The Sultan's Ghost of New Orleans

The Sultan’s Ghost:

Hauntings of New Orleans

     The House which sits at 716 Dauphine Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans is a handsome looking place, standing four stories tall and looks like what you would expect a house to look like in the French Quarter, with it’s white washed facade and ornately styled wrought iron railed balconies. It had been built in 1836 by Jean Baptiste La’Prete who owned a plantation in Plaquemines Parish and who spent the cooler months of the year there in the house, which was not at all uncommon in those times. But it was towards the time of the Civil War when the Union Army began it’s occupation of the city that La’Prete found himself forced to rent out the property due to financial problems.

     The tenant turned out to be a Turk who claimed to be the Sultan, or former Sultan and who called himself Prince Suleiman.  He had it redecorated with heavy drapes over all of the windows to prevent the outside world from seeing within and a heavy padlock was placed upon the front gate while the door was kept closed most times and guarded by Turkish eunuchs wielding scimitars. Those passing by the house were often greeted with the heavy scent of incense when windows were open on the upper floors.
     The Sultan had many wives and family members in addition to his slaves/servants and it was reported that his harem not only consisted of many women, but also of young boys. Stories of orgies were common-place complete with opium and it is said that all sosrts of sexual perversions occurred within the house. It was also rumored of the kidnapping of women, young girls and of young boys, all presumably for the Sultan’s pleasure. Of course, it is difficult to tell how much of this was speculation and how much was actual fact were it not for the monstrous discovery made early one morning...

     The hideous discovery was made in the early morning hours, just after sunrise, by a neighbor who was on his way to the docks along the river. Walking past the house he noticed that the padlock which was normally in place on the gate was missing and the gate was open. He also noticed that no guards were at their posts. It was then that he noticed a stream of blood oozing under the front door and down the step under the gate. Soldiers who were assigned to keeping the peace were quickly summoned. When they arrived and the door to the house was slowly swung open, they were faced with a scene of carnage that they had never imagined seeing in their lives. The smell of death and blood was so strong that several of the men could go no further. The opulently decorated house now resembled that of a butcher shop with body parts and organs strewn up and down the grand staircase. The floors were so thick with blood that the soldiers found it hard to walk without slipping and falling. Despite the fact that none of the neighbors had seen or had heard anything during the night, every single person in the house had been murdered and chopped into pieces!

     The mutilation of the bodies were done so completely that it made it impossible to tell which body parts went to what body. Arms, legs, heads and other parts were so hacked up and scattered that the victims were never able to be identified. All but one that is... Just when the soldiers thought that they had seen the worst, they moved out into the courtyard and it was there that their horror intensified. Looking around the garden, one of the soldiers spied what he thought looked like a glove. But on closer inspection, the glove turned out to be a human hand reaching out of the ground and what appeared to be a freshly dug grave. When the soldiers unearthed the body, they discovered that it was that of the Sultan himself, badly injured and buried alive. From the body’s appearance, the Sultan’s last minutes of life had been hellish ones, his lungs gasping for air in that hole in the ground and finding only the moist earth and clay of New Orleans, one hand clawing up through that grave and into the cool night as he desperately tried to keep from smothering and to free himself...

     To this day, no one knows exactly who committed the hideous crimes. Some believe that it had been a relative of the Sultan bent on claiming the family wealth as their own, while others say that the murders were retribution for the kidnapping of the women and young boys. And stories still persist that it had been pirates who had come ashore with rumors of the house filled with hidden treasure. No one was ever brought to trial and no one ever came forward to claim the remains of the bodies. The truth likely will never be known.
     Throughout the many years since those gruesome murders, occupants of the house have reported seeing the Sultan himself walking through the house and in the garden where his body had been discovered. Other figures too, have been seen dressed in oriental garb of that period. And there is the ghostly figure of a fair haired youth who has been spotted by passers-by, sitting in one of the windows and looking out onto the street, only to simply vanish. Screams and shrieks have been heard in the dark and what witnesses have described as what sounds like body parts thumping to the floor...

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It’s good to be back!