Myrtles Plantation (Series: Ghost Stories USA) 

For me (Tom), ghosthunting not only consists of investigating paranormal phenomena at locations or private households and getting to the bottom of the whole thing, but there is also a lot around it that can be extremely interesting - that's why I was concerned long before my active time as a ghost hunter with topics from the paranormal "world". The many stories of ghosts that exist in these and that locations all over the world make the topic extremely interesting for someone who is actively involved and of course the question that drives one is: Are these stories correct? Not least because of this, we were in the Hoia Baciu Forrest in Romania this year, which I will visit again next year to continue the investigation. But today it's about a different location.

One of these locations is the Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana (USA) - www.mytlesplantation.com

It was founded and partly built by General David Bradford at the end of the 18th century. In 1820 it passed into the possession of Clarke Woodruff, only to change ownership again just a few years, or to be more precise 14 years later. The new owner was Mr. Ruffin Stirling, who also completed the construction of the house. Today the main house is operated as a bed-and-breakfast pension. I'm nowhere near an art expert, but I would say the rooms are in an early Victorian style. One of the rooms you see here can be booked for 290 USD per night.

Incidentally, Myrtles Plantation is one of the most haunted locations. Why it bears this title will now be revealed:

Tales are circulating according to which the location should house between 10-12 ghosts, including the multitude of murders and the paranormal activities continue to this day.

Let's start with one of the most famous stories of the Myrtles Plantation and that is about the slave girl Chloe. She served in the home of Clarke and Sara Woodruff. The Woodruff's three children, Cornelia, Mary Octavia, and James, also lived in the house.

Unfortunately, there are different versions that led to what is supposed to have happened:
One version of the oral tradition is that Chloe was an involuntary lover of the landlord, Clarke Woodfruff, and such a "position" was difficult on all sides. In the case of the other slaves in a plantation, the mistress of the landlord, even if it was involuntary, was not always trustworthy and was considered a potential spy. Another story is that she was caught as a "house slave" while listening to business conversations at locked doors. Her ear was then cut off, which was a common method of punishment at the time. Since then she has always wore a green “turban” to cover the missing ear. I'll come back to the green turban later.
Over time, the family developed yellow fever. According to tradition, the slave girl Chloe is said to have baked a cake which, due to the mix-up of an ingredient, contained extracts from boiled and reduced oleander leaves. However, these were poisonous, so that Sara, Clarke's wife and two daughters died from them. There is one version of the story that says that she baked the cake to bring joy to the family, and another that she baked the cake because one of the daughters had a birthday. The traditions are also divided as to whether the poisonous ingredient got into the cake because of a mix-up or on purpose. In any case, the result was the death of the three people (although there is also a story that only tells of two dead).

As a result of this incident, Chloe is said to have been hanged by other slaves at the plantation and later thrown into the Mississippi to avoid collective punishment for fear of being linked to the deaths of the people.

Since then, a ghost with a green turban has been spotted on the plantation again and again. There is also an old b / w photo

which obviously shows a shape. This photo was taken by a visitor to the plantation who only saw the "figure" after the photo was developed.

There is also another recording from more recent times,

I will go into this further below, however, as I will subject them to an analysis. But now back:

Chloe's ghost is said to have been seen again and again in the following years and up to the present. It is also occasionally reported that children can also be heard screaming at the same time. While I am writing this, I am remembering a fact from my own paranormal investigation that we carried out in 2018 (state insane asylum Domjüchsee). There we also recorded “children's screams”, which turned out to be the call of a tawny owl (stands as a messenger of death). Therefore, there could also be the possibility that this child's screaming, which could be heard at the same time as Chloe appeared, could possibly be traced back to Tawny Owl calls. No explanation, just a possibility.

There is also a special story about Chloe that is said to have happened in 1987: A visitor who spent the night on the plantation is said to have been woken up in the middle of the night by a black woman with a candlestick with burning candles and a green turban on her head . After overcoming the initial panic, she tried to touch the visitor, who was lit by the flames of the candles, which then instantly dissolved and disappeared.

What is it about the stories about Chloe? Historically, it could be difficult as there is no evidence that they really existed. This is especially strange because the slave owners actually kept records of their “human property”, i.e. booking of income and expenses from buying or selling slaves. If there were births on plantations, this was also noted. Did it have a different name that changed due to the traditions? I don't know, but they are interesting traditions in and of themselves. Because there are many stories of slaves, especially in the southern states, who are said to keep reappearing on plantations or mansions. For example, I remember a story that I read a few years ago, where in the evening, always at a certain phase of the moon, you should see three hanged figures (slaves) on a tree that is still standing today.

Before I drift away from the actual story and tell something from other material about other ghost stories from the USA, I row back and as I mentioned above, there should be more ghosts on the plantation (up to 10-12) stay there.

Occasionally the ghost of a young Indian woman was seen in the house and the property. This is attributed to the fact that the house was built on an old former Indian burial site.

Children should also be noticed and seen again and again on the plantation and in the house. Visitors hear children's laughter and a young girl in a nightgown speaks during sightings. Could it be Cornelia Woodroff, one of the daughters who died from Chloe's poisoned cake? There is also a tradition that a young girl should visit people who spend the night in the house. Whether it is Cornelia Woodroff cannot be said with certainty, but two ghost girls could also appear on the plantation. Two? Yes, because there is a story according to which a girl died as part of a voodoo ritual at the end of the 1860s and is noticeable or appears every time someone sleeps in the room where she died.

