Ghosts along the Texas Coast (26 page)

In 1866, when Jasper was just recovering from the awful losses suffered during the Civil War, a terribly tragedy struck the big house up on the hill.

Lacy Merritt was a beautiful and popular young woman of about twenty-one years of age at the time. Many young men had come calling, and she had had numerous proposals of marriage. But only one young man interested her in the slightest. Unfortunately, he did not return her affections. One evening, she stood talking with him on the front porch of the house. Heartbroken by his lack of romantic feelings towards her, she suddenly pulled out a pistol and mortally wounded herself.

This was a thoroughly shocking event in the small town where no woman had ever committed suicide. Her youth and beauty made the event even sadder, and her death was the talk of the town for a very long time.

According to Marshall's account, a minister from Milam in Sabine County wrote a letter to the
Texas Baptist Herald
on October 3, 1866, that discussed the tragedy. The man, who signed his name only as “Paul,” wrote:

A sad occurrence had transpired at Jasper three days previous to the sitting of the court. A young lady named “Merritt,” either tired of the burden of life, or goaded by life's ills into a state of frenzy, deliberately shot herself! The causes that led to this dreadful act of suicide, are known only to the Great Judge of All. But as far as outward demonstrations can evidence, there appeared to be a combination of causes. A young man . . . romance novel reading . . . love . . . love slighted . . . hopes blighted . . . then despair . . . madness . . . and the awful leap into eternity . . . self condemned and self murdered!

Paul expressed his feelings of self-revulsion “too revolting to contemplate,” unless it could serve as “an awful warning to youth and maidens” about trifling with each other's affections. Pointing out the evils of novel reading, he advocated reading instead “more of the truths of inspiration” which would offer comfort “in every extremity of life's trials.”

Soon after the death of her daughter, Harriet Merritt closed her little school and left town. The owner of the house had difficulty renting it out to anyone. People would lease it, move in, and very rapidly move out again. Each short-term resident reported hearing strange sounds, such as voices heard in the night, footsteps, and other unexplainable noises, leading them all to believe that the place was haunted.

In time no one would live there at all. The house sat vacant, rapidly deteriorating. Marshall stated, “In truth it looked like we think a haunted house is supposed to look. On the road leading up to the old cemetery north of town, its forbidding appearance by the very nature of its weatherbeaten boards, sagging shutters, and gaping windows was heightened by a surrounding of mammoth old pin oak trees, moss-hung and mistletoe infested. Night travelers gave it an especially wide berth.”

Finally, a former schoolteacher, L.D. Scarborough, attracted by the low price at which the owner offered the place up for sale, bought the house. He moved his family in, and the ghosts, to whom Scarborough had declared the house “off-limits,” moved out. Scarborough's daughter, “Miss Sadie,” became a schoolteacher and educated many a Jasper student in her nearly fifty-year teaching career. She loved to talk about the old haunted house she had once lived in.

The house was torn down in 1923, and after her marriage “Miss Sadie” built another house on the very same spot. That location is now 731 North Main Street.

Strange, isn't it? Schoolteachers seemed to be the only people who lived any length of time at that location.

Docia Williams

When you read these legends, it might be they'll make

You shiver with fear, you'll quiver and quake;

For they're legends of things we cannot explain

As weird and as mystic as legerdemain.

Strange, unexplained things that go “bump in the night,”

Creatures, with features, that elucidate fright!

Like Llorona, who dwells in the rivers and streams,

Luring her victims with sorrowful screams.

And that great glowing orb that lights up the trail

Where once ran a train on a long silver rail . . .

And horsemen that ride in the dark of the night

Headless, and soundless, a most dreadful sight!

There's the woman who roams to Ben Bolt and back,

They say she was hanged in her garments of black;

When the moon rises full and the night's deathly still

And shadows fall over the forest and hill,

There are “things” out there lurking we don't comprehend . . .

Their stories are here. Just read them, my friend.

According to Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, one definition of the word, “legend,” is “a story coming down from the past, especially one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable.”

This chapter includes “legends,” stories that have been around South Texas a long time. Some go back over a hundred years. They have been told by different people in different versions, yet all are recognizable.

Did you ever play the old parlor game of “gossip,” where the players would sit in a circle, and one person would whisper a short “episode” to the next person, who would repeat it to the next, and so on, until it reached the last player? This player would have to repeat what was told to him. Many times, the “story” was almost unrecognizable from that which began with player number one!

Legends are a little that way, especially if they were not written down and were handed down through the generations by word of mouth. That is why we often find more than one version, or “spin-off” of a story.

Just about all the stories in this chapter are well-known, loved legends about the dark side of South Texas . . . the ghostly side. To delete them from a collection of ghost stories would do them a terrible injustice, and that is why they appear in this, the final chapter of
Ghosts Along the Texas Coast
.

From the depths of the river, the sad mournful cry

Of La Llorona is heard, to those who pass by,

But no one can save her, forever she's there,

Luring her victims, her sorrows to share.

She's dressed all in white, a temptress so pretty,

And that's what she wants; your trust and your pity.

Keep your children away from the rivers and streams;

Don't let them he lured by her sorrowful screams.

She's waiting to claim your child for her own . . .

So hurry away . . . leave La Llorona alone!

“La Llorona,” which means “weeping woman,” is as well known to Hispanic communities in South Texas as the “boogeyman” is to Anglo cultures. And just as symphonic works often feature variations on a theme, this story appears in many variations, as it has passed down by word of mouth for generations. To write a ghost story book . . . any ghost story book, about this part of the country and not include La Llorona would be unpardonable!

