Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1883-06-01
A HAUNTED HOUSE.

The Weird Story of Mime. La Laurers
Abandoned Home - "Reminiscences of
Slavery Days in the South.
Each of the great Eastern cities
contain old landmarks with historical
surroundings, which recalled are of
interest to the readers of the Pacific
Coast, where our cities are compare
lively new and there are few indica
tions of the days Of our ancestor s.
The story of Nine La Laurel's home
which comes to us from New Orleans
is one of a thousand such instances
in that remarkable city: On one of
the principal streets stands a big
square house, built in old French
style 1t is five stories high, and al
thous h there are great scars upon the
gray stone walls, and the ornate
carvings over the peaked tops of the
small paned windows are beginning
to crumble off, it is a building whose
architectural features attract the at
tention of all the sight hunting
strangers. About forty-five years
ago the house belonged to wealthy
old French woman, whom ono may
call Nine. La Laurel. She owned
many slaves, and when she went to
live in her Royal street residence she
furnished some of the rooms in
grand style.
That the madame was a she-devil
who tortured her slaves all the town
was beginning to know. There was a
deep we'll in her back yard, in which.
it is said, she hung the negroes. even
to the little babies, suspending them
by the arm so that the black, cold,
foul smelling water came up to their
lips, and there they hung till almost
dead. If they died in the water, es-
pecially the babies, who could not
naturally endure much of such
treatment, the body was weighted,
tho rope cut, and the poor, freed
darkey sunk swiftly out of sight.
In room on the lower floor of the
house Nine. La Laurel had built a
sort of dungeon-a brick room inside
of brick room. 1t has one window,
with iron gratings across it, and is as
black and awful looking as any dun
geon you can imagine. The floors in
this echoing old building are full OF
murderous looking stains, and to day,
if water is thrown upon them they
come out blood red. 1t was up in the
garret, though, that the worst tortur-
ing was done. Here this bloodthirsty
old woman, so they say, upon the least
provocation, used to take her negroes,
tie them to the walls or nail them by
the hands down to the floors. and then
amuse herself by cutting off their ears,
tearing out their nails and cutting of
their tongues. One night there came
hoarse roar blowing down the mar
row length of Royal street, and to-
ward midnight black crowd of hui
man beings-that awful result of an
outraged community, a mob-sur-
rounded that stately, grim building
The old French mistress listened in
scorn to the storm-like clamor, until
the tumult of people apparently came
to halt under her own windows, and
she heard her own name cried out
with threats for her of the torture.
She sprang down the oaken stair
way, across the marble hall, past the
dungeon, then full of fostering
wretches, past the well of water they
say the reason it's SO black to-day is
owing to the little negro babies on
the bottom-and unloosing the heav.
lily barred back gates she made he1
way to the river side. She lodged
her pursuers. and crossed the river in
a canoe. Finally she escaped to
France, where she afterwards died
They say the mob. after freeing the
negroes, fairly gutted the house. Oh
course, the place is haunted. By all
the laws of sensationalism it could
not but be place where black ghost:
walk. The building was once used as
public high school, but the parents
of the girls were superstitious, and
would not allow THEN daughters to
cross the threshold of the place, so il
was abandoned.