Some years ago I was at the Pirates Alley Cafe in the French Quarter doing a late night wedding. A group of people from UK were there drinking and loud. I asked them why they were there and they said they were waiting to see the ghost of Jean Lafitte as they read on the web he haunts the alley. I disagreed as the Pirate Lafitte left New Orleans area for Galveston TX never to return. He swore he was going after a rift with the Governor WCC Claiborne over his help at the Battle of New Orleans. As I was just beginning to do weddings there I related a story about a young pirate Reginald Hicks. Pirate Hicks married his sweetheart in the Alley the night before the Battle of New Orleans and went to fight. He now returns every night to seek his bride. The romantic story seemed to catch on and today many people read it on the web and ask to be married in Pirates Alley. No one has caught a picture of him so I digitally created the above postcard of the Ghost in Pirates Alley.
I am amazed that a story created over a bottle of wine late one night in the French Quarter has traveled. I hear it discussed now and then and as I am intimately aware of its origin add to it all the time. The Ghost in Pirates Alley is now a classic French Quarter tale.