Located in New Orleans, the LaLaurie House has a gruesome history featuring a socially prominent mistress who eventually revealed dark and sadistic tendencies. After the mistress deserted the home, there were reports of paranormal activity in the building for more than 100 years.
The LaLaurie House is located in the French Quarter of New Orleans at 1140 Royal Street. It was constructed in 1832 for Delphine LaLaurie (1775–1842) and her third, much younger husband, Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie. The couple lived at the LaLaurie House with her two daughters. Madame LaLaurie’s parents were notable in New Orleans social circles, and she and her husband also maintained a central position in New Orleans upper-class society. Madame LaLaurie decorated lavishly with paintings by well-known artists, and the couple hosted many parties and entertained the most prominent citizens of the city.
Madame LaLaurie presented herself to the public as charming and cultured, and she appeared to be kind-hearted when she and her husband emancipated a slave in 1819. In the 1830s, however, inklings of her darker, private side started to emerge. Visitors described her slaves as being in haggard condition. A twelve-year-old slave girl fell to her death while trying to escape punishment from whip-wielding Madame LaLaurie. The girl had apparently snagged her mistress’s hair while brushing it. The girl’s body was secretly buried on the property, but a neighbor had witnessed and reported the incident. As punishment, the LaLauries had their slaves taken from them by court order. After that incident, they bought the slaves back secretly through their relatives.
There were no other reports of abuse from the mansion after that occurrence, but on April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the mansion’s kitchen. Responders found a slave chained to the stove. The slave had started the fire in hopes of avoiding the punishment of being taken to the attic. It was known among the servants that, once taken to the attic, slaves were never seen again. Madame LaLaurie was concerned mainly with saving her valuables, but the neighbors feared for the safety of the slaves. The mistress told them not to worry about them, but firefighters and neighbors broke down the attic door after she refused to produce the key. They were met with horrifying scenes of torture and death.
There were accounts of naked slaves chained to the floor, covered with honey and ants. Further reports included a slave who had a hole drilled into his head with a stick inserted into it and people who had been skinned over large areas of their bodies. As the rumors of sadistic torture spread, the atrocities were magnified in the retelling. Other accounts included a slave who had had her limbs broken and reset at odd angles and someone who had had his intestines pulled through an incision and wrapped around his body.
The reports of torture have grown with the legend over time, so it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. However, the initial rumors were terrible enough that the LaLauries were forced to flee, and a mob vandalized their home. There are conflicting accounts of where the LaLauries fled to and of their life after leaving. Most accounts point to Delphine LaLaurie living in France where she had family and friends. Other accounts say she never left Louisiana. Regardless of where she lived after deserting her home, a copper plaque was discovered during the 1900s in New Orleans’s St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. The plaque indicated she had died in Paris in 1842 but had been buried somewhere in that cemetery.
The LaLaurie House was sold in 1837 to a man who left it after only three months, claiming there were strange cries and noises in the night. There were also accounts from other New Orleans residents, saying that mutilated apparitions would appear on the balconies. They also verified the cries in the night, and some spoke of unexplained lights flickering in the vacant house. After a period of decay, the mansion was rebuilt fully in 1865 during the Reconstruction era. In 1874 it became a girls’ school, which lasted for only a year, and then in 1882 it was used as a music conservatory. It was closed after reports emerged of a teacher’s improper conduct. Some time shortly thereafter, Joseph Edouard Vigne, a member of a wealthy local family, took possession of the house. In 1892 a piece of black fabric was seen hanging from the door. Upon investigation, Vigne was found dead in the attic. He was surrounded by filth and thousands of dollars in cash and antiques.
Just before the turn of the century, despite the mansion’s poor condition, an influx of immigrants lived in the mansion’s forty rooms. They brought pets and horses with them, and soon after moving in, their animals were found mutilated. There were also reports of a female ghost wielding a whip and attacking the resident children. One evening, one of the residents returned home from his job and claimed to have been confronted by a large, naked African American man in chains. The laborer tried to defend himself but, as he reached for the intruder, the ghost disappeared. The immigrants vacated the tenement soon after.
In the early twentieth century, the LaLaurie House was renovated again and the rooms were used as apartments. There were many reports of apparitions in the ensuing decades, including one gentleman who claimed to have awoken as he was being choked by a servant. Other claims were of ghosts who were once chained slaves and Madame LaLaurie’s ghost herself wandering the house.
The house sat vacant for some time until it was eventually sold. It became the Warrington Home for Wayward Boys until 1932. Later, taking advantage of low rent, F. Greco opened a bar, the Haunted Saloon. He recounted many ghost stories to his customers, which he claimed both he and his patrons had experienced. The saloon didn’t work out financially, however, and soon the building was rented to a furniture store owner. He fared even worse than the saloon owner. One morning when he opened his store, he found his wares had been vandalized and covered in filth. After multiple occurrences, he decided to arm himself with a shotgun and wait overnight for the vandals. When the next morning broke, no culprits had shown, but he discovered that his furniture was once again vandalized. He closed quickly thereafter.
The house was turned into luxury apartments in 1969 and since then, there have been fewer accounts of paranormal activity, although many pictures taken in and near the LaLaurie House contain “orbs.” These are typical in paranormal investigations and are often taken as a sign of the presence of ghosts.
