Origin of the House:

Who made China House? The neighbors have a few theories of their own. The top story of the town? Many believe that China House was it was created by the devil. How else would this house stay so beautiful year after year? Some of the neighbors believed that the house was a gift of love. A young man tried to woo over a lady from her older boyfriend. He could never have her heart, so he made a deal with the devil to make her such a beautiful house as a wedding present. At first, the idea seemed next to impossible. The location sat near a swamp. Most people would not even going up that hill.

“Why would you make a house there?” his colleagues asked.

“This location is closer to the heavens,” he said. His friends thought that he was insane. The young man didn’t listen and began the project right away. He used the money from his late grandfather. At first, this project never got off the ground. He kept running into one problem after another. The weather conspired against him. Workers either got sick, quit, or died. Mosquitoes stopped them from working. Pretty soon, the money was running out. The young man sank to his knees, defeated. I can’t do this… He paused when he heard panting. He lifted his head and noticed a big black dog staring at him.

“Hello?” the young man asked. The dog stared him down, panting. The human in front of him, tilted his head, puzzled.

“What do you want from me?” he asked. The dog looked at him, head titled. The man reached forward and patted it on the head. Suddenly, a chilling voice filled his head.

“I can help you with your house!” it hissed. The tone chilled him to the bone. The young man stared deep into the dog’s dark, empty eyes. Any normal person would’ve turned and run away, but the young man took the deal. In three weeks’ time, China House was born. This wasn’t the only story, however.

Others believe that slaves made it with the house. They belonged to a cruel master. He wanted a fancy house for his new bride. Like the last story before, the conditions were less than ideal for building anything on that property. Their master wouldn’t listen. He just had to have his house. The foundation kept cracking and sinking into the ground. Frustrated, the master went to a gypsy for help. She gave him rather disturbing advice.

“Flesh and bones will make your house stand,” she said. As you can predict, the slaves ended up being murdered and used as support for China House. Still, this isn’t the only story left, however.

A handful say a voodoo priestess made the house. In her glory days, many men admired her. She burned through them like hot flames. As she got older, the lovers faded away from her. Some even started to betray her. The last man really broke her heart in the coldest way possible. As predicted, she decided to get revenge. The priestess hurt her ex-lover and his new bride in the worst way possible. Their newborn baby disappeared from his bassinet in the middle of the night. Her ex’s wife then died of a mysterious illness of the heart. It didn’t take long for everyone else close to him to die off one by one. Where did the bodies go? The priestess built China House on top of their flesh and bones. Still, there are more stories about how that monstrous beauty of a house came to be.

An elderly couple believe that the devil himself made the house. His hand reached up from Hell and formed the house. From his mouth came the plaster to hold it all together as he built his death trap in a single night. For each sin that he swallowed up in Hell, it went straight into every single brick of China House. Over a thousand sins were all it took to build such a glorious monster. It made sense with all of screaming that could be heard in the walls in the earlier days. Still, this story alone wasn’t enough to explain away everything. There were still more stories about the house. Some had an easier explanation to them.

Non-believers say it wasn’t the devil, but maybe a corrupt governor to hide mistresses. He didn’t want his wife and the people to know about his dirt. So, the perverted old man had to build a secret love nest for his loose women. Again, the foundation wouldn’t stand. So the workers turned to a rather unorthodox way of building. Anyone that the governor didn’t like would just end up missing. His rivals didn’t last for a week. Many spoke, but no one dared to lay accusations on governor and with good reason too. Even some of his mistresses would end up vanished into the house as it built up brick by brick. The governor himself didn’t complain as long as he got the house that he wanted. Still, others in the present day neighborhood want to jump onto the supernatural theories surrounding China House.

Still, some go with the voodoo angle of this story. They believed that the house was cursed with voodoo even when it was planned. These all varied in detail, but came back to voodoo and Papa Legba. Some even believed that this was the house that Papa Legba appeared in every night. Maybe, he was holding the lost souls hostage within China House. Maybe, the ghosts were part of the curse that he cast upon said house. That would make since due to the fact that no one really knew who the house’s first causality was. Most of the people in the neighborhood placed the house in the early 1600’s hundreds.

Whatever the case, China House had an undeniable presence over the neighborhood where it currently sat.