The Myrtles Plantation serves as a lovely historic inn with a fine dining restaurant oozing with southern charm on their beautiful grounds north of Baton Rouge, LA. The inn was once an antebellum home built in the late 1700s and worked by enslaved peoples, but has now garnered the reputation of what some call, the most haunted house in America.
Date: January 26-28th, 2024
Location: St Francisville, LA
Investigators: Chris, Matt S
Location History
The home was built in 1796 by General David Bradford, who had fled south without his family because of his leadership role in the Whiskey Rebellion. His once good friend, George Washington, had put a $500 bounty (about $20k in today’s dollars) on his head, but he was pardoned 3 years later by President Adams. After Bradford’s death, his son in law Clarke Woodriff, bought the plantation.
Our guide explained that Woodriff’s enslaved nanny to his 3 children, named Chloe, had been caught eavesdropping, and as a punishment, he had her ear chopped off and sent her outside to work in the hot miserable kitchen. She plotted to be accepted back inside the house by earning Woodriff’s good graces by “curing” his children from an illness. Except, she had been purposely poisoning the kids with Oleander and before her plot could be enacted, she had used too much and the 2 older children, along with their mother, perished. Woodriff fled the home with his remaining daughter and after sitting empty for 10 years, it was purchased by Ruffin Stirling.
The lady of the house, Mary Cobb Stirling, was said to be superstitious and very afraid of ghosts and ended up adding design features during the home’s renovation to protect her family including plaster nuns on the ceiling of the lady’s room to watch all 4 directions for evil, crosses on the doors to ward off yellow fever, cherubs to bless the home, and upside down keyholes to ward off ghosts.
Upside down keyhole to ward away ghosts
The home was looted during the Civil War and served time as a field hospital where a fair number of soldiers passed away. Mary hired her son in law, William Winter to help manage the plantation. The family struggled severely as they lost their fortune due to their money being tied up in confederate currency, lost their 3 year old daughter Cate to typhoid but blamed it on a local voodoo woman, and then ultimately Winter being shot on the side porch and dying on the 17th step of the home as his 12 year old son tried to drag him to safety.
Standing by the door where Winter was shot
Staircase where Winter perished
It is said that the current owner of the home who grew up there, doesn’t like to talk about his childhood. He apparently saw some frightening things including a white haired girl hanging from a chandelier and had his shoes tied together by a prankster ghost.
Was a ghost seen dangling from this chandelier?
Our Experience
When we arrived at the plantation we were in awe of the original home and grounds. The fairytale-like setting took us back in time to the days without electricity where life moved slowly and people spent their leisure time in their own quiet pursuits.
We learned that we were staying in the home on the anniversary of Winter’s death (Jan 26th) as well as his daughter Cate’s death (Jan 27th). In the game room hangs an interesting portrait of young Cate. As they knew she was ill, they commissioned a painted portrait. One side of the painting shows a vital child, while the other side looks withered as the child died before the painting was finished, so the painter used her corpse as a model to finish the painting.
Portrait of Cate with the left half painted when she was alive, and the right half after she died
We stayed in The Williams Winter Room, which was once Cate’s nursery and across the hall from a room where many civil war soldiers died. We had set up static cameras in the room, which yielded nothing out of the ordinary on our 2 night stay. We also tried contacting spirits with a number of devices including EMF readers, digital recorders, REM Pods, and even some jingle bells and a rubber ball.
William Winter’s room
On our tour of the home, we did hear stories, some pretty fantastical, but we have no personal experiences to report. The guide showed us an old mirror which is said to be haunted showing faces, blood/tears running, and fingerprints that keep showing up despite being resilvered multiple times. We were also told that Oprah was going to do a show there once but left after an hour because a lamp was thrown by itself. But the craziest of stories we were told was that one of the creepy dolls in the home followed a guest home and a guy woke up with it on his chest.
Said to be a very haunted mirror
These mirror marks (Face? Fingerprints? Streaks of blood?) keep showing up despite attempts to remove
Doll in one of the guest rooms. Sweet dreams.
Did we capture Paranormal Evidence?
Nope. The home was amazing, the grounds were amazing, the history was amazing, and we had a wonderful quiet weekend, but we did not experience anything paranormal during our stay.