The LaLaurie House and the incidents that occurred there have been popularized in various ways and media. The house itself is a must-see stop on the numerous ghost tours that are run in New Orleans. Multiple nonfiction books on ghosts have featured the story and are also some of the sources of many of the more gruesome accounts of the tortured slaves. The backstory for the movie The St. Francisville Experiment was based on Delphine LaLaurie’s life. The legend also made its way onto television in the third season of American Horror Story when the actress Kathy Bates played a fictionalized Delphine LaLaurie.
James J. Heiney
See also Amityville Hauntings; Haunted Houses; Legend Tripping; McPike Mansion; Whaley House
Further Reading
Haining, Peter, ed. 2000. The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories. New York: Carroll & Graff.
Klein, Victor C. 1996. New Orleans Ghosts. Metairie, LA: Lycanthrope Press.
Smith, Kalila Katherina. 1998. New Orleans Ghosts, Voodoo, and Vampires: Journey into Darkness. New Orleans, LA: De Simonin.
Stuart, Bonnye E. 2012. Haunted New Orleans Southern Spirits, Garden District Ghosts, and Vampire Venues. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press.
LaLaurie House—Primary Document
New Orleans Bee on the Fire at LaLaurie House (1834)
The most famous haunted house in the United States is the LaLaurie House, a mansion in New Orleans owned by wealthy socialite Marie Delphine LaLaurie. On April 11, 1834, reports of a fire at the residence on Royal Street drew a large crowd, and to everyone’s horror it was discovered that for many years, slaves had been tortured and killed in the house’s attic. The following newspaper account spread news of the black legend beyond New Orleans, and within a few years, stories of the LaLaurie House torture chamber expanded to include accounts of hauntings by the ghosts of murdered slaves.
April 11, 1834
The conflagration at the house occupied by the woman Lalaurie in Hospital … is like discovering one of those atrocities the details of which seem to be too incredible for human belief.
We would shrink from the task of detailing the painful circumstances connected herewith, were it not that a sense of duty and the necessity of exposing and holding to the public indignation such a wretch as the perpetrator, renders it indispensable for us to do so.
The flames having spread with an alarming rapidity, and the horrible suspicion being entertained among the spectators that some of the inmates of the premises where it originated, were incarcerated therein, the doors were forced open for the purpose of liberating them. Previous however, to taking this liberty, (if liberty it can be called), several gentlemen impelled by their feelings of humanity demanded the keys which were refused them in a gross and insulting manner. Upon entering one of the apartments, the most appalling spectacle met their eyes. Seven slaves more or less horribly mutilated were seen suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other. Language is powerless and inadequate to give a proper conception of the horror which a scene like this must have inspired. We shall not attempt it, but leave it rather to the reader’s imagination to picture what it was.
These slaves were the property of the demon, in the shape of a woman whom we mentioned in the beginning of this article. They had been confined by her for several months in the situation from which they had thus providentially been rescued and had been merely kept in existence to prolong their suffering and to make them taste all that the most refined cruelty could inflict. But why dwell upon such aggravating and painful particulars! We feel confident that the community share with us our indignation, and that vengeance will fall heavily upon the guilty culprit. Without being superstitious, we cannot but regard the manner in which these atrocities have been brought to light as an especial interposition of heaven.
[Since the above was in type, the populace have repaired to the house of this woman and have demolished and destroyed everything upon which they could lay their hands. At the time of inditing this fury of the mob remained still unabated and threatens the total demolition of the entire edifice.]
April 12, 1834
The popular fury which we briefly adverted to in our paper of yesterday as consequent upon the discovery of the barbarous and fiendish atrocities committed by the woman Lalaurie upon the persons of her slaves continued unabated the whole of the evening before last and part of yesterday morning.
It was found necessary for the purpose of restoring order for the sheriff and his officers to repair to the place of riot and to interpose the authority of the state, which we are pleased to notice proved effectual, without the occurrence of any of those acts of violence which are common upon similar occasions.
We regret, however, to state that previously some indignities had been shown to Judge Caponage who ventured to expostulate with the assailants upon the propriety of ceasing their operations and that during the same, deadly weapons were in the hands of many persons, a resort to which at one time was seriously apprehended. Nothing of the kind happily, however, transpired.
Nearly the whole of the edifice is demolished, and scarcely any thing remains but the walls, which the popular vengeance have ornamented with various writings expressive of their indignation and the justness of their punishment.
The loss of property sustained is estimated by some at $40,000, but others think this calculation is exaggerated. It must, however, [have] been very great indeed, as the furniture alone was of the most costly kind, consisting of pianos, armoirs, bufets, &e, &e, which were removed to the garret and thrown from thence into the street for the purpose of rendering them of no possible use whatever.
This is the first act of its kind that our populace have ever engaged in and although the provocation pleads much in favor of the excesses committed, yet we dread the precedent. To say the least of it, it may be excused, but can’t be justified. Summary punishments the results of the popular excitement in a government of laws can never admit of justification, let the circumstances be ever so aggravating. The whole of yesterday and the preceding day, the police jail was crowded by persons pressing forward to witness the unfortunate wretches who had escaped cruelties that would compare with those of a Domitian, a Nero or a Caligula. Four thousand persons at least, it is computed have already visited these victims to convince themselves of their sufferings.
Source: New Orleans Bee, April 11, 1834, and April 12, 1834.