The myths and legends behind the Old Ursuline Convent are creepy and weird, but are they true? Let’s discuss.
Built in New Orleans in the mid-1700s, the Old Ursuline Convent is a beautiful and historic building. The structure, and the nuns who call the convent home, have witnessed some major events in American history. In 1788, when the Good Friday Fire destroyed much of New Orleans, the convent was, some say miraculously, left standing. The Battle of New Orleans in 1815 was fought within earshot of the convent, which acted as a hospital for the wounded.
For those drawn to stories of the potentially supernatural, the Old Ursuline has a number of tales to give you the creeps. One legends tells of workers doing restoration work on the convent. One day, the workers began discovering bones buried around the foundations of the building. What started as a puzzling find became more and more disturbing as the workers unearthed more and more remains. To top it off, many of the remains appeared to be that of children. The convent had once served as an orphanage, so what was going on?
There are all sorts of stories that have sprung up to explain the bones, if there really were any discovered. Assuming remains were found, one possible explanation points to the frequent Yellow Fever epidemics that tore through New Orleans in the past. Perhaps some of the orphans living at the convent fell victim to the fever, and the nuns, knowing these children had no where else to go, buried them on the convent’s grounds. Perhaps not a supernatural explanation, but certainly a sad one.
Now for another legend, that of the Casket Girls. In the 1700s, the French were trying to secure their holdings in the new world. The problem was that there were too many men and not enough women to bolster the population. The solution was to import women from France to the New World, including New Orleans, as brides.
The Casket Girls, as they are called, were a number of these brides-to-be. These young women arrived in New Orleans with large wooden boxes, shaped like caskets some say, to carry their belongings. Things didn’t go well for the women, who were supposedly deathly pale and gaunt and not terribly attractive to the men they were supposed to marry. Eventually, the women returned to France.
Their “caskets”, however, were left behind. As the story goes, the nuns of Ursuline took the boxes and placed them on the third floor of the convent. The boxes were heavy when the nuns placed them in storage, but when they checked on them some time later, the nuns found the boxes empty. That led to speculation as to what was actually inside. Many believed that vampires had made their way to the New World, transported by the Casket Girls. With the idea being that vampires must return to their caskets, it was said that the nuns waited for the monsters to return and then sealed up the third floor, making every effort to contain the evil.
Yet it appeared their efforts were in vain. In the 1970s, a group of amateur paranormal investigators camped out overnight at the convent. In the dark of night, sleep overcame the researchers, and it was then that something attacked. The next day the group was discovered, torn to pieces and drained of blood.
Now, is any of this story true? Well, French women did come to the New World to become brides, and it’s no stretch to believe they carried large trunks and boxes with them. You can also imagine how they might arrive pale and sickly-looking after a long sea voyage. But vampires in the convent?
The convent does have heavy hurricane shutters on the third floor, and that area has been used for storage. The vampire part, though, is probably just a story…. probably.