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“One day I’m going to die and take the whole town with me.” - Julia Brown

The Manchac wetlands, about a half hour northwest of New Orleans, are thick with swamp ooze and a curse laid down by an old voodoo priestess called Julia Brown.

Some say that anyone entering the swamp should beware a more supernatural threat—the curse of local voodoo queen Julia Brown. Brown, sometimes also called Julie White or Julia Black, is described in local legend as a voodoo priestess who lived at the edge of the swamp and worked with residents of the town of Frenier. She was known for her charms and her curses, as well as for singing eerie songs with her guitar on her porch. One of the most memorable (and disturbing) went: "One day I’m going to die and take the whole town with me." Brown's song is documented.

The Voodoo priestess Julie White[Brown] was more reclusive than most, although no less feared. It was said that White enjoyed trying to predict the demise of surrounding towns as she sat on the porch of her swamp shack, where she spent much of her time. She would also make arcane gestures at those who passed by, give people the evil eye, sing spooky songs about the day of her death, and generally freak people out. Despite her eccentric ways, White was seen as a potent oracle, and many looked to her predictions for signs of impending doom or misfortune. She was also known to deal out curses to those who wronged her, making her a figure who most people of the time were absolutely terrified of. One of her most persistent predictions was that there would be some sort of deadly cataclysmic disaster when she passed on, and she is often quoted as having said “One day I’m gonna die, and I’m gonna take all of you with me.” Chillingly, shortly before she died in 1915, White chanted this over and over again, and a horrible hurricane happened to hit the town on the day of her crowded funeral, causing a devastating tidal wave that swept through to kill hundreds of people and decimate three entire villages. *

That all changed on September 29, 1915, when a massive hurricane swept in from the Caribbean. In Frenier, where Julia lived, on the day od her funeral. The storm surge rose 13 feet, and the winds howled at 125 miles an hour. Many of the townsfolk sought refuge in the railroad depot, which collapsed and killed 25 people. Altogether, close to 300 people in Louisiana died, with almost 60 in Frenier and Ruddock alone. When the storm cleared on October 1, Frenier, Ruddock, and Napton had been entirely destroyed—homes flattened, buildings demolished, and miles of railway tracks washed away. One of the few survivors later described how he’d clung to an upturned cypress tree and shut his ears against the screams of those drowning in the swamp.

The funeral was scheduled … and ‘Aunt’ Julia had been placed in her casket and the casket in turn had been placed in the customary wooden box and sealed. At 4 o’clock, however, the storm had become so violent that the people left the house in a stampede, abandoning the corpse. The corpse was found Thursday and so was the wooden box, but the casket never has been found. - New Orleans Times-Picayune from October 2, 1915

The hurricane seemed to come out of nowhere. But if you listen to the guides who take tourists into the Manchac swamp, the storm was the result of the wrath of Julia Brown. Brown, they say, laid a curse on the town because she felt taken for granted—a curse that came true when the storm swept through on the day of her funeral and killed everyone around. On certain tours, the guides take people past a run-down swamp graveyard marked "1915"—it’s a prop, but a good place to tell people that Brown’s ghost still haunts the swamp, as do the souls of those who perished in the hurricane.

* https://neworleanskayakswamptours.com/julie-white/

Passages from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/88132/legend-and-truth-voodoo-priestess-who-haunts-louisiana-swamp