The Myrtles is located in Saint Francisville in West Feliciana Parish Louisiana, northwest of New Orleans. A small town on the Mississippi River, Saint Francisville was once the Capital of the Republic of West Florida, and it is here that John James Audubon (Birds of America Collection) created over 80 of his beautiful watercolors.
Exploring The Myrtles you will see grand antiques and architectural treasures of the old South.
"Whiskey Dave" Bradford--former leader of the whiskey rebellion-- built the great haunted house on a Tunica Indian burial ground in 1794.
He was actually the very first to see a ghost at the Myrtles Plantation, a naked Indian girl wandering lost on the grounds is what he is said to have observed. But many of the locals state it is Bradford's' many ghostly children and grandchildren that haunt the Myrtles today.
The Story
Sara Matilda, Bradford's' daughter, married Judge Woodruff. Woodruff was said to have kept a slave mistress named Chloe or so the haunted tale goes....
When Woodruff grew tired of Chloe, and she was afraid she would be sent to the fields she is said to have started eavesdropping on him to learn of her future fate.
When Woodruff caught her, he cut off her left ear and sent her to work in the kitchen. From then on, Chloe wore a green turban to hide her disfigurement.
She devised a plan to regain the affection of him and the family. She boiled poisonous oleander leaves and baked them into a cake.
Chloe believed the children would become ill and need her to nurse them back to health. But she used too much. Sara Matilda and two of the children died that night from the poison.
When the other slaves heard about Chloe's actions, they hung her from a tree. They then weighted her body with stones and threw her into the Mississippi river.
Chloe still wanders the house and grounds of the Myrtles Plantation. She sometimes shows up in photos.
Close-up of what many believe to be Chloe in
between the houses.
The Woodruff children are also heard playing and laughing on the veranda on rainy nights.
The Chloe story is the most popular haunting tale at the Myrtles, but many more people met their untimely demise on the premises and can be seen and heard wandering.
A Civil War soldier died on the floor near the front door from battle wounds. He was an avid cigar smoker who stayed at the house before his death. The smell of cigars sometimes fills his room. ( And smoking isn't allowed at the Myrtles...)
William Winter was said to have died on the 17th step of the staircase after a mysterious man shot him through the study window in 1871.
The steps heard on the stairs in the middle of the night are attributed to him. Those who count claim the footsteps stop at the seventeenth step.
Another young girl died of yellow fever in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Her parents called on a voodoo priestess to help her, after all traditional medicines had failed. When the little girl died, the parents hung the priestess from the chandelier.
In 1927, the caretaker was murdered during a robbery attempt. The owners claim that he can sometimes be seen at the plantation gates telling people to leave.
The Myrtles is now a bed and breakfast, so guests can stay in these rooms and see if the ghosts come out and play. The proprietors, John and Teeta Moss, claim that the Best Western loves the Myrtles, because so many guests get spooked in the middle of the night and run to the other hotel.
The house has a creepy vibe. Bursts of cold air come from nowhere. Former owners have had church stained glass installed in the front doors to keep out the evil spirits. Also, the keyholes of every door have a small cover over them. In the nineteenth century, people thought ghosts came into a house through its keyholes, and these covers were designed to keep them out.
People also believed that the ghosts would hide in the corners until nighttime, when they would come out to pester the living. The Myrtles contains custom plaster work...nun and cherub charms...specially designed to keep the spirits away from the corners. Every resident has painstakingly tried to protect himself from wandering spirits.
Ghosts or not, everyone who has owned the property has either seen ghosts, has turned into a ghost, or tried to keep the ghosts away. Mysterious figures and spheres often show up in photos.
The actual haunting hour at the Myrtles Plantation is said to be at three AM. At that exact hour each dark night, Chloe's restless ghost roams the great dark haunted plantation.
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