Post by derangedfaery on Jan 19, 2006 20:20:29 GMT -5
I love this tale so much,I incorperated it into the book Im writing.This piece is a blend of the legend and someones actual stay at the spooky plantatiomn.Hope you like it as much as I do!
"The Myrtles Plantation was built in 1794 by General David Bradford and remains today an excellent example of antebellum architecture along the Mississippi River. The residents and the owners of the house, who have changed several times over the years, recall the many ghostly tales and stories that have been passed on from generation to generation. In a book that was published about the Myrtles in 1900, the author claimed that if every light in the house was darkened, the Myrtles would receive a visitation by one of its spirits.
It has been said that the lights have never been all turned off since....
The troubles that led to the haunting began when Sara Matilda, the daughter of David Bradford, married Judge Clark Woodruffe and they moved into the Myrtles. Sara Matilda had given birth to two daughters and was carrying a third child, when an event took place that still haunts the Myrtles today.
Woodruffe, had a reputation in the region for integrity with men and with the law, but was also known for being promiscuous. While his wife was pregnant with their third child, he started an intimate relationship with one of his slaves. Unfortunately, this practice was fairly common at the time and it has been recorded as one of the tragedies of slavery. This particular girl, whose name was Chloe, was a household servant who, while she hated being forced to give in to Woodruffe's sexual demands, realized that if she didn't, she could be sent to work in the fields, which was the most brutal of the slave's work.
Eventually, Woodruffe tired of Chloe and chose another girl with whom to carry on. Chloe feared the worst, sure that she was going to be sent to the fields, she began eavesdropping on the Woodruffe family's private conversations, dreading the mention of her name.
One day, the Judge caught her at this and ordered that one of her ears be cut off to teach her a lesson and to put her in her place. After that time, she always wore a green turban around her head.
What happened next is still unclear... some claim that the next event was done so that the family would just get sick and then Chloe could nurse them back to health and earn the Judge's gratitude and some claim that it was done for vengeance!
For whatever reason, Chloe put a small amount of poison into a birthday cake that was made in honor of the Judge's oldest daughter. The two children, and Sara Matilda, each had slices of the poisoned cake but the Judge didn't eat any of it. Before the end of the day, all of them were very sick. Chloe patiently attended to their needs, never realizing (if it was an accident) that she had given them too much poison.... in just hours, they were all three dead.
The other slaves, afraid that the Judge would punish them also, dragged Chloe from her room and hanged her from a nearby tree. Her body was later cut down, weighted with rocks and thrown into the river. The Judge closed off the children's dining room, where the party was held, and never allowed it to be used again as long as he lived, which wasn't long, for he too was slain by a murderer a few years later. To this day, the room has never again been used for dining. It is called the game room today.
Since that day, the ghost of Chloe has been reported at the Myrtles and has even been accidentally photographed by the current owner. A photo that she took of the house showed a shadowy figure in a turban standing near the building. Her spirit has also been seen in the house, perhaps seeking the ghost of the Judge who escaped her revenge.
But Chloe is not the only ghost who haunts this house.... the place seems to be infested with spirits from many different parts of the history of the place.
Two of the most tragic ghosts are those of the Woodruffe children who died from the poisoned cake. These small spirits have been seen playing on the verandah of the house, in the hallways, in the children's dining room and strangely, have been reported on a hanging chandelier. They seem to be trapped here in the place where their lives were horribly taken.
One spirit is that of a French woman who wanders from room to room and searches for someone she never seems to find. Residents and visitors have also told of the sound of a ghostly crying baby who can be heard in various parts of the house. Perhaps the French woman is seeking this phantom?
Another ghost only appears when a thunderstorm approaches. A young girl, with long curly hair and wearing an ankle-length dress, has been seen floating outside the window of the game room, cupping her hands and trying to peer inside through the glass.
The grand piano on the first floor also plays by itself, usually repeating the same chord over and over again. Sometimes it continues on through the night. When someone comes into the room to check on the sound, the music stops and will only start again when they leave.
In the French bedroom, a woman has been reported in a black skirt who dances to music that only she can hear. This ghost appears to be floating about a foot off of the floor.
The employees at the house often get the worst of the events which happen here. The Myrtles has been open for some time as a bed and breakfast, renting rooms in the house and in cottages on the grounds.
