LIEP Halloween Haunted History Tour in the French Quarter

For our second half of the 2012 Fall Semester at the Loyola Intensive English Program, students in the Advanced Culture class, taught by LIEP instructor Jess Haley, have taken on a new role: Cultural Tour Guides! Each week, the class researches a different theme, writes presentation outlines, photographs and videotapes a tour, and edits each video to create inventive and interesting movies chronicling their adventures in English.

For the week of October 29, the theme was Halloween! New Orleans is known as one of the world's most haunted cities, so what better time of year than Halloween to explore the spooky history and architecture of the French Quarter! Each student was given a famous landmark to research and write about. Then, the class took a field trip to the French Quarter, where they photographed and videotaped their presentations. This was the first video project, so the class learned a lot about sound quality and using the camera.

In this post, we would like to share photos and spooky information about some of the famous haunted buildings in the French Quarter!

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Laura Maria Reuber of Germany at Lafitte's Guest House

LAURA MARIA REUBER of Germany tells us about

LAFITTE'S GUEST HOUSE

1003 Bourbon Street

In Lafitte's Guest House, you can find the New Orleans version of Alice in Wonderland because here lives a little spirit trapped in a mirror in the upstairs hall. The mansion was built around 1849, and many families lived in it throughout the next 100 years. In the 20th Century, the mansion became a hotel.

The house was decorated with an unusual amount of mirrors, and one of these mirrors may have captured the spirits of those who lived in the house! Next to Rooms 21 and 22, which used to be the children's rooms, hangs the mirror. Inside the mirror has been seen a little girl, crying because she can't get out. It is said that this is the spirit of a little girl who lived in the mansion with her parents and died of yellow fever in the 19th Century, when child mortality was high.

Sung-Uk Jung of Korea at the Beauregard-Keyes House

SUNG-UK JUNG of Korea speaks about

THE BEAUREGARD-KEYES HOUSE

1113 Chartres Street

The Beauregard-Keyes House is named after two people: Confederate General PIerre Gustave Toutant Beauregard (1818-1893) and novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885-1970). Many owners of this house have seen ghosts, especially in the garden and mostly relating to war. Owners have seen battles, a war-horse crying, headless soldiers, and other ghostly entities.

Aurelie Saulnier of France at the Andrew Jackson Hotel

AURELIE SAULNIER of France describes

THE ANDREW JACKSON HOTEL

919 Royal Street

The Andrew Jackson Hotel has been successively a boys' school, a courthouse and finally a hotel. Two events are related to the haunted history of the Andrew Jackson Hotel.

The first is related to the boys' boarding school. The legend says that five boys perished in the blaze when the school was destroyed by fire in 1794. Since then, it seems that the young boys haunt the building. Indeed, over the years, guests have reported hearing children playing in the courtyard in the middle of the night, when the courtyard is deserted.

The Andrew Jackson Hotel is also on the site of the famous courthouse where Major General Andrew Jackson, national hero and future President of the United States, was indicted for contempt of court and charged with obstruction of justice in 1815. Guests have reported sighting a ghostly figure resembling General Andrew Jackson walking through the hotel.

Hebe Gurdian at the Lalaurie Mansion

HEBE GURDIAN of Nicaragua tells us about

THE LALAURIE MANSION

1140 Royal Street

In 1832, Dr. Louis Lalaurie and his wife, Delphine, moved into their Creole mansion in the French Quarter. They became renowned for their social affairs and were respected for their wealth and prominence. Madame Lalaurie became known as the most influential as well as one of the most intelligent and beautiful French-Creole women in the city.

The Lalaurie mansion was served by dozens of slaves, and Madame Lalaurie was brutally cruel to them. She kept her cook chained to the fireplace in the kitchen where sumptuous dinners were prepared, while other slaves were shackled or kept in dog cages in the attic.

The tortured slaves were discovered by firefighters who arrived to extinguish a terrible blaze -- believed to have been set by the cook -- that swept through the Lalaurie mansion in 1834. With Madame Lalaurie's cruelty exposed, the Lalaurie family vanished from New Orleans and was never seen again.

The ghosts of the slaves, however, seem to have remained. People have reported hearing tortured screams emanating from the Lalaurie Mansion and seeing slaves walking about the balcony and the yard.

ELENA HOLZSCHUH of Germany describes

THE HOTEL PROVINCIAL

1024 Chartres Street

The Hotel Provincial was used as a hospital for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War (1861-1865). Ghosts of medical personnel have been seen in the hotel, along with ghosts of wounded soldiers groaning and calling for help. Hotel guests sometimes walk into their rooms and see bloody soldiers lying there and moaning in pain. These ghostly sights disappear when the lights are turned on.

Elena Holzschuh of Germany at the Hotel Provincial

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Our thanks to LIEP instructor Jess Haley and to Advanced LIEP students Laura Maria Reuber of Germany, Sung-Uk Jung of Korea, Aurelie Saulnier of France, Hebe Gurdian of Nicaragua, and Elena Holzschuh of Germany for this informative and spooky Haunted History Tour of New Orleans' French Quarter!