GHOSTS
OF BAYOU ST. JOHN
Bayou St. John (or St. John’s
Bayou as it was known to Old
New Orleans) is a scenic waterway
in the heart of the Mid City.
Originating in the old Carrollton
area, it meanders serenely past
classic homes and locales as
it makes it’s way to join
Lake Pontchartrain.
Today, the Bayou St. John vistas
include joggers and cyclists
and pet owners playing a game
of Frisbee with their dogs as
they make their way to walk
under the ancient oaks of nearby
City Park.
But in New Orleans of the 18th
and 19th centuries, the Bayou
was a vital artery for merchants
and vendors plying their trade
in the French Quarter. Its egress
to the waters of Lake Pontchartrain
made it the perfect route for
schooners and barges underway
for the myriad Lake outlets
feeding into the Gulf of Mexico.
In those days one could see
everything from barges loaded
with bananas and other tropical
cargo, to paddlewheelers full
of rich “Uptowners”
on their way to a summer holiday
on the Northshore of the Lake.
Carriages and flatbed wagons
would line the muddy banks,
taking cargoes from the barges
for sale in the Old French Market
and in vending stalls throughout
the Quarter and beyond.
Most of this mercantile traffic
was under the control of one
man, Jose Planas called by all
who knew him “The King
of the French Market.”
Planas, a native of Spain, had
traveled to America with his
family at the height of the
surging emigration of the late
1800’s. He made his fortune
and his name by purchasing the
land on both side of Bayou St.
John, from its Old Carrollton
roots to within miles of the
Lake outlet. Dark haired and
bronzed by the tropical New
Orleans sun, Planas was a familiar
sight to bargers and schoonermen
along the shores of “his”
Bayou.
With the outbreak of the Spanish-American
War, however, Planas’
personal fortunes took a downturn.
Victimized by paranoid locals
who became distrustful of Spaniards,
Planas soon abandoned New Orleans
for his European homeland.
But if stories that come from
the 21st century shores of this
old Bayou can be believed, Jose
Planas, and many others who
lived and worked the waterway
in centuries past, have never
really left.
One report from a resident
of the Faubourg St. John, the
historical residential area
that lines the eastern shore
of the Bayou, recounts how,
while walking his dog in the
summer twilight he first heard,
then saw, an extraordinary apparition.
The resident, who asked that
his name be withheld, reports,
“First I heard the ‘slapping’
sound, like someone clapping
his or her hand onto the surface
of the water over and over.
Even my dog perked up at the
sound. When I looked up, I was
shocked by the sight of a turn
of the century paddlewheel schooner
making it’s way down the
middle of the Bayou!”
The story continues that the
schooner, vaguely luminescent
in the moonless night, drifted
within feet of the shore and
the shocked local until it slowly
disappeared from sight, leaving
no wake and only the sound of
crickets chirping and cars in
the distance of the hot summer
night.
There are other reports of
barges, some empty or full of
cargo, drifting by to the sounds
of ghostly voices calling out
for rigging and anchors. Several
people have seen ghostly canoes
floating by, with apparitions
locked in an eternal gaze of
young love.
And the most fantastic are
the sightings of Jose Planas
himself.
One woman who lives within
sight of the Bayou near where
it crosses under the Esplanade
Avenue bridge reports that she
clearly saw the image of “a
dark, Spanish man in a panama
style hat and a linen suit”
pacing along the Bayou and puffing
a huge cigar. “Every now
and then he would stop and look
at his watch, as if waiting
for something or someone.”
This in itself is not so strange,
except that, as she watched,
the image disappeared right
before her eyes!
Others report the sound of
a man shouting in Spanish, possibly
to unseen deckhands or workers;
and still others have heard
the words, “Senor Jose!”
shouted on more than one occasion.
But the history of the Bayou
is not all capitalism and ship’s
traffic. Over the generations
many people have met their untimely
end in the murky Bayou waters.
Several years ago, after a horrible
car crash near the DeSaix Avenue
bridge, some residents reported
hearing the accident repeat
itself, over and over, as if
tape-recorded - including the
splash of the Bayou waters.
Upon investigation, nothing
unusual was found to have occurred,
though the ghostly reenactment
continued for several months.
New Orleans
of the 18th and 19th centuries,
the Bayou was a vital artery
for merchants and vendors plying
their trade in the French Quarter.
In the early 1900’s a
female member of Jose Planas’
family was pulled into the Bayou
by the paddlewheel of the family
houseboat in which her long,
red hair had become tragically
wound. The woman was pulled
under and her body jammed the
paddlewheel mechanism. Boatmen
retrieved her as soon as they
realized what had happened,
but she had already drowned.
It is said that sometimes the
grisly accident, houseboat,
paddlewheel and all, is reenacted
in the exact spot it happened,
at the north side of the Esplanade
Avenue bridge.
Ghostly apparitions are seen
walking the banks of the Bayou,
and ghostly images are especially
disturbing at the point where
the Bayou empties into Lake
Pontchartrain. Legend has it
that this location was the favorite
of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau
when she held her wild rituals
and sacrifices. At the height
of her fame and power, fearful
locales knew better than to
follow Madame Laveau into the
overgrown darkness of the trees
near the Bayou’s mouth,
and some insist that, even today,
the mouth of the Bayou at Lake
Pontchartrain is a place strictly
to be avoided, especially at
night.
Sounds of drumming and chanting
are commonplace in the surrounding
areas and once a local fire
truck appeared on the scene
in response to a call from students
of a nearby university who claimed
to have seen fires along the
Bayou from the windows of their
dormitory.
With its history or mystery
and the unexplained, Haunted
Bayou St. John is not to be
missed on a tour of Haunted
New Orleans. Remember to include
it the next time you visit the
famous Crescent City!
--- A. Pustanio