One day, a maid was mopping the hallway on the first floor when she came to s strange spot near the front door. She found that no matter how hard she pushed the mop, it would not enter an area on the floor.... it was roughly the size of a human body. There was nothing there and no reason for it... other than that it was the same place where a man had been shot and died right after the Civil War. The strange phenomenon lasted for a month.
Another employee, a gateman, was hired to greet guests at the front gate each day. One day, a woman in a white, old fashioned dress walked through the gate without speaking to him. She walked up to the house and vanished through the front door without ever opening it. The gateman quit his job and never returned to the house.
Past owners also claim to have seen a woman's ghost carrying a candle walking up the stairs. One night, a previous owner was talking with some guests on the front porch when they heard a sound that appeared to be a door slamming in the house. They looked and saw a candle, with no one holding it, slowly floating up the stairs as if it were being carried. They walked in to follow it and found the room to be icy cold.
The same thing had been reported by the five previous owners and some believe that it may be the ghost of Sara Matilda, searching for her husband.
Another strange phenomenon seems to be a portrait hanging in the game room. This same picture had also been reported to detach itself from the wall and fly across rooms. One owner was struck in the face by it and still bears the scar to this day. According to legend, the expression of the man in the painting is supposed to change expression... is it true or the power of suggestion?
Whatever it is, an infrared photo that was taken of it several years ago revealed what seemed to be a bloody handprint on the wall next to the painting.... strangely, four people have been murdered in that room over the years."
It's interesting to note that this place was constructed on an indian burial ground... We stayed there overnight and both of us experienced some unexplanable things. We arrived to our room and while we were unpacking our things, the chandelier started to twist and then sway back and forth. A few light started flickering on and off. I stood up on a bench to verify a possible draft from the A/C or maybe even the window but found/felt nothing. After a while my girlfriend said aloud" please stop" and the chandelier stoped. Later on when we came back to the room and it started up again after a while. She exclaimed the same thing and it stopped.
After dinner we sat on the porch in their lovely rocking chairs while enjoying the wonderful hot and humid night. After some time one of the hanging potted fern plants started swaying. Out of (08) of those things this was the only one swaying... There was no wind or breeze that night whatsoever and we both were wondering how this thing could move when there wasnt even a slight draft!
At around 11:30pm we were the only ones awake and decided to explore the grounds (She is so brave!). I was fairly disappointed to see "nothing" and was still pretty skeptical of the place. After and hour of "exploring" we sat on the porch so I could smoke one last cigarette before retiring to bed. I happened to look to my right and about 400 feet from me was a glowing lime green orb floating above the ground almost eye level! As soon as I spotted it it took off very rapidly! I just wrote it off as an overly active imagination because I wanted to see something, but the next morning when I told her about it (I didnt want to scare her the night before because she was pretty nervous all night anyways!!!) she indicated she saw it while we were walking around the place and didnt know what to think!!!
I woke up the next morning very refreshed from an unusually deep sleep to find out she had a worse experience than I did that night while sleeping. She told me that around 3 in the morning, she awoke to this horrible banging inside the closet in our room! It lasted for almost an hour and she described the sounds as if someone took one of my hangers and was beating the door, walls, and other hanging items with it. Not only that but someone was banging on our door as well. She indicated that she knows the sound of anyone walking outside the room or even tip toeing to a shared bathroom... But there was no creaking of the floors whatsoever... Just BAM BAM BAM on the door... She swears she was trying to wake me but she was scared stiff all night after that event! I checked out the closet to see if there was any way possible an animal could get in but found nothing. Nor did I detect any trap doors. I am still kind of skeptical of her experience but when she described the occurrence and still tells the story to this day, she definitly heard something that freaked her out!
The next morning prior to our long drive home back to Florida we decided to give the grounds one more looksy! She is an anthropoligist and loves to find old indian pottery & such (which she found plenty of fragments of!). I went off on my own and while looking at the swamp on the grounds I heard what clearly sounded like a little girl clearing her throat. We were the only 2 people on the grounds as the care taker and the lady in the gift shop were still inside chatting and the morning tour was over! That was very strange. The sound was so clear! Well, I walked up to the front of the plantation to look at some statues and right in front of me I saw what I can only describe as a white blur of light move quickly behind a tree! It was as quick as a squirrel running, but much larger & higher off of the ground. I ran to the tree to see if it was an animal but there was nothing up the tree, or anything running away in the open grass! The image moved just like the vampires did in "Queen of the Damned". Like a delayed warp speed of sorts... Weird!
