Hollow Hill

New Orleans, LA – ‘Voodoo Queen’ Marie Laveau’s House?

These photos were taken during an April 2005 ghost tour of New Orleans’ French Quarter. This was a time when the Quarter seemed especially spiritually active, a few months before Hurricane Katrina changed everything.

I can recall walking up to an artist just outside the cathedral, and telling her to be prepared to move on short notice.

I explained that I “saw” the image of her being in something like a washing machine, being agitated in the water, and needing to get out before the spin dry cycle. I also told her that I felt certain she was going to be okay, but she’d have to get out.

At the time, I had no idea how prophetic that was. Honestly…? I thought the imagery was symbolic.

The night I took the following photos, we’d signed up for one of the many wonderful (and sometimes theatrical) ghost tours of the French Quarter. On this residential street, the guide explained we were looking at a house that had belonged to the famous Voodoo (or Voudoun/Vodun) queen, Marie Laveau.

In the following photos, arrows point to some of the orbs that seemed most credible to me.

This photo was taken on a cool, dry evening in New Orleans at about 9:30 at night.

The orbs could be humidity or a reflection, but I don’t think so. There’s a certain feeling you get with some ghost photos… and this was one of them.

It had the look of an eerie home of a famous woman whose stories still provide New Orleans with color. I can understand why the tour guide wanted us to believe it was Marie Laveau’s former residence.

The house may be haunted, but it’s probably not one of Marie Laveau’s homes. I’ve researched the addresses associated with both Marie Laveau I and II, and I couldn’t find any connection to this house.

When you take any ghost tour (or vampire tour, etc.) in the NOLA area, it’s important to keep your critical thinking skills engaged.

The facts of some legendary characters – such as Marie Laveau and Madame Lalaurie – have become a lost in the fictional tales built around them.

Nevertheless, this house is charming to look at, and it gave me a slight chill as if something paranormal could be associated with it.

Or, maybe the storytelling abilities of our guide were so good, I was looking for a “good scare” when what I really saw was a wonderful, historical home.

LOOKING FOR TRULY HAUNTED HOUSES?

New Orleans, LA – Gov. Nicholls St. Ghosts

If you take a “ghost tour” of New Orleans’ French Quarter, pay attention to your innate psychic intuition, or your gut feeling. That’s what we did during an April 2005 visit to America’s most haunted city.

nola-715gn-2 — Film photo at Gov. Nicholls’ Street.

new-orleans-715gn — Digital photo – same location, same night, same time.

I’d seen the infamous LaLaurie Mansion on Gov. Nicholls Street; my photos showed very little paranormal activity there. In fact, I saw very few orbs in most of my ghost pictures that evening.

Further up Governor Nicholls Street, while the other tourists were taking photos of a house connected with President Kennedy’s assassination, I turned my cameras (two of them – one film, one digital) towards a home across the street.

This NOLA home is a private residence, which means that you should not intrude on the owners’ privacy. It’s also a site where we see more orbs in digital and film photos than many of the “haunted” sites on the tour.

The history of this home suggests that it was built in 1834 by Gabriel Correjolles, who had moved to New Orleans from St. Domingue (now Haiti).

Correjolles’ son, Francisco, also has a connection to another haunted houses.

In 1826, he designed the Beauregard-Keyes House at 1113 Chartres Street, which is one of New Orleans’ most famous haunted houses.

I’m not sure why this house on Gov. Nicholls Street seems so haunted, and I hope that ghost hunters will not disturb the owners of this home.

However, if you’re on a New Orleans “ghost tour,” try taking photos when your intuition tells you to. Your pictures may be as surprising as mine were. I can see at least a dozen orbs in every photo that I took at this house, although these pictures don’t reproduce well online.

And, for the skeptics: None of the orbs are the moon or a reflection of it. It was not a humid night; most of my photos show few — if any — orbs, even just a few feet away from this house.

While there were probably a few insects in the air, we didn’t see any. These orbs were all too far away to be dust or pollen, especially in the digital pictures, and it was too warm for anyone to use a fireplace.

Most of the orbs are nearly perfect circles. Orbs from insects rarely are; they’re usually skewed ovals.

Like many cities, New Orleans can surprise even seasoned ghost hunters. The ghosts may be where you least expect them. Follow your intuition, your instincts, and your “gut feelings.”

York, Maine – Haunted ‘Old Burying Yard’

The “Witch’s Grave” of Mary Nasson is not the only reason why the Old Burying Yard of York, Maine, may be haunted.

