The spiritualist life of Otis Plummer

Genealogy can be so much fun, you never know what you’ll discover. I never suspected royalty or fame in my line, but I did hope for some fascinating stories.

Here’s one that’s tied to the afterlife in more ways than one.

The Plummer family was a seafaring group hailing from New England who moved to the southeastern Texas coast in the mid-1800s. The patriarch, Gowen Wilson Plummer, was born in Addison, Maine, his grandfather Moses Plummer Jr., a private in Captain Hall’s detachment with Colonel Benjamin Foster’s Regiment during the American Revolution. According to information gleaned from family trees on Ancestry.com, Moses’s name is inscribed on the bicentennial marker in front of the Old Union Church, which is now Columbia Falls Town Hall.

Gowen Plummer moved to the Louisiana side of the Sabine River, just across from Texas, in the 1830s. Sources claim he ran illegal trade across the Louisiana-Texas border and that he was a gun runner for Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution.

In 1839 he wrote from Perry’s Bridge in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana to his brother in Harrington, Maine (bad punctuation included and editing by me):

           

“Dear Brother, I take this opportunity to correspond with you as it has been very long since we have heard from one another. I have just recovered from a bed of sickness and am very weak and nervous, but I have enjoyed better health in Louisiana than I ever did in Maine. I have worked very hard this summer in Cyprus Swamp which I lay my sickness to, but thank kind heaven I am recovering as fast as time will admit. I have been living in Louisiana for better than a year and this is the first sickness that I have had. This is very fine country and a very easy country to live in…I have been employed since last November building a small vessel of about 30 tons, and in June we lay her by for the planks to season. I expect we will commence her again in November. There has been no one worked on her but myself and the master workman. I expect to own a small part of her when done and intend to run out from the vermilion Bayou to some of the Rivers in Texas.”

Gowen Plummer and Arthemise LaRiviere Ellender in 1842 lived at the Vincent Settlement in Louisiana. They had three sons born in Texas: William, Otis and Jesse and the 1860 census listed Gowen as lighthouse keeper.

During the Civil War, Gowen remained a Union loyalists but after his lighthouse oil was stolen by Confederates, he moved the family back to Maine and returned in the early 1870s when the hostilities ended, living at Bolivar Point, Galveston, Texas. 

Otis S. Plummer may have been born in Texas but he got his sea legs in Maine, sailing at the age of 15 under his father’s tutelage. At 17 he was made captain of a schooner in the New England coast trade at 17. Otis moved to Corpus Christi working for the government, then became the pilot at the Sabine Pass south of Beaumont, Texas. In 1907, along with Captain Peter Brandt, he founded the Sabine Pilots Association for the purpose of guiding ships from the Gulf of Mexico into and out of the harbors of Sabine Pass, Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, according to Ancestry.com sources.

So, what does any of this have to do with ghosts, you ask?

Otis Plummer lost a child and when he did so, turned to Spiritualism, “a system of belief or religious practice based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, especially through mediums,” according to Webster’s. Spiritualism was popular after the Civil War, reaching its peak of popularity by century’s end.

Otis took a subscription to the Spiritualist weekly newspaper, the Banner of Light, and held séances in his home.

His obit read:

“Mr. Otis S. Plummer, of Harrington [Maine], passed quietly to spirit life from his home at 3 p.m. Wednesday, 24^th, after an earthly pilgrimage of 79 years. Mr. Plummer espoused the cause of Spiritualism soon after losing a beloved child. He had remarkably strong magnetic powers, which he was ever ready and willing to exercise as occasion required. He began to take the Banner of Light soon after losing his child, and to have spiritual sittings in his own home, where he conversed with his loved ones that had passed away. He had a sitting by his bedside a few hours before he passed to spirit life. He was not afraid to die, spiritualism giving consolation.

“Mr. Plummer was universally respected by all who knew him. He was an esteemed friend, a loved companion, a kind and tender father, and one who held the respect of all, as was evident by the character of the people who came to pay their last respects at his funeral. The services were held at his own home, under the Masonic order. The floral offerings were very beautiful. The remains reposed calm and peaceful in the change that awaits us all. He leaves a wife, five sons and two daughters to mourn their loss, and who expect to meet him across the river.”