Our next store neighbors bolted out of the place very quickly that morning (My girlfriend told me it had to be around 6am or so)! We were sad that we couldnt find out what they "experienced"! A few of the other couples that stayed there didn't experience anything but One lady did hear & see something that didn't sit too well with her or her husband.
Now like anything else, no one is ever guranteed an "experience" anywhere, but if you want to stay at a really beautiful bed in breakfast that is very "historical" in "American History" terms, this is the place to go! Are you brave enough?
"The Myrtles Plantation was built in 1794 by General David Bradford and remains today an excellent example of antebellum architecture along the Mississippi River. The residents and the owners of the house, who have changed several times over the years, recall the many ghostly tales and stories that have been passed on from generation to generation. In a book that was published about the Myrtles in 1900, the author claimed that if every light in the house was darkened, the Myrtles would receive a visitation by one of its spirits.
It has been said that the lights have never been all turned off since....
The troubles that led to the haunting began when Sara Matilda, the daughter of David Bradford, married Judge Clark Woodruffe and they moved into the Myrtles. Sara Matilda had given birth to two daughters and was carrying a third child, when an event took place that still haunts the Myrtles today.
Woodruffe, had a reputation in the region for integrity with men and with the law, but was also known for being promiscuous. While his wife was pregnant with their third child, he started an intimate relationship with one of his slaves. Unfortunately, this practice was fairly common at the time and it has been recorded as one of the tragedies of slavery. This particular girl, whose name was Chloe, was a household servant who, while she hated being forced to give in to Woodruffe's sexual demands, realized that if she didn't, she could be sent to work in the fields, which was the most brutal of the slave's work.
Eventually, Woodruffe tired of Chloe and chose another girl with whom to carry on. Chloe feared the worst, sure that she was going to be sent to the fields, she began eavesdropping on the Woodruffe family's private conversations, dreading the mention of her name.
One day, the Judge caught her at this and ordered that one of her ears be cut off to teach her a lesson and to put her in her place. After that time, she always wore a green turban around her head.
What happened next is still unclear... some claim that the next event was done so that the family would just get sick and then Chloe could nurse them back to health and earn the Judge's gratitude and some claim that it was done for vengeance!
For whatever reason, Chloe put a small amount of poison into a birthday cake that was made in honor of the Judge's oldest daughter. The two children, and Sara Matilda, each had slices of the poisoned cake but the Judge didn't eat any of it. Before the end of the day, all of them were very sick. Chloe patiently attended to their needs, never realizing (if it was an accident) that she had given them too much poison.... in just hours, they were all three dead.
The other slaves, afraid that the Judge would punish them also, dragged Chloe from her room and hanged her from a nearby tree. Her body was later cut down, weighted with rocks and thrown into the river. The Judge closed off the children's dining room, where the party was held, and never allowed it to be used again as long as he lived, which wasn't long, for he too was slain by a murderer a few years later. To this day, the room has never again been used for dining. It is called the game room today.
Since that day, the ghost of Chloe has been reported at the Myrtles and has even been accidentally photographed by the current owner. A photo that she took of the house showed a shadowy figure in a turban standing near the building. Her spirit has also been seen in the house, perhaps seeking the ghost of the Judge who escaped her revenge.
But Chloe is not the only ghost who haunts this house.... the place seems to be infested with spirits from many different parts of the history of the place.
Two of the most tragic ghosts are those of the Woodruffe children who died from the poisoned cake. These small spirits have been seen playing on the verandah of the house, in the hallways, in the children's dining room and strangely, have been reported on a hanging chandelier. They seem to be trapped here in the place where their lives were horribly taken.
One spirit is that of a French woman who wanders from room to room and searches for someone she never seems to find. Residents and visitors have also told of the sound of a ghostly crying baby who can be heard in various parts of the house. Perhaps the French woman is seeking this phantom?
Another ghost only appears when a thunderstorm approaches. A young girl, with long curly hair and wearing an ankle-length dress, has been seen floating outside the window of the game room, cupping her hands and trying to peer inside through the glass.
The grand piano on the first floor also plays by itself, usually repeating the same chord over and over again. Sometimes it continues on through the night. When someone comes into the room to check on the sound, the music stops and will only start again when they leave.
