By morning, only the chimney and foundation stones remained. Local firefighters who responded to the blaze reported hearing singing as the structure burned. Hundreds of voices raised in what sounded like celebration or perhaps lamentation, though no living people were present. The land itself remained unused.
For decades, it sat vacant, gradually being reclaimed by the Louisiana wilderness. Trees grew through the foundation. Vines covered the remaining stone. The fields where enslaved people had labored under brutal conditions transformed into swamp land as though the earth itself was trying to erase the memory of what had occurred there.
But erasure proved impossible. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, accounts continued to emerge of encounters with something at the former Bellamont site. Hunters reported seeing a woman in antebellum dress standing among the ruins, disappearing when approached. Travelers passing on the nearby road claimed their horses refused to move past certain points.
And consistently, year after year, people reported finding objects that should not have been there. Small bundles of cloth containing bones and dried herbs, items that those familiar with African-American folk traditions recognized as conjure work. The most significant discovery came in 1923 when a team from Tulane University conducted an archaeological survey of plantation sites along the river. At Bellamont, they uncovered something that had not appeared on any property map or record.
Beneath the remains of the main house foundation, they found a large stone chamber carefully constructed from materials not native to Louisiana. Inside the chamber, they discovered hundreds of small clay vessels, each sealed with wax and marked with symbols that anthropologists later identified as coming from various West African traditions. Yoruba, Igbo, Ashanti, and others. When carefully opened, the vessels contained soil apparently collected from different locations.
Each sample labeled in multiple languages with what appeared to be names and dates. The research team's leader, Professor Marcus Dequa, documented his findings in a report that was quickly classified as sensitive by university administrators and locked away in special collections. That report, finally made public in 1998, contained Professor Dequa's disturbing conclusion. What we have discovered appears to be a systematic collection of soil samples from grave sites, specifically the unmarked graves of enslaved Africans throughout the region.
The dates span from 1720 to 1854. The level of organization suggests a project that would have required decades to complete and a depth of knowledge about burial locations that seems impossible for any single individual to possess. Most troubling is what we found at the center of the chamber. A large ceramic jar sealed and marked with the name Deline in precise script.
Inside we found not soil but what appears to be a ledger identical to the one described in historical accounts as having belonged to James Lavo. However, the entries continue beyond 1854 listing names and dates that extend to the present day. And at the very end in handwriting that matches the earlier entries, a single statement. "The accounting continues.
Justice is patient but inevitable. All debts will be collected." The university sealed the chamber and quietly returned the contents. Official records state that the items were reinterred according to proper archaeological protocols, though no specific details were provided.
The site was designated protected wetlands, ensuring no further development or excavation would occur. In 1967, during the height of the civil rights movement, something remarkable happened at the former Bellamont site.
On the night of August 19th, exactly 113 years after the events documented in this account, over a thousand people spontaneously gathered at the location. They came without organization or announcement, drawn by what many described as an inexplicable compulsion to be present. Among those present was Sarah Bowmont, the great great granddaughter of Josiah, the field hand who had spoken with Deline about his sold children. Sarah had become a prominent civil rights organizer and she later described her experience in an interview preserved in the Library of Congress oral history collection.
I didn't know why I needed to be there that night. I just knew I did. When I arrived, there were already hundreds of people present, black and white, young and old. No one was speaking.
We just stood there in the darkness. And then precisely at midnight, we all heard it singing. Hundreds of voices raised in harmony, though none of us were making the sounds. It wasn't frightening.
It was beautiful. It sounded like ancestors welcoming us, thanking us for remembering, for continuing the work of justice they began. And I swear on my life, I saw her. A tall, beautiful black woman standing at the center of where the main house once stood.
She was looking at all of us with these incredibly deep eyes. And I felt like she was taking measure of how far we'd come and how far we still had to go. Then she smiled, not a smile of satisfaction, but a smile of encouragement and faded into the darkness like smoke dissipating. When the singing stopped, we all stood there for a moment in silence.
Then someone started singing, "We Shall Overcome," and we all joined in. It felt like we were being given a blessing to continue the work. Like the spirits of those who had suffered were passing the torch to us, trusting us to keep pushing toward justice.
The site has since become an unofficial place of pilgrimage. People leave flowers, light candles, plant trees.
In 2004, a historical marker was installed, though the text is notably vague, mentioning only that a plantation once stood here, home to many enslaved people whose names and stories have been lost to time. But those who know the full story understand that the names were never truly lost. They were recorded. They were remembered.
And in ways both mysterious and unmistakable, they continue to demand acknowledgement. The most recent documented encounter occurred in 2019. A descendant of Charles Witmore, the planter who died after confronting Deline, visited the site as part of a personal quest to understand his family history. He had discovered his family's involvement in slavery through genealogical research and felt compelled to make some form of amends.