Otis’s brother, Captain William Henry Plummer, was the Sabine Pass Lighthouse keeper in 1900 when on Sept. 8 a fierce hurricane slammed into Galveston. William saved approximately 156 lives during the storm and he was awarded a Life-Saving Medal by the Secretary of the Treasury on May 28, 1903.

Here’s what the Washington Post reported:

“The Secretary of the Treasury yesterday forwarded to Capt. W. H. Plummer, now at Willbridge, Me., a gold life-saving medal … in recognition of this heroic conduct in saving and assisting to save a very large number of persons from drowning during the memorable hurricane of September 8, 1900 at Galveston, Tex. Plummer, it is stated, rescued and delivered to places of safety upward of 156 men, women and children. In closing his letter, which accompanied the medal the Secretary says:
           

“If would be difficult to exaggerate the merits of your services. You acted entirely of your own mention, under no compulsion from any source except your own commanding sense of humanity; you neglected your own property, and gave up the work of rescue only when your boat was so disabled that you were compelled to abandon it and swim to a place of refuge. Your conduct was of the highest order and deserves the highest recognition. That is afforded by the accompanying medal, which is authorized by law to be bestowed only upon those who perform, at the jeopardy of their own lives, deeds of the most extreme and heroic daring in saving others from the perils of the sea.”

    

Otis’s other brother, “Cott” Plummer, made newspapers in 1910 when he captured a sperm whale off the Texas coast and brought the massive leviathon to Orange, Texas, for the world to see.

Haunted Deep South is written by travel writer Cheré Coen, author of Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana by The History Press. She writes the Viola Valentine paranormal mystery series under the pen name of Cherie Claire.

Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana, booksignings this month

            Ghost stories abound in the Cajun and Creole city of Lafayette, Louisiana. The Hub City boasts a multitude of spirits and specters, from those lost in Civil War skirmishes and fever outbreaks to those souls that simply can’t say goodbye. Today, they wander the halls of bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants and linger along back roads and cemeteries. Pirates are rumored to guard buried treasure, and ancient French legends hide in the swamps, bayous and woods. 

            I visited Lafayette’s haunted sites and traveled the countryside in search of ghostly legends found only in South Louisiana and published "Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana," with The History Press.

            Just in time for Halloween I will be signing copies of “Haunted Lafayette” at the following:

Oct. 17, 2015: I will sign “Haunted Lafayette” as well as “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History” from 10 a.m. to noon at 1921 Jackson Street: A Coffee House in Alexandria, Louisiana.

Oct. 31, 2015: I will sign “Haunted Lafayette” and her other books — “Exploring Cajun Country,” “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History” and “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets” — from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, at Barnes & Noble Lafayette.

Learn tales of 'Haunted Lafayette' Thursday at Vermilionville

            It’s that time of year, when the sun’s descent toward the horizon produces shadows long and sinewy. And if you follow the old Celtic calendar, and the origins of Halloween, the veil between living and dead grows thin.

            Or maybe we just need an excuse to be scared.
            I’ll be telling ghost stories from my book Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Vermilionville for the presentation “Ghosts Along the Bayou.” And if that’s not enticing enough, Donner-Peltier Distillery of Thibodaux will be handing out samples — to adults — of their Rougarou rum. Come out and hear about Lafayette’s haunted spots.
                         Looking for some more haunted suggestions to keep you up at night?

             Sarah Bartlett travels the world for ghost tales, vampire myths, UFO sightings, sacred spots and more in National Geographic’s “Guide to the World’s Supernatural Places.” There’s well-known sites such as Machu Picchu, Stonehenge and Area 51 but lesser-known odd places to pique your interest, such as the astronomical Ocmulgee in Macon, Georgia, the more than 30 labyrinths of Zayatsky Island or the Manchester, Vermont, church where a dead woman’s organs were burned in the hopes of releasing her husband’s current ill wife from a vampire’s grip. Naturally, the Deep South is well represented. Spotlighting 250 sites, the book offers a great trip around the world for lovers of the mysterious and the unexplained.
            Grab your EMF readers and go. Travel writer Kathleen Walls, a native of New Orleans, takes readers on a Southern road trip with “Hosts With Ghosts: Haunted Historic Hotels in the Southeast.” In addition to well-researched ghost tales at numerous inns and hotels of the Southeast, Walls offers a travel guide to the areas mentioned, plus a handy resource list. It’s the perfect addition to a southeastern road trip ghost tour.