In spite of the variations of the story and the strange twists and turns it might take, there seems to always be an overlying theme, a lesson in morality and safety that is still used to advantage by many Hispanic mothers to teach their offspring to follow the straight and narrow pathway!

The story goes way back in time. Before Hernando Cortes and his band of Spanish conquistadors arrived, the Aztec Indians in Mexico are said to have heard the nightly, ghostly screams of “Cihuacoatl,” a pre-Columbian earth goddess who ruled both childbirth and death. Her cries of “My children, we must flee,” echo through the stone canyons of Tenochtitlan. Some years later, her warnings came to fruition with the arrival of Cortes and his men. Aiding him in his conquest of the Aztecs was “La Malinche” (which meant “the tongue”), his beautiful
Indian interpreter and mistress whose role of translator helped bring about the downfall of her own people. Many years later, Cortes announced to Malinche that he would return to Spain without her, but he would take their son with him. She pierced her heart and that of her little son's with an obsidian knife. Today, many Hispanics, some of whom are of Aztec descent, believe “La Malinche” and “La Llorona” are one and the same woman.

Legends concerning the weeping woman seem to be most prevalent in far South Texas, although she is also well known in New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest. John Igo, respected in San Antonio as a poet, writer, and educator, told me he has long been fascinated with stories of La Llorona and shared some of the versions with me. He said the stories go back almost 300 years.

One of the versions of La Llorona's background says she was a young woman married in a big cathedral in Mexico. She wore a beautiful white wedding gown. She promised that she would give her firstborn son to the church to become a priest. However, when she had children, she decided this was not what she wanted for her offspring, so she went back on her word, and her firstborn son was not delivered up into the priesthood. As a consequence, her house caught fire, the children all burned up, and she herself was burned and deformed, her face taking on the characteristics of a donkey, or horse. She is doomed to wander the earth searching for her children. Her searches seem to center around creeks and rivers. Women are said to have seen her, but men mostly just hear her plaintive cries for help. Some men have drowned trying to reach her. A dim figure in white has been seen near creeks by many people, according to Mr. Igo. He said in San Antonio, people living near the confluence of Alazon Creek and Martinez Creek have reported hearing her cries. She is said to call out “Mi hijo! Mi hijo!” (“my son! my son!”) from a river or stream. Those who heed her calls and venture to rescue her are often drowned in the attempt. Those who have survived are said to have seen “something white” floating on top of the water. For some reason, she is seen, and heard, most often on foggy or rainy nights.

Mr. Igo said the Texas Folklore Society has done a great deal of research into the legends of La Llorona, and I searched out
Legendary Ladies of Texas
, a publication of the Texas Folklore Society XLIII in cooperation with the Texas Foundation for Women's Resources, where
I enjoyed reading much interesting material in a chapter written by John O. West, entitled “The Weeping Woman.”

There was another version of La Llorona's story in the October 1983 edition of
Texas Highways Magazine
. The author, Jane Simon Ammeson, is a Corpus Christi psychologist. This is what she had to say:

Stories of beautiful women who have been wronged are many. Supposedly, their ghosts walk at night, searching for justice. La Llorona, the Weeping Woman, can be seen walking along several Texas rivers. She is the ghost of Luisa, a beautiful peasant girl who was courted by the wealthy, aristocratic Don Muno Montes Claro. When his family refused to allow him to marry Luisa, Don Muno bought her a little house. For six years he lived a “double life,” spending his days tending his estates and family business and his nights with Luisa. They had three children and were happy, until one evening Don Muno didn't come to the little house.

Luisa waited that night and many more before summoning up the courage to walk to the big mansion where Don Muno lived. She begged to see Don Muno, but a servant told her it was impossible. Don Muno was getting married to a wealthy woman of his own class. Luisa ran from the house, but not before seeing her lover and his new wife as they made their way from the church. In a frenzy, she rushed home and murdered her children, throwing their bodies into the river.

She was taken to jail and died there, crazed, calling for the little ones she had killed. On the day she died, Don Muno, in his fancy house with his new wife, mysteriously died also.

Some say that Luisa was freed from jail after killing her children and she lived a carefree and abandoned life (instead of dying in jail). When she died, and went to heaven, Saint Peter asked her where her children were. Shamefaced, she looked away from him. Her children were in the river, she replied, so Saint Peter sent her back to search, endlessly, for her lost little ones. Even now, people warn their children to stay away from the river because “La Llorona” may be there, just waiting to drag them under, sending them to the same fate she sent her own offspring.

Another version of the La Llorona story as told around Laredo from
La Voz Latina de Kuno
, the April 1991 edition, says that in the barrio in an area called the “devil's corner” a very poor woman lived. She and her three little children lived in a miserable hovel that seemed to hang on a cliff overlooking the river. Her husband spent most of his time and money in bars over across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo. The poor lady washed and ironed for people, and sometimes she was even forced to beg for money to feed her children. She herself ate very little. She didn't want much for herself, but it broke her heart to see her little ones suffer.

She kept hoping her husband would come back and help them. He finally did come back, but only to tell her that he had found a new woman and would not be coming back to her or the children he had fathered.

Her heartache was too much to bear. She looked at the peaceful Rio Grande flowing below her little shack. Poor little angels . . . her children would be so much better off in heaven where they would never go hungry again. She dropped them into the river, and then smiled for the first time in months as they disappeared into the depths of the river. She could just see them all three with a shiny halo already, up in heaven where God would surround them with love. She went to bed happy and fell asleep.

The next morning, the terrible realization of what she had done hit her. She missed her little ones. Life was nothing without them, and so she threw herself into the river and drowned as they had done.