Table Of Content
It was at this point, they say, that the ghost stories of the house began. They started innocently enough but soon, what may have been real-life ghostly occurrences took on a "life" of their own. The front porch of the Myrtles, where William Drew Winter was shot and killed. His murder was never solved, however, he did not -- as the legends claim -- stumble up the main staircase and die on the seventeenth step.
The legend of Chloe
It has never been the intention of this article to claim that the Myrtles Plantation is not haunted. In fact, there is no doubt that the house qualifies as one of the most haunted locations in the nation, given the sheer volume of accounts that have been documented and gathered here. Then, on the precise 17th step, he ascended just high enough to pass away in his lover’s arms. Since then, it has been asserted that ghostly footsteps have been heard entering the house, making their way to the stairs, and then ascending to step 17, where they naturally come to an end. Another homicide is said to have taken place in 1927 when a housekeeper was murdered during a heist. Again, this crime has no record, even though anything so recent would have been extensively reported.
General David Bradford's Suite
History appears to support the claim that Woodruff was incredibly loyal to his wife and heartbroken by her passing that he never remarried. The celebration was held in the children’s dining room, which Woodruff locked off and forbade being used again for the rest of his life. The children’s poisoning room has never been used for dining purposes again.
Grounds
The Winters first lived at Gantmore plantation, near Clinton, Louisiana, and then bought a plantation on the west side of the Mississippi known as Arbroath. Woodrooff's life would never be the same but he managed to purchase the farm outright from his mother-in-law. She was quite elderly by this time and was happy to see the place in good hands. She continued to live at Laurel Grove with her son-in-law and granddaughter, Octavia, until her death in 1830.
The enchanted site, where Malibu Creek meets the Pacific Ocean, was once home to the Chumash Indians, who thrived there until the late 18th century. Later, the Rindge family owned 17,000 acres and 20 miles of coastline. The Rindge family’s daughter, Rhoda, and her husband, Merritt Huntley Adamson, used the site to construct a beach house, now the historic Adamson House museum.
At the age of 19, he left Connecticut and headed for the Mississippi River in search of his fortune because he had no ambition to become a farmer like his father. Although most demonstrations were peaceful, Washington called up the militia and sent them to quell the uprising. On the suggestion of some of the other key players in the situation, Bradford left the area once the protests were controlled. The Whiskey Rebellion, which took place in western Pennsylvania, started with several complaints about the high costs and taxes imposed on residents living along the frontier. When a mob invaded and set fire to the residence of a local tax collector, the complaints eventually turned violent.
Myrtles Plantation
For starters, guests at Myrtles Plantation reported hearing strange noises. Others saw ghostly apparitions, often of a young girl wearing a turban. Corey Balazowich/FlickrThe supposedly haunted mirror inside the Myrtles Plantation house.
The wealth the family had accumulated was ultimately in the form of worthless Confederate cash after many of the family’s personal possessions were taken and burned by Federal soldiers. Woodruff was selected by Louisiana’s governor Isaac Johnson to the newly created position of Auditor of Public Works in 1840, and he held the position for one term. He eventually retired at the age of 60 and relocated to Oaklawn to live with Octavia and her husband. During this time, Octavia was enrolled in a finishing school in New Haven, Connecticut, but in 1836 she returned home to live with her father. She relocated to Colonel Lorenzo Augustus Besancon’s plantation, Oaklawn, five miles north of New Orleans, after they wed two years later.
Stirling not only remodeled the house but also renamed the plantation after the crepe myrtle trees that grew on the property. Worrying that Woodruff’s wife would find out and punish her, Chloe began eavesdropping on the family’s conversations all around the Myrtles Plantation house. One day, Woodruff caught her listening and ordered her ear cut off as a punishment.
Webber was to stand trial for Winter's murder but no outcome of the case was ever recorded. As far as is known, Winter's killer remains unidentified and unpunished. That would be the questionable history that has been presented to “explain” why the house is so haunted in the first place.
If the ghostly incident occurred, then it must have been caused by something else. Before we get to the problem of Chloe's existence, we should also examine the "murders" of Sarah Mathilda and her two daughters. In this case, the legend has twisted the truth so far that it is unrecognizable. She died tragically from yellow fever (according to historical record) in 1823.
Bed & Breakfast: The Myrtles Plantation - Atlanta Magazine
Bed & Breakfast: The Myrtles Plantation.
Posted: Sun, 08 Jul 2018 22:39:09 GMT [source]
As time went on and more authors and television crews came calling at the Myrtles, the story changed again and this time, took on even more murders. In addition to the deaths of Sarah Mathilda, her daughters, and Chloe, it was alleged that as many as six other people had been killed in the house. One of them, Lewis Stirling, the oldest son of Ruffin Grey Stirling, was alleged to have been stabbed to death in the house over a gambling debt. However, burial records in St. Francisville state that he died in October 1854 from yellow fever. According to the growing legend, three Union soldiers were killed in the house after they broke in and attempted to loot the place. They were allegedly shot to death in the gentlemen's parlor, leaving bloodstains on the floor that refused to be wiped away.
He was at work one day when a woman wearing an antique-style white dress entered the gate without saying anything to him. She approached the home and disappeared through it without ever opening the front door. The unfortunate occurrences that occur here frequently affect the house’s staff the most. They frequently witness things firsthand that would make lesser people flee the area in terror.
On July 21, 1823, Sarah Mathilda died after contracting yellow fever. The disease was spread through a number of epidemics that swept through Louisiana in those days. Hardly a family in the region went untouched by tragedy and despair. Although heartbroken, Woodrooff continued to manage the plantation and to care for his children with help from Elizabeth.
It was a great disappointment to learn that the Woodruffs had never owned a slave, or had any record of a slave, named Chloe, or Cleo, as she appears in some versions of the story. The records list all of the other slaves owned by the Woodruff family but Chloe simply did not exist. Eventually, Woodruff tired of Chloe and chose another girl to force himself on.
His bloody trip through the house never took place --- information that was easily found in historical records. Another murder allegedly occurred in 1927, when a caretaker at the house was supposedly killed during a robbery. Once again, no record exists of this crime and an incident as recent as this would have been widely reported. The only event even close to this, which may have spawned the story, occurred when the brother of Fannie Williams, Eddie Haralson, was living in a small house on the property. He was killed during a robbery, but this did not occur in the main house, as the story states. Soon, the story of the Myrtles was appearing in magazines and books and receiving a warm reception from ghost enthusiasts, who had no idea that what they were hearing was a badly skewed version of the truth.
