Frenier, Louisiana

this massive tidal wave with a 13 feet high, it just tore through the cypress trees and completely obliterating everything in its path.

The wooden shanties of Frenier and Ruddock stood absolutely no chance.

The storm surge just ripped elevated homes straight out of their foundations, smashing them into splinters against the trees.

People were swept away into the dark waters in a matter of seconds.

Today, if you travel to the Franier Cemetery, hidden deep under the shadow of the cypress trees, you won't find this grand monument to Voodoo Queen.

What you will find is a simple mass grave holding the remains of families who died that day.

The towns of Rudok, Napton, and Frenier were never rebuilt, the jungle reclaimed their timber mills, the swamps followed their homes, and the railroad line moved on.

Julia Brown didn't destroy the town, but in a strange, poetic way, her dark joke did come true when she died the heart of the community did go with her and maybe the true curse of the manchac swamp is not haunted by spirits but it's haunted by the memories of a life that used to be the ghosts aren't coming to get you they are just making sure they are not forgotten this was today's episode guys i hope you liked it and comment below and share your thoughts it is always nice to hear from you and i promise that i have more episodes here available weekly at the storytelling podcast and just to remind you that this channel is made for you to binge and many more episodes are waiting for you here And if you prefer a visual experience, you can also find the episodes on YouTube where you can watch and listen at the same time.

Don't worry about that, but w- w- we're gonna get out of the city, and we're gonna head west out of New Orleans towards Baton Rouge and start getting out over the wetlands because everybody knows New Orleans is a swamp, but, uh, w- you get [laughs] about five minutes out of the city, you get away from all that tourist stuff, and you'll actually end up there.

So this particular tale takes place in a small town called Frenier, but here's the thing, okay?

Mm-hmm.

This little swamp town isn't there anymore.

So if we head down there, we go, go west out of New Orleans on all these old concrete bridges over the swampland.

You head out to a place that's called Manchac Swamp, okay? And it's the swamp that's just off of the Lake Pontchartrain River.

There's this little small isthmus, this little strip of land between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas, where this town once sat called Frenier.

And now this was back in the, in the, the mid-1800s or so.

The French have suffered enough.

Frenier was isolated.

A little farming community surrounded by swamp and connected to the outside world by railroad tracks.

And according to the legend, Julia Brown wasn't just an ordinary woman living there.

Well, that didn't

take long.

because according to the story, the people of Frenier had a complicated relationship with her.

They came to her when they needed her, but they were also afraid of her.