Ormond Plantation

Taken from the "The Times Democrat",
a New Orleans publication...
Of the innumerable traditions about ante bellum residents, there is one that should be related. Perchance the central scene of the tale is the Ormond house, which you see a short while after turning your face the road from the Red Church. Having already described a few of the ante bellum mansions, it is only necessary to say that the Ormond house is a residence characteristic of the country seats of the past. Looking through the intervening yard, which is overgrown with rare trees and flowers you discern that it is a large, quaintly proportioned two-story structure, with an annex, or wing on either side, each stretching across the yard to slightly elevated spots of ground, beneath which are darksome wells, well-walled and well-domed with bricks and cement. The house obstructs the view of the grange in the rear. But go stairs, through the corridors and to the rear of the balcony of the right wing and then you see the old brick negro quarter houses, the stables, barns and ante bellum pidgeon houses, the large, old fashioned fireplaces looming through the shattered portals of the back yard buildings. Far away are the ruins of the old sugar house, one of the first sugar mills erected in Louisiana. A tottering chimney and crumbling walls, the last of the sugar house, are reflected in the pool beyond the ruins.

In old times, runs the legend, when the splendor and glory of the plantation were in bloom, some ghostly being came gliding into the house. Night had fallen, and the bats were coursing erratically in the gloom of the trees and the weeping moss, occasionally swooping about the chimney tops and gibbering at the wind which moaned at every corner. A steamboat appeared, slackened its speed, then landed at an old warehouse which stood a short distance above the house yard. A negro was sent to acertain the object of the landing. When he reached the landing place the boat was speeding away. He looked about in vein, for nothing was there. Returning by a road under the trees in the pasture he ran almost into something that was darker than the night. He started back. The blackness vanished. He ran frantically into the plantation house and swore that he had seen a ghost.

Late that night a man who was the solitary occant of the cental portion of the house wondered over these events. Strange it was, that landing of the boat, and a ghost? A gust of wind swept down the gallery in front, struck a stairway that led to the balcony of one of the wings, then rumbled into the garret, entering an open trapdoor. The noise reverberated on and on, as though it rolled into some deep, noisome chasm. Ha, ha, ha! A ghost! What was that in the adjoining room? Was there really something moving? Horrors! What thing was that obstructing the dim light seen through the transom above the front door? The ghost, like all other ghosts either had a "passe partout" or, had passed through the keyhole. The man became unnerved, and was in the hand of a merciless terror: yet he lay motionless and silent. Slowly did the dark figure move. The man knew not just where, yet he knew that it was gliding about in the room. Then a cold shivering almost fleshless hand touched his face. A cry of horror broke from his lips.

Years afterward an old mulatto woman was dying in New Orleans. As her life ebbed away her mind wandered.

"Ha, ole marse done gone," she cried excitedly: "yes, he's done gone erway. But he never would er died so soon if dat debil did; yes, he tuck ole marse's place 'cuse, he sed, marse owed him er lot o' money, an' poor ole marse just grieve hissef ter def. But I fix him. Yes, I fix him. De day after ole marse wuz buried, I tuck de boat an' skurred de old debil till he b'lieve de sperit done call him fur de jedgment day."

Footnote: Further research is being conducted in regards to other known ghost stories surrounding the Ormond Plantation.