Unsolved Mystery. - In the famous old city of New Orleans, just outside the colorful and infamous French Quarter lies a crumbling ancient cemetery with a eerie notoriety of its own. This cemetery is well known for mysterious happenings and vaporous apparitions, it is also the final resting place of Marie Laveau (1794-1881), otherwise known as the "Voodoo Queen of New Orleans."Unlike conventional cemeteries that are laid out as neat rows in grid like patterns, the St. Louis No. 1 is a unique, twisting labyrinth of narrow walkways. These narrow footpaths wind their way through serenely beautiful marble mausoleums, massive wall vaults, and dilapidated unmarked tombs. Walking through this ancient necropolis in the wee hours of the morning can be an unnerving and eerie experience, in fact many visitors have reported strange encounters with the spectral inhabitants of the graveyard.
Since 1881, an apparition of the Voodoo Priestess, Marie Laveau, has materialized many times in the narrow passages of the cemetery. Her tomb has become a shrine to those interested in Voodoo or the occult. In the cover of darkness, practitioners perform secret Voodoo rituals. Practitioners often leave small offerings, scratching three Xs with a piece of soft red brick on the crypt and knocking three times on the wall of the tomb; believers do this to request special favors or invoke spells.
Marie Laveau was said to have been well over 100 years old when she died, yet she was reported to have been as beautiful and vibrant as any 25 year old woman. It can only be assumed that her devotion to the practice of Voodoo held the secret to her eternal beauty. Perhaps it is the pursuit of this enduring youth and beauty that compels the Voodoo practitioners to pay homage to Marie Laveau to this day.
With numerous unmarked and crumbling tombs within the necropolis, unexplained phenomena seems to be common place. Strange mournful sounds emanating from the cavernous crypts and inexplicable glowing vaporous masses have startled countless numbers of people wandering the ancient cemetery. In one area of the cemetery, the ghostly image of a mans face frequently appears on the wall of a tomb, as if he is looking out from someplace on the other side of reality.
Note: St. Louis cemetery No. 1 is the oldest surviving necropolis in New Orleans, it is a preservation project of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, defacing or marking the tombs such as described above is considered vandalism and could result in fines or your arrest.
Use your better judgment; dont do it.
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