Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans

The Ghost of the German Countess

The Ghost of the German Countess In the days when the uptown section of the city was known as the Faubourg Sainte-Marie, that portion was mostly swampland . During the regime of Jean and Pierre Lafitte, the Barataria pirates who flourished in the first quarter of the igth century , one of the houses of the scattered few then available in the Upper Town was used as a rendezvous for their cutthroat band. It was a vast and rambling structure, of the type known as a castellated plantation house. It had a flat roof, massive walls and many battlements. Precisely what went on behind those sturdily bolted doors, no tongue can say. But that there were crimes galore, murder and rape and torture and robbery and many foul deeds besides, there is not the slightest doubt. The very isolation of the house was an invitation to pirates to bring thither captives, with the hope of added entertainment and gain. It is said that from one of their sea raids they brought in a German Captain and his tall daughter, Frieda. The girl was blonde and beautiful, with thick braids of silken yellow hair bound about her shapely head. The Captain was known to be transporting a casket of fine sapphires, destined for the Spanish royal collection. The value of these gems was almost beyond calculation, many of them being personal gifts from noble houses. It had been the Captain's mission to land at this port and that, gathering the precious collection together. 160 (1808} The Ghost of the German Countess 161 The Fraulein, left a good deal to her own devices on board ship, and being deprived of any household tasks, did much exquisite embroidery. Her own dresses were heavy with it, in the most brilliant and effective colors. Not a gown did she possess that was not elaborately enriched by her own clever needle. When the Lafitte band boarded the vessel commanded by the German Captain, their first demand was for the sapphires. News of the priceless stones had leaked out, and this was the principal reason for the capture of the ship. The Captain, however, flatly refused to yield up the jewels. He even defied the pirates to discover their hiding-place. Furthermore, he forbade his daughter, on pain of his eternal wrath, to disclose her knowledge of the whereabouts of the sapphires. Threats and beatings availed the pirates nothing. So they brought the Captain and his daughter, in irons, ashore at New Orleans. The girl wept and screamed, and her clothes were torn almost from her body in her struggles to evade the murderous ruffians. Finally, however, when she had bitten and scratched mere than one burly outlaw, she settled down to a fairly tractable frame of mind. Unable to speak any tongue except her own, she eventually made the pirates understand that she would accompany them quietly if they only would permit her to take her beautifully embroidered dresses with her. She was allowed to do this, and tied them into a fat bundle which she insisted on carrying in her own arms. The two captives were hustled to the great plantation house in the Faubourg Sainte-Marie. Here the Captain was put to torture and died in agony, without, however, having disclosed the hiding-place of his treasure. Meanwhile, Fraulein Frieda had been taken to a chamber on an upper floor of the house, and treated to all manner of luxury. Whenever she asked for her father, she was told that he was teaching German to Pierre Lafitte, and could not come to her until the pirate had mastered enough of the language to converse with her. Finally the young woman became so alarmed and suspicious that she began to demand that she be taken to her father. When she grew too insistent, the pirates sewed her lips together, had her eyes gouged out, and then strangled her. 162 Ghost Stones of Old New Orleans A new ship had come up the river that very day, bringing news of the lost sapphires and the missing sea captain. So furious were the royal ones over the loss, that great sums of money were offered for the return of the jewels. Now, bold as the pirates were, they knew that conviction for piracy meant death. Many victims they had forced to walk the plank to a watery grave. But walking the plank was a more...