The Old Burying Yard was actually York’s second cemetery, and its graves cover the years 1705 through the 1850s.

However, it is rumored that victims of the Candlemas Day Massacre are buried in this cemetery, in unmarked graves. (When a large group of people meet violent deaths and are buried, en masse, in unmarked graves, people often report hauntings nearby.)

In addition, many headstones in the Old Burying Yard present attitudes and half-told stories which suggest lives cut short, and reasons to suspect that spirits would linger at the graves.

For example, this inscription is from the marker of Mrs. Deborah Simpson, wife of Captain Timothy Simpson, who died at age 39 in 1799:

Adieu my Friends, dry up your tears,
I must lie here till Christ appears.

If she believes that she must lie there until Christ appears, her spirit may be seen around her grave. (Few spirits seem to wait patiently without some interaction with visitors.)

Another notable stone provides the following admonition:

JOHN BRAGDON a promising Youth, departed this life
June 19th 1744 in Ye 23d Year of his Age;
with some comfortable Hope in his Death,
after great Distress of Soul, & solemn
Warnings to young People,
not to put off their Repentance to a Death Bed.

That suggests the kind of regrets that lead to hauntings.

There are many such stones — and stories behind them — which could be reasons nearly equal to the legend of “witch” Mary Nasson, for the haunting of York’s Old Burying Yard.

Lydia Bragdon's decorative headstone — Lydia Bragdon’s decorated headstone

Old Town Katy, TX – Ghosts, Pt 1

In June 2005, we began investigating the “old town” area of Katy, Texas. We began with no reports of ghosts in Old Town Katy, but a gut feeling that it might produce some good orbs.

(Frankly, a lot of my work involves predicting & investigating haunted sites before any other website does. And, as of mid-2005, no other ghost website — and no ghost-related TV show — had reported anything about the ghosts of Old Town Katy.)

So, I was ready to see if my “gut feeling” and my prediction methods (including ley lines) were correct.

I began by looking for clues in Katy’s history.

HISTORY OF KATY, TEXAS

Katy was originally called Cane Island and is about 25 miles west of downtown Houston. It was the hunting ground of the Karankawa Indians through the 1820s.

The town was settled in the mid 1890s. The Katy post office opened in 1896, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad (MKT – called the “KT”) depot was finished in 1898.

Unfortunately, a lot of the town’s early efforts were swept clean by the Galveston Flood of 1900. (Many people don’t realize how far inland that water spread.)

Most of the early settlers in Katy were farmers. By the early 20th century Katy was best known for its annual rice crop.

In 1934, the discovery well of the Katy gas field was drilled. That led to new business opportunities in Katy and vicinity.

Today, Katy’s population is about 12,000 and growing with upscale developments opening steadily, especially in the Cinco Ranch area.

However, the historic side of Katy is the focus of our early ghost investigations.

All but two of the original Katy homes were lost in the 1900 hurricane that caused the Galveston Flood. We started our research at the oldest buildings with the most interesting history.

Here’s our initial report:

KATY TRAIN DEPOT

Our first stop was the old train depot (5710 Highway Boulevard, near East Avenue and 1st Street). This wonderful old building is being restored by the Katy Historical Society. Only a few of our depot photos show orbs, but those that do are notable.

Here’s a close-up of one of the orbs:

I’m not going to claim that one orb means anything. It’s pretty, and it’s odd that there’s just one orb at a site that feels so connected to its history. However, that’s not nearly enough to say that a site is haunted.

Despite that, the site is convenient, not far from I-10. Also, it’s a quiet area, and a comfortable spot for ghost hunting. So, we’ll continue to explore it.

Savannah, GA – Haunted Bonaventure Cemetery

view1-g Savannah is one of my favorite cities to visit, and it hosts one of the South’s most beautiful cemeteries.

Bonaventure Cemetery was made famous by the book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Sometimes spelled “Bonadventure,” this is a large, eerie cemetery at the bank of the river.

It is well worth a visit when you’re in the Savannah area. The gravestones and monuments in this cemetery are often large, beautifully carved, and unique.

Plan to take a lot of photos, because there are so many plots with art that is worth photographing.

The color in the cemetery tends to look almost monochromatic in the heat of the day. (The photo above is in color, exactly as I took the photo. No colors were adjusted.)

