Any pre-Halloween blog series needs a reference to E.A. Poe.
In one of the most famous benders in literary history, Poe left Richmond, Va., for Baltimore, Md., on Sept. 27, 1849, by train. He was found about a week later incoherent and drunk in a Baltimore tavern. By Oct. 7 of that year he was hospitalized and muttered the last words, “Lord help my poor soul,” then died, according to Life. Now a museum, E.A. Poe House in Baltimore is where the writer lived in the 1830s and reputedly haunted by his “poor soul” or those of others. One of my early teachers said the problem with the mentally ill was that they partied too much.
On New Orleans from the same Life magazine: it is noted apartment rentals in the city advertise as “haunted” or “not haunted.” It claims the port city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain is “the most unearthly urban enclave in the United States.” The entry speculates it has something to do with “its multicultural mix of spiritual traditions: Native American, French, Spanish, Creole, Cajun, and–not least–voodoo, an amalgam of African religions and Catholicism.”
Cemeteries in N.O. are generally built above ground, “leaving restless spirits to roam the steamy streets.”