LaLaurie Mansion is located in the heart of New Orleans, Louisana.
Marie Delphine Macarty or MacCarthy, more commonly known as Madame Blanque or, after her third marriage, as Madame LaLaurie, was a New Orleans Creole socialite and serial killer who tortured and murdered slaves in her household.
It is one of the most popular stops on our New Orleans Ghost Tours. Sometimes, people in the city won’t even call it that, choosing to refer to 1140 Royal Street as “the Haunted House” instead. Fact is, in New Orleans the two are one and the same. Shows like American Horror Story have made an already infamous location that much more notorious. (Spoiler: be warned that producers took great creative liberties, as Hollywood tends to do.) The majority of filming was done at the Hermann-Grima House on St. Louis Street–probably for the best, honestly, as the mansion is rumored to be cursed.
In the spring of 1834, LaLaurie Mansion was set ablaze. It revealed the horrific living conditions of a number of slaves who were being tortured, starved, and beaten. The fire was allegedly ignited by a slave who had been chained in the kitchen in an attempt to expose the way that she and others were being treated. Madame Delphine and her family fled the scene. The New Orleans press seized the opportunity to vilify and demonize Madame Delphine. Now, it is believed that most of the spirits which haunt the house are those of the deceased slaves.
Soon after the fire, the house was converted into an apartment complex and a tenant was murdered. However, the unusual nature of his death suggested ties to paranormal activity. Even spookier, in the mid-nineteenth century, the LaLaurie Mansion functioned as an all-girls school where students often experienced bizarre and random physical assaults. Today, the LaLaurie Mansion is as stately as it is spooky and remains an iconic New Orleans landmark.
Read more here: https://nolaghosts.com/lalaurie-mansion/
Book a tour here: https://nightlyspirits.com/blog/best-new-orleans-ghost-tour-haunted-lalaurie/
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/and-thats-why-we-drink/e/51774266