Cheré Coen is an award-winning travel writer specializing in the Deep South. She is the author of "Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History," "Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana" and "Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana" and co-author of "Magic's in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets." She also writes Louisiana romances under Cherie Claire, including "A Cajun Dream" and "The Letter." Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.

Who haunts the Opelousas Museum?

Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center

            Living history roams the Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center, walking among the Clifton Chenier zydeco records, Civil War relics and around the barbershop chair where Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde fame got his last haircut. There are specters who refuse to leave the 1935 building, whose incarnations included the Sibille’s Funeral Home, a church and the Opelousas Library.

            Director Delores Guillory had no idea of the building’s history when she first started working at the Opelousas Museum. Her first clue came when she was alone in the building, sitting at her desk inside the office.

            “The front door opened and it closed,” Guillory said. “I looked over and nobody came. I looked at the door and there was no one.”

            Guillory even went so far as to check the outside porch and sidewalk and both were empty. When her supervisor returned, she recalled the story. To her surprise, the supervisor laughed.

            “That’s when she told me about it once being a funeral home,” Guillory said.

            Other events followed, including hearing startling noises like something falling from the wall. Once a loud noise emanated from the Civil War room and Guillory smelled cigarettes after investigating.

            Another time she was sitting in the hallway when the back door opened and closed. At first she chalked it up to the security guard who liked to tease her about the ghosts, but when she called him up on the phone, he was the park.

            “I said okay, that was our ghost again.”

The Civil War Room

            Others have experienced sightings as well. One employee spotted something white and whispy moving across her line of sight by the Civil War Room.

            “All of sudden something went across cold cold and she smelled perfume,” Guillory explained. “We told her about the ghosts. The next day she quit.”

            A worker performing community service at the museum halted at the mannequin in the Mardi Gras display, a man bedecked in a long mink and velvet robe. The elaborate robe was created for Nolan Simmons, who reigned as King Orme XLVIII in the 1994 Carnival season in Opelousas. Today, it adorns the mannequin inside a glass case, with a mirror behind so visitors can view all sides.

            “She said I have to get out of here,” Guillory related of the woman’s experience at the mannequin. “She said there’s a bad vibe in here.”

            Some people halt at the front door, feeling the paranormal vibe and refusing to set foot inside, Guillory said.

            Louisiana Spirits paranormal investigators spent an evening in the museum and heard unusual sounds they couldn’t account for, but they did debunk the mystery of the moving dolls in the display cases. The dolls were not laying flat within the cases so footsteps in the hall caused the cabinets to shake and move, said Jennifer Broussard of Louisiana Spirits. Investigator Charles Gardner managed to get one doll to turn completely as he walked in the hallway, he said.

This story was an excerpt from "Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana" by Cheré Coen, published by The History Press.

Urban myth or cauchemar?

            When I first moved to Lafayette 10 years ago I asked around about local ghost legends. I was told a young University of Louisiana-Lafayette student had fallen to her death in an elevator shaft, was beheaded and now haunts the dorms, although a friendly restless spirit.

            It sounded too much like an urban myth, so I didn’t pay it much attention.

            Later, I heard another that reeked of a typical college tall tale — a young girl committed suicide in Huger Hall and the student who moved into the room committed the same act exactly one year later. The administration was so alarmed by the acts that they boarded up the room.

            I ended up finding a UL dorm story that made my hairs stand on end — including voice phenomenum caught on an Iphone — and I included that in my book “Haunted Lafayette,” but I still had my doubts about those girls.

            Then I met two former UL students at a booksigning who remembered the boarded-up room at Huger Hall and the water stains that never would go away. According to my new sources, the storied girls committed suicide by hanging themselves on a water pipe.

            And here’s what I wrote in my chapter on UL:

            “Baker resident Ariella Robinson complained of the dorm being haunted, but of what she had no idea.

            “ ‘So I was at the dorm and I would hear what sounded like someone clawing at the wall in my suite mate’s bathroom,’ Robinson related. ‘Then I would open the door and no one would be in there or outside the bathroom. And it would continue for days. Then I called a CA (Community Assistant) to come look at possible water damage on my ceiling in my room. The CA thinks I am crazy. He says it is just the pipes. I don’t think so. Then on top of that the watermark on my ceiling looks like someone was walking on my ceiling, more like standing upside down on my ceiling.”