I didn’t observe the same color anomalies in nearby Savannah, either before or after our photo session.

I haven’t had time to investigate the many ghost stories of that cemetery, but my daytime explorations suggest that this is a wonderfully haunted location.

Savannah, Georgia, is well worth visiting, whether you’re a ghost hunter or not. Learn more about the many fabulous sides of this lovely city, at The Official Savannah Guide.

If you’re traveling to Atlanta, Georgia, you may enjoy my free map of haunted sites (and where to look for more): Atlanta Ley Lines for Ghost Hunters.

Better than a Ghost App…?

Can an inexpensive hiking compass detect ghostly EMF as well – or better than a ghost app?

For years, I thought that was ridiculous.

Then, a series of tests with a sturdy $10 compass surprised me. It worked nearly as well as my regular (and far more expensive) EMF meters.

Now, in some settings, I actually prefer to use a hiking compass when I first explore a haunted site. (That’s still true in 2024, as I’m updating this article.)

And, unlike hi-tech equipment with batteries that can fail in haunted settings, the compass always works.

From my years in Scouting, I know that hiking compasses work like gravity. They’re almost 100% reliable, as long as you aren’t near something magnetic, a large electrical engine, or major power lines.

In other words, compasses react to high EMF levels… the same as EMF detectors do.

But then, when I was documenting a ghost hunt, I brought my compass to Gilson Road Cemetery in Nashua, NH.

I’d only intended to use it to get my bearings when making notes about which areas of the cemetery seemed most haunted.

When our ghost hunting team arrived, I placed the compass on top of Hannah Robbins’ headstone at the northern end of the cemetery.

Her stone appeared to be aligned in a NNE direction, looking towards the carved side of her headstone.

This was what I expected to see, so I didn’t think about it again.

And, while I was busy comparing our past orb photos with existing graves and landmarks, another team member, Alan, picked up the compass.

That’s when “north” seemed to move.

He shouted for me to take a look, and… Well, it was weird.

In the southern half of the cemetery, the compass showed north in one direction.

“Okay, fine,” I thought. “That’s exactly what it should do.”

But, as Alan walked towards the northern half of the cemetery, the needle swung about 30 degrees and stayed there.

We tested this repeatedly, and the results were consistent.

EMF levels should only increase around electrical wiring, etc.

But, at the time, Gilson Road Cemetery was a very rural location, before the subdivision was built across the street. So, there were no nearby generators or significant power lines.

Yes, EMF surges and anomalies have been associate with ghosts and haunted places.

So, maybe it should not surprise me that my compass reacted to energy at Gilson.

Since then, we’ve used a compass on several Hollow Hill investigations. Now, we highly recommend a compass in your basic ghost hunting kit.

How to use a hiking compass in “haunted” locations

Be certain the compass has a free-swinging needle. Test it ahead of time in a not-haunted location. If – especially with a cheap compass – the needle tends to get stuck, it’s useless.
Before you start walking, line up North so the red part (or point) of the needle is over the arrow painted on the compass. That’s North. That’s the direction you’ll walk towards, each time. (Do this in several parts of the haunted site, to determine where the anomalies might be.)
Learn to use the compass in a not haunted site, first. Your backyard is a good place, if there are no electrical wires nearby (underground and overhead, too).
Try to walk in as straight a line as possible, usually towards North. (It can be the easiest to follow.)
Expect the needle to bob and bounce as you walk. This is normal. However, when you pause, it should always return to North.
Keep the compass as flat as possible. If you hold it an an angle, your reading may not be accurate.
If North seems to move, pause. Check how you’re holding the compass, in case it was tilted. North NEVER changes direction!
Debunk odd readings if you can. Look for interference from magnetic deposits (a metal detector can help) and from electrical sources, including power lines. They will “attract” the compass’ needle. (In the U.S., geographical survey maps may help identify areas with likely metal deposits.)
This is worth repeating: North NEVER changes its location. Even a slight 10-degree shift is an anomaly, if you’ve eliminated all other influences. Profoundly haunted sites can show unexplained needle-swings of up to 90 degrees.
If you think you have an anomaly, retrace your steps. See if the compass anomaly repeats. Usually, it will… but only for a while. If you still can’t find an explanation (electrical wiring, etc.), the compass may have been responding to something ghost-related.

From my experience, a compass can work at least as well – and perhaps more reliably – than a ghost app. And every team member can try it themselves, without needing to take out their phone (and possibly be distracted by it).