but I want pardons for myself and for everyone, for nobody to go to jail. They shook hands that it was done. And supposedly this was done at this place, Sean Lafite's old Absinthe house by the way. Andrew Jackson needed the help because they had actually confiscated some of John's ships, but they didn't have enough people to drive the ships. You mean steer the ships. This don't this happened before where you don't know boat language. So they needed his help again to drive his own ships and use him again. Right, So, but he knew how to get everybody. He had crude, He knew everybody right, so he could get all this stuff done. So and instead of having those ships just kind of floating there in the dogs or whatever. He was like, hey, let's do this. So he was like, okay, cool, and then he helped them out. They beat the British Entara. Everything was good. Also, Lafitte was known for like giving all the strategic info, like to the US maybe saying, hey, this is where you go, this is how you where to hide, where to the currents whatever, see speech there is the feet is now a hero. Right. So this place where the deal took place went through tragedy, right, Like, this place was burned down during the Great Friday Fires. It was rebuilt, then turned into the you know, the whole grocery store thing, then it turned into a coffeehouse, Prohibition everything. So the old Absent House was then in trouble with the government for selling alcohol at one point during the prohibition because they were selling it in secret like everybody and one did. But given the history of people that have come and gone throughout those hundreds of years, people say to see Jean Lafitte's ghostly apparition hanging out in the Absent House, as well as Lafitte's blacksmith's shop and bar, which is apparently a tourist attraction too. It turns out that there are secret tunnels between the places, so makes sense for the ghosts to go from one place to the other, not because he can't just go through the walls and get there, but because it's what he used to do. We don't know how ghost physics work, true. Could he go through the walls? We don't know. Also, the ghost of Marie Leveaux, who was a famous practitioner of voodoo in New Orleans. It's also known to roam around the area. Oh interesting, you know. The rumor is that there's. Two of them too. Marie, she was supposed to have this big, long life, and so people think that her daughter actually took over at one point. Oh, that is cool. You can go to her grave, which is right near Nicholas Cage's shrine, which he's still alive via this recording, but he has his tomb all set up in New Orleans in that graveyard anyway. They say you can see those ghosts there, and also people in this in Lafite's old absent house, they say that they see doors slamming, glasses and bottles moving around, glasses shattering, and every once in a while there's like a ruckus, just like movement and like things falling and it's like why. By the way, another fun fact, the thing that made the old Absent House such a famous place was this drink by a mixologist named Cayetano fair Air who made it in the eighteen sixties. And it's called the Absinthe House Frapei, which is made using absinthe, which was sort of a narcotic type of thing. You know. It got banned for a while because there wormwood in it and you're supposed to make you hallucinate, but it doesn't. It's just propaganda. It doesn't actually. Delirium, madness, hallucinations. It doesn't do anything death, it doesn't do any of that. Guys. That was the wine industry in France trying to get rid of absence. So the wine industry, it literally was. It was the wine industry being like, don't drink it, it's poison and it was all fake. But anyway, what's in the drink. It is made with a simple syrup, soda, water and mint. Oh that actually sounds kind of good. Let's have some absence, I guess. Fan corner, Fan fan corner. This is such a cool comment from the would You Visit a ghost Town episode? The Night Guard commented again the fact that y'all remembered my username specifically makes me have an unimaginable amount of joy, especially since I've been listening to not only this podcast, but Scary Story podcast Interest Scary Story for years in all caps. Oh yeah, we know, Nightguard. Yeah wow, thanks for being a part of our community here, the. Scary FM collective. I guess that's what we're going with. We're not a network, We're a collective. Also, another comment said a while ago, when I was looking up story ideas, I found one called The Red Room. Basically it's about a pop up and that says do you like the Red Room? And it just keeps popping up until whoever it was sent to his blood is covered on all the walls of the room from head to toe. Oh my god, that gave me a kill. Oh I don't like Hey yeah, it just goes forever until somehow all your blood. Is all over Oh what? Okay? You know we had that comment from that cute little kid that was like, if I was a grown up, I would love this show. Oh yeah, well this isn't that one, but Spiritual Warrior twenty nine rights. I came here to make up for that Little Kid's two star review. Lol, you guys keep me laughing and I usually learned something too. Y'all mesh perfectly together. Have y'all done an episode on Black Eyed Kids yet? Or Demons? I love Edwin's other show too, scary story. Thanks from Texas Fangirl. Yeah, thanks Texas Texas. Here's a lovely little thing from gee'z Mamo. She wrote, love you guys, love your show, follow you on other platforms, and somehow missed you changing the name anyway, keep up the great work. Thanks. Thanks, we will. We're still surprising you scarily and mysteriously. Yeah. And then there's another one from ya Squatch. It says so fun. We'll have the chemistry between Michelle and Edwin and love these stories. I feel like I'm listening in on a conversation and laughing along with them. Great show. Yay, this is Dharma Scientist. It's good. I still think it's okay. But I don't know why they keep changing their names of their podcast. Makes it a little confusing. To be fair, we've only done it one time on this podcast. Yeah. Behind the scenes, let's be real for a minute, we're trying to grow the audience We're trying to make it more accessible for new people because we know we have our ride or dies who are listening to this right now, which we love. But yeah, we're personally trying to grow the audience. We could use your help if you love the show. We need that support to keep it going. And that's actually our main way of growing is literally sending it to somebody, hitting the little share button and then just setting it to someone. We enjoy doing the show and we love your support, So text the show to someone who. Might like it. Okay, soltely, Yeah, back to oh yeah, we were going to take a shot of ads sense and then put the fire out, or we dumped the absent on the fire and watch all these weird demon spirits come out of it. Let's see that. Campfire Story is hosted by Michelle Newman. And Edwin Kovarubias. This podcast was edited and sound designed by Sarah Vorhez Wendel a VW Sound Make sure you follow us wherever you get your pod