            Do you have a photo of the old UL dorms, possibly with a room boarded up? I’d love to see one.

Baker-Huger today, courtesy of http://www.audgllc.com/.

            In the meantime, is it a young girl haunting the dorms or a cauchemar?

            Again, from my book: “In French, cauchemar means nightmare, but in Cajun Country it could refer to a spirit that torments people by riding on their chests or backs.

            “ ‘A cauchemar…is a witch that rides a sleeping person all night, until the victim is worn out,’ wrote Mary Alice Fontenot in the January 25, 1981, Crowley Post-Signal, quoting Cajun residents and their beliefs. ‘For this reason believers in the cauchemar are warned not to sleep on their backs, as this position is an invitation to the cauchemar.’

            “In a 1985 article in The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, the late folklorist Dr. Patricia Rickles of Southwestern Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette), described cauchemar as ‘a nightmare spirit that chokes and suffocates people in their beds.’ Rickles claimed that numerous people she had interviewed over the years believed in them, including one who felt its presence in the university dorms of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
            “ ‘Lately, there was a student on campus who left school and went home because he said there was a cauchemar in the dorm,’ Rickles is quoted as saying in the article. ‘And he wasn’t staying somewhere there was a cauchemar.’ ”

 Cheré Coen is the author of "Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana" published by The History Press.

A 'canaille' ghost named Amelie

The room where the taping took place.

            Being October, I was asked by KATC-TV in Lafayette for an interview on ghost so we decided upon Aaah! T’Freres Bed and Breakfast, a chapter in my book and an establishment that houses a Cajun ghost named Amelie. Owner Maugie Pastor suggested we do the taping in the front bedroom, a room that gets the most activity.

            Maugie commented that within the last year two men had felt a heaviness in their chests while in this room. The two men had reported the same feeling but separately; they didn’t know each other. I remarked how some haunted places I visited in the research for the book had set off my asthma, although T’Frere’s was not one of them.

            We began taping and Maugie cited numerous paranormal events that led her to believe there was a ghost in the house, one named Amelie and the sister of Oneziphore Comeaux, the original owner. (His nickname was T-Frere, or “Little Brother,” hence the name of the B&B).

            Suddenly, I felt a tightness in my chest and became lightheaded, but I didn’t say anything since they were taping. Then the camera clicked off. We laughed that it was Amelie and began again. The camera once again clicked off. The battery was at 95 percent and everything in working order so why it stopped was a puzzle. It happened several times more.

            “She’s a canaille,” Maugie explained, Cajun for a mischievous person.

            Later, the reporter interviewed me on the porch and this time the camera failed to work at all. He changed out the battery and everything worked fine. Still, the original battery was fully charged. And lest you think the battery the culprit, the reporter included the phenomenon in his broadcast.

            It’s a fabulous bed and breakfast and Maugie a gracious host. Their “ooh la la” breakfasts are renowned, items such as cheese-stuffed crepes topped with homemade jam or Bananas Foster. In the afternoons, Maugie serves cocktails and crab canapés.

            If you stay at T’Frere’s, however, you might receive lagniappe, a Louisiana word for “a little something extra.” And that lagniappe may go by the name of Amelie!
            You can read the full story of Amelie in “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and view the 2013 TV broadcast here.
            For an article describing my experiences with Louisiana Spirits paranormal investigators at T'Frere's on Sept. 16, 2014, click here.

Une Grosse Bétaille

“If you hear a dog howling, someone you know is dying.” — Kaplan superstition

Excerpted from “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” by Cheré Dastugue Coen, published by The History Press

            In the 1940s there was a jaguarandi reported in Florida, a wild cat native to Central and South America and sometimes into southern Texas. The animal sports short and rounded ears, short legs, an elongated body and a long tail.

            When an article surfaced of the Florida cat in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Louise Veronica Olivier or Arnaudville contacted the paper to report of her own unusual hairy animal — this one sported along Bayou Bourbeau in St. Landry Parish, just north of Lafayette. She called her creature “une grosse bétaille.”

            The Rev. Jules O. Daigle in “A Dictionary of the Cajun Language” defines bétaille as “almost all unknown bugs or animals, also for humans to denote bestial qualities.” “The Dictionary of Louisiana French” has several definitions for the word, but also bug, worm, beast and monster. Naturally, a gross bétaille is an animal or bestial man of large proportions.