During the American Civil War, which lasted until the mid-1860s, Northerners (Union) looted the property. There was a shootout and three of them are said to have died there. Even today it is said that a large blood stain in the form of a human body was "burned" into the wood in the house, which can still be seen today and does not lose its intensity, despite attempts to clean it. Unfortunately, during my research I could not find a picture of this blood stain; one comes across only one recording, but it comes from the Loyd Hall Plantagion in Cheneyville, Louisiana; the same state where Myrtles Plantagion is located. The stories of the Loyd Hall Plantagion will be covered in a future article.

Could the stories have been mixed up over time? Should anyone ever visit Myrtles Plantagion, I would be happy to receive a picture of the "blood stain".

In the entrance hall of the mansion there is a large mirror on the opposite side of the staircase. In this mirror, the three unfortunate victims of Chloe should show themselves again and again, either as shadowy figures or handprints. There should be eyewitness accounts and "evidence" photos. Here is a selection:

You can look at a large number of photos via Google if you enter the keywords “mirror myrtles plantagion ghost pictures”.

The appearance of the phenomena only in this one mirror should be traced back to this, and there is an old thesis that after the death of a person the mirror in a house was covered and only this one mirror was left out - whether intentional or accidental, cannot be said will. Briefly to the thesis: One goes to cover over all mirrors in a house, some also cover only the mirror in the death room, so that the soul of the deceased does not get lost on the way to the afterlife and then "disappears" in a mirror. In some theses, mirrors are also used as “transitional portals”. Mirrors appear in many stories, for example in the myth of "Bloody Mary" (you can find more information about this myth here).

Excursion ended and back to Myrtles Plantagion:

Some guests also report heavy steps on the stairs that go hand in hand with creaking of the banisters. But they end on the last third of the stairs, at the point where William Drew Winter collapsed dead after being fatally shot on the porch minutes earlier. He then dragged himself up the stairs, pulling himself up on the railing.

Paranormal activities are also said to occur in the room where the piano is located. Some visitors report that they hear the piano playing and that the same piece of music over and over again (which one could not be determined during the research). However, when they enter the room, the piano stops abruptly and if you go out, it starts playing again.

Other ghosts that are there come from victims of unfortunate deaths and accidents, for example a son of an owner is said to have died during a storm because he drowned in the adjacent river.

Finally, there is also a report of the sighting of a woman in a ball gown, who, however, made no interactions and went on her way. As a ghosthunter, interactions are referred to as intelligent or active ghosts. Passive spooks would be phenomena / sightings that always occur in exactly the same place at the same time. For example, the same route that is "walked" or step noises, such as the phenomena on the stairs, which I am writing about a little further above. If you look at all of the stories of the Myrtles Plantagion, there is a mixture of active (intelligent) and passive spooks.

Some of the stories made it into the TV series "Unsolved Mysteries" (S07E22 from min. 09:01). In this older series, which is structured in a similar way to “Haunted - Souls Without Peace” or “Paranormal Experiences - Stars Tell” (series at TLC / A&E), paranormal stories and cold cases are dealt with.

In connection with the TV series, it should be mentioned that the production team itself reported that unusual phenomena occurred. One of them was that during production the furniture in one of the rooms was rearranged and after returning there after a break, the crazy pieces of furniture were back in their old place. This phenomenon occurred several times. Unfortunately, no one came up with the idea of ​​setting up cameras and running them to record what was going on in the room while no one was there. This is incomprehensible to me, because it would have been the perfect opportunity to record something. So I regret to say that I have to put a lot of question marks into this story, which happened during the recording of the TV series.

Another phenomenon reported by members of the production team related to the fact that umpteen pieces of equipment failed to work.

Myrtles Plantagion was also the subject of paranormal investigations in well-known Ghosthunter series:

For example at Ghost Adventures (Geister Detektiven / Zak Bagans) S09E02 or 2005 at TAPS / Ghost Hunters (S02E01). Regarding the last-mentioned series, I unfortunately have to say that after the first season was already believable, but from the second season onwards there was a tendency to help out with some phenomena. For example, a photo taken in the former barracks of the slaves, where a table lamp is said to have moved; this sequence was later exposed as a fake. Here is the link to analyze the debunked video.

Before I write my final conclusion about one of the “most haunted locations”, I come back to my initial announcement regarding another photo.

This photo can also be found on the Myrtles Plantagion homepage and is from more recent times. Let me take the liberty of doing an analysis of this photo and can anticipate that it cannot really be classified as paranormal. At the first inspection it is noticeable that the ghost must be in the house, since the apparition is behind the plant and is "cut off" to the right of the door and below by the lower part of the window. So he is behind it. As you can see on closer inspection, the lower horizontal stripes of the dress lie in front of the struts of the glass border, so consequently the ghost would then be in front of the door. But where are the feet then? It cannot be a ghost that is only reflected in the window, because the horizontal stripes of the dress that “run” on the struts also speak against it. The struts do not have a mirror function. There are also other points that speak against a real ghost photo. Therefore the photo is a fake.

Final conclusion:

Personally, I would like to conduct an investigation with my team there to get to the bottom of these stories, as one or the other is already interesting. Especially in order to carry out a long-term examination at this location, with many stationary cameras. There are quite a few recent photos and videos circulating on the Internet with "ghosts" of the Myrtles Plantagion, but unfortunately these recordings are (as is so often the case) very blurred and blurry, so that they are not really meaningful. The black and white photo that I showed at the beginning may be the more interesting of the entire series. Unfortunately, there is no comparison recording from shortly before and shortly after.

But is it really haunted there? I cannot judge from a distance, but the possibility may exist.

Your Tom Pedall
Author, Leader & Co-Founder
Ghosthunter-NRWUP & RLP