Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 7 Feb 2016.<\/p>\n
Last week was the first time I\u2019ve returned to New Orleans in years and when a co-worker suggested going on the ghost tour I was reluctant.\u00a0\u00a0I told the story of my haunted honeymoon and that made everyone accompanying me wanting to go on a tour even more.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m glad we booked, we had the most awesome tour guide, Dr. Z., whose knowledge of the city\u2019s history was phenomenal!\u00a0\u00a0I sent him the following story as I’m interested in discovering the history of what my husband and I experienced.<\/p>\n
We stayed in the French Quarter around December 27-30, 1977.\u00a0 Our hotel was on Canal Street but I don\u2019t know the address.\u00a0 The experiences we had during our visit have stayed with us all these years and we\u2019ve never quite had anything close to that happen to us again.<\/p>\n
When we checked in for our delayed honeymoon the front desk employee told us not to open the door to the balcony as the building was old and the condition of the balcony was not safe.\u00a0 Of course, being young and foolish, I did not heed his warning.\u00a0 As soon as we put down our bags I was drawn to the door to see the view.\u00a0 I opened the door with the intention of just getting a better picture but after taking a step or two on the balcony I felt it was safe enough to go to the edge and take pictures up and down the street.\u00a0 My husband did not accompany me, he stood in the doorway and watched.<\/p>\n
When I was done photographing I closed the door and we began to unpack.\u00a0 We heard children outside the room running and laughing.\u00a0 There was loud smack on the door which we assumed was made by the kids.\u00a0 We were ready to go out and explore the city so we opened the door to leave, expecting to see the kids who had been playing but no one was there.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t really think much about it at the time, we figured they had just gone into one of the other rooms.<\/p>\n
We aren\u2019t heavy drinkers so we were not drunk when we came back to the room hours later.\u00a0 Sometime between 2 and 4 AM we were awakened by the sound of a cannon blast.\u00a0 It sounded like the annual Gasparilla parade near our hometown so we\u00a0turned over and went back to sleep.<\/p>\n
The next morning we inquired at the front desk what event had occurred in the city in the middle of the night.\u00a0 The clerk said he didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 We left for breakfast.\u00a0 Realizing we were going to run out of film we went back to our hotel room after eating.\u00a0 Again, we heard children running and laughing in the hall.\u00a0 Again there was a thump on the door.\u00a0 Then there was another thump.\u00a0 My husband opened the door and there was no one there.\u00a0 An elderly couple was coming out of a room down the hall.\u00a0 My husband asked them if they had seen children.\u00a0 They said they hadn\u2019t seen or heard anything.\u00a0 Creepy, but we shook it off as we were going to see the King Tut exhibit and we wanted to get in line as early as possible.<\/p>\n
That evening, we again were awoken by the sounds of cannon fire.\u00a0 My husband got out of bed, went to the door and opened it.\u00a0 No noise.\u00a0 He climbed back into bed and there was another cannon blast.\u00a0 He went to the balcony door and opened it.\u00a0 No noise.\u00a0 I was spooked so he told me that it must be the old plumbing in the building, someone showering or flushing the toilet.\u00a0 I believed him and went back to sleep.<\/p>\n
The next morning the children woke us up.\u00a0 My husband said he was going to say something to the management.\u00a0 We dressed as the door was repeatedly thumped.\u00a0 Again, no one was there when we opened it.\u00a0 We stopped at the front desk on our way out and my husband told the clerk about the children and the cannon.\u00a0 His response, \u201cYou went out on the balcony, didn\u2019t you?\u201d\u00a0 My husband said he hadn\u2019t, which was true as I was the one who had.\u00a0 I felt like a child getting caught with my hand in the cookie jar!\u00a0 I said, \u201cI only opened the door to get a better picture.\u201d\u00a0 The clerk sighed.\u00a0 He said he\u2019d talk to hospitality about the children.\u00a0 I have no idea what hospitality had to do with the children but I figured maybe the staff had brought their kids to work during the Christmas break. \u00a0He had no explanation for the cannon fire.<\/p>\n
That night I awoke but not to the noise of cannon fire.\u00a0 I have no idea what roused me from my sleep but I felt heavy and warm.\u00a0 I opened my eyes and in the dim light coming through the windows I saw an old man sitting in the chair by the balcony door.\u00a0 He looked harmless and was staring straight ahead, not looking at us in bed.\u00a0 I was too afraid to scream.\u00a0 I just lay there and squinted to watch him as I didn\u2019t want him to know I was awake.\u00a0 I could hear my heart beating and I wanted to run but I couldn\u2019t move; the only control I had was to open and close my eyes.\u00a0 He had a beard, cleanly cut, can\u2019t say if his hair was white or grey and it appeared he was in some sort of uniform but it wasn\u2019t ornate.\u00a0 It was a jacket with maybe brass buttons, and trousers made of the same material as the jacket.\u00a0 He was deep in thought and somehow I knew he wasn\u2019t going to hurt us.\u00a0 At that point I was afraid my husband was going to wake up as I didn\u2019t want a fight in the room.\u00a0 I just wanted the man to leave but I had no idea how to make him go.\u00a0 Just then the cannon blast occurred.\u00a0 My husband sat up in bed and the man was gone.\u00a0 I completely fell apart!\u00a0 I cried as I explained what I had just seen.\u00a0 Fully awake the cannon blasts were loud and clear, it was not due to old plumbing.\u00a0 We had planned to leave at 5 AM to return home but we had had enough \u2013 we quickly packed and went to the lobby to check out.\u00a0 It was about 4 AM so the man and cannon fire must have occurred about 3:30 AM.\u00a0 My husband told the desk clerk we were leaving because of the noise.\u00a0 I asked him if our room had ever been reported as haunted.\u00a0 His bored reply, \u201cAll the time.\u201d\u00a0 I sputtered that there had been a man in the chair.\u00a0 He just shook his head in agreement.\u00a0 My husband recommended that visitors be warned.\u00a0 He said, \u201cThe whole city is haunted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apparently so, after taking the Haunted Ghost Tour last week. \u00a0Some stories were sad, some were brutal – man’s inhumanity to man is just disturbing! If I discover who was haunting our hotel room I’d like to gain a better understanding of their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 7 Feb 2016. Last week was the first time I\u2019ve returned to New Orleans in years and when a co-worker suggested going on the ghost tour I was reluctant.\u00a0\u00a0I told the story of my haunted honeymoon and that made everyone accompanying me wanting to go on a tour even more.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m … Continue reading “A Haunting Visit in New Orleans”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[247,246],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-stories","tag-ghost","tag-new-orleans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}