            Olivier explained that Rameau Quebedeaux had spotted une grosse bétaille at midnight in June 1942, but no one believed him, chalking it up to “whiskey talk.” Then Antoine Lanclos admitted to seeing a dog “with evil intent” while plowing his fields.

            “He said he had called his own dog ‘a la recousse,’” Olivier recounted in The Times-Picayune article. “In the interval between his dog and the encroacher, Antoine made good his escape.”

            Unfortunately, his dog was never seen again.

            Someone in nearby Prairie Basse claimed a wolf was killing the resident dogs and “dragging them to the bayou banks.” Chickens and turkeys were disappearing and cows and calves being spooked for no reason. As word spread, people avoiding going out at night.

            One night a group of residents were gathered together when they heard the distressing cries of dogs. They grabbed their guns and headed out. “In the thicket of weeds and brambles was la grosse bétaille feasting on Ti Louie’s Fido,” Olivier recalled.

            The animal was described as resembling a police dog with a large mouth and neck, heavy coat and a slender body that tapered to the rear. When approached that night it let out a ferocious growl. The resident who plugged the creature when it let out a yell later recounted the story to the parish priest.

            “As they also confirmed the facts for all who know the French-speaking folk who live along Louisiana’s bayou: For while they might stretch the truth in ordinary conversation, none would have dreamed of speaking except in utter sobriety to le bon Pere who ministers to all their spiritual needs,” Olivier concluded.

A Mischievous Child: The Ghost of Nash’s Restaurant

Nash's Restaurant

Excerpted from “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” by Cheré Dastugue Coen, published by The History Press and available in bookstores.

             Nash’s Restaurant in Broussard serves up fine Creole dishes, whether inside the elegant Victorian home or on the enclosed veranda that skirts the entire front of the house. It was the perfect lunch spot for a mini family reunion when my sister visited and my niece celebrated a birthday, so along with my mother and me, we made a lively foursome. And because the beautiful old home is, well, old, we decided to inquire if there were any family members lingering behind.

            Our waitress smiled knowingly. She’s had a few experiences, she said, and so have other members of the staff. Mostly waitresses hear their names being called or items moving about unexpectedly. In the women’s bathroom once, our waitress witnessed the hand dryer turning on twice without cause.

            The activity is playful and harmless, she insisted, like that of a precocious child. It could be that of young Edmond Comeaux.

            The Victorian-style house with a wraparound porch and an onion-shaped cupola was built around 1908 for Edmond Joseph Comeaux and his wife, Cecile Lena St. Julien. Inside is a gracious staircase leading to the second floor, fireplaces and an exquisite bar area. Comeaux operated a mercantile in town and served as postmaster of Broussard. The couple had one child, Walter St. Julien Comeaux, who married Carmen Emilie Labbe. Walter Comeaux and his wife had eight children, one of whom was Edmund Joseph Comeaux II.

Edmund Comeaux at Nash's Restaurant

            The restaurant is currently owned by Nash Barreca, a third-generation restaurateur from New Orleans. According to “The Haunted Table” by Simonette Berry in the October 2011 issue of Our Louisiana magazine, his wife, Jenny, chalked up the paranormal activity in the restaurant to the mischievous child “Edmond.”

            “He died in the home of a fever when he was only four, according to his brother Mr. Walter, the previous owner,” Berry writes.

            Jenny Barreca has witnessed chairs moving and glass breaking of their own accord and the sounds of a child running up and down the hallway laughing, according to the article.

            “Both customers and wait staff have encountered him, and a few have even seen him,” she is quoted as saying.

            Visitors to Nash’s Restaurant can catch a firm glimpse of the boy — his portrait hangs in the hallway.

Cheré Coen is the author of “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Tour of Historic Acadiana,” both published by The History Press.

Haunted Lafayette at Lafayette Barnes & Noble!

"Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana," is now available at Barnes & Noble, 5707 Johnston St. in Lafayette. I'll be doing a booksigning there from noon to 1 p.m. on Oct. 26!

Cheré Coen is an award-winning travel writer specializing in the Deep South. She is the author of "Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History," "Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana" and "Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana" and co-author of "Magic's in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets." She also writes Louisiana romances under Cherie Claire, including "A Cajun Dream" and "The Letter." Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.