Added to the bottom of The Witching Hour - The Mayfair House is a short video of the historical images of the First Street house taken in 1933 and in 1964. I put the black and white images into Playback.fm to see what would happen, and they aren't too bad! The images of the double parlor taken in 1933 are quite rich in color, and it's hard to tell what colors things actually were in a black and white photo.
The video is hosted on YouTube but you will need to go to that page of the Parlor to view it initially. If you have a YouTube channel with playlists, and you'd like to save the video to watch later, you can add any video in the Parlor to your playlist and view it from there as well.
I like to find new ways to display the content on the website. This one was fun because of the effects. It's a bit like going into the room, flipping the lights on and watching the room fill with color as the lights come on.
Speaking of history, there is another new page on the website that is still under construction, but you can see what's already there. The First Street Family Gallery has portraits of some of First Street's previous owners and residents. Seen here are Emory and Pamela Starr Clapp, and even a picture of Emory Clapp's father, Theodore "Parson" Clapp. Parson Clapp did not reside in the house but he can be found in the history of New Orleans, as well.
Emory Clapp died not in New Orleans, but in Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to his Find A Grave listing. Which means I am curious as to what Emory Clapp died of. As I might have mentioned on the Vampires and the Ocean State page, Colorado Springs had tuberculosis sanitoriums in the late 19th century due to its high altitude. It was believed that because higher altitudes tend to make blood move more sluggishly through the body, this sluggish movement would help slow the spread of tuberculosis through the body. This, it was hoped, would give patients at least a little bit better chance of survival.
Had these sanitariums begun by the time Clapp died? I will have to go back and look, but the obvious question here is, did Emory Clapp die of tuberculosis? Or did he happen to be in Colorado Springs for some other reason when he died there?
There is one more person I've listed on the family gallery: a man named Robert Slark Day. He had been married to Sarah Clapp, the adopted daughter of Emory and Pamela Starr Clapp. and it seems he and his wife would at times stay with her widowed mother in the house on First Street.
It sounds like this is where Day probably met his rather bizarre end in 1895. Even the New York Times did an article about it, but since I am not subscribed to that particular newspaper, I can't open it and read it. The article from the Times-Picayune in New Orleans was transcribed into Day's Find A Grave listing, which is linked in the page.
I have more resources to add regarding the Clapps. Also, I hope I can find more about Albert Hamilton Brevard, who had the First Street house built (and, it turns out, is also a relative of mine), especially photos. I was able to find out that Brevard is not interred in Louisiana, but in Missouri. More on that later...
#MayfairWitches A short video I made of historical photos of the First Street house transitioning from B&W to color, seen on https://t.co/I7qFFm3QWe and here: https://t.co/cMKAzynlur
— Come Into My Parlor...The Mayfair Witches (@mayfairparlor) March 23, 2023