Julia Brown was a rootworker and hoodoo priestess who lived in the former town of La'Frenier, Louisiana, where she worked as a rootwork healer.
She was born into slavery in 1845, where she learned and inherited the practice of hoodoo through her family who likely consisted of Cajun healers, Houma tribesmen, and faith healers.
Julia was heavily relied upon in the towns she worked as a doctor since many within those towns were too poor to afford to visit hospitals.
Regardless of her life-saving assistance, Julia endured racial discrimination and was forced to live in horrid conditions on the outskirts of the town.
Prior to her death, Julia sang a song that gave a premonition that upon the day she died, so too would the town itself.
In October of 1915, Julia Brown died. During her funeral, the hurricane of 1915 occurred and obliterated the town of La'Frenier along with all of its residents. Today, La'Frenier only exists as a cemetery.
Recovered townsfolk are buried in a mass grave marked by white picket crosses. Julia Brown is buried at a separate location away from the townsfolk, closer to the swamp where her body was discovered after the storm of 1915. Today, it is believed that her spirit haunts the Manchac swamp that is now a massive gravesite. Nothing has been able to be built in the area since 1915, and the only way to reach the swamp today is through a guided boat tour.
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