In the French bedroom, a woman has been reported in a black skirt who dances to music that only she can hear. This ghost appears to be floating about a foot off of the floor.
The employees at the house often get the worst of the events which happen here. The Myrtles has been open for some time as a bed and breakfast, renting rooms in the house and in cottages on the grounds.
One day, a maid was mopping the hallway on the first floor when she came to s strange spot near the front door. She found that no matter how hard she pushed the mop, it would not enter an area on the floor.... it was roughly the size of a human body. There was nothing there and no reason for it... other than that it was the same place where a man had been shot and died right after the Civil War. The strange phenomenon lasted for a month.
Another employee, a gateman, was hired to greet guests at the front gate each day. One day, a woman in a white, old fashioned dress walked through the gate without speaking to him. She walked up to the house and vanished through the front door without ever opening it. The gateman quit his job and never returned to the house.
Past owners also claim to have seen a woman's ghost carrying a candle walking up the stairs. One night, a previous owner was talking with some guests on the front porch when they heard a sound that appeared to be a door slamming in the house. They looked and saw a candle, with no one holding it, slowly floating up the stairs as if it were being carried. They walked in to follow it and found the room to be icy cold.
The same thing had been reported by the five previous owners and some believe that it may be the ghost of Sara Matilda, searching for her husband.
Another strange phenomenon seems to be a portrait hanging in the game room. This same picture had also been reported to detach itself from the wall and fly across rooms. One owner was struck in the face by it and still bears the scar to this day. According to legend, the expression of the man in the painting is supposed to change expression... is it true or the power of suggestion?
Whatever it is, an infrared photo that was taken of it several years ago revealed what seemed to be a bloody handprint on the wall next to the painting.... strangely, four people have been murdered in that room over the years."
It's interesting to note that this place was constructed on an indian burial ground... We stayed there overnight and both of us experienced some unexplanable things. We arrived to our room and while we were unpacking our things, the chandelier started to twist and then sway back and forth. A few light started flickering on and off. I stood up on a bench to verify a possible draft from the A/C or maybe even the window but found/felt nothing. After a while my girlfriend said aloud" please stop" and the chandelier stoped. Later on when we came back to the room and it started up again after a while. She exclaimed the same thing and it stopped.
After dinner we sat on the porch in their lovely rocking chairs while enjoying the wonderful hot and humid night. After some time one of the hanging potted fern plants started swaying. Out of (08) of those things this was the only one swaying... There was no wind or breeze that night whatsoever and we both were wondering how this thing could move when there wasnt even a slight draft!
At around 11:30pm we were the only ones awake and decided to explore the grounds (She is so brave!). I was fairly disappointed to see "nothing" and was still pretty skeptical of the place. After and hour of "exploring" we sat on the porch so I could smoke one last cigarette before retiring to bed. I happened to look to my right and about 400 feet from me was a glowing lime green orb floating above the ground almost eye level! As soon as I spotted it it took off very rapidly! I just wrote it off as an overly active imagination because I wanted to see something, but the next morning when I told her about it (I didnt want to scare her the night before because she was pretty nervous all night anyways!!!) she indicated she saw it while we were walking around the place and didnt know what to think!!!
I woke up the next morning very refreshed from an unusually deep sleep to find out she had a worse experience than I did that night while sleeping. She told me that around 3 in the morning, she awoke to this horrible banging inside the closet in our room! It lasted for almost an hour and she described the sounds as if someone took one of my hangers and was beating the door, walls, and other hanging items with it. Not only that but someone was banging on our door as well. She indicated that she knows the sound of anyone walking outside the room or even tip toeing to a shared bathroom... But there was no creaking of the floors whatsoever... Just BAM BAM BAM on the door... She swears she was trying to wake me but she was scared stiff all night after that event! I checked out the closet to see if there was any way possible an animal could get in but found nothing. Nor did I detect any trap doors. I am still kind of skeptical of her experience but when she described the occurrence and still tells the story to this day, she definitly heard something that freaked her out!
The next morning prior to our long drive home back to Florida we decided to give the grounds one more looksy! She is an anthropoligist and loves to find old indian pottery & such (which she found plenty of fragments of!). I went off on my own and while looking at the swamp on the grounds I heard what clearly sounded like a little girl clearing her throat. We were the only 2 people on the grounds as the care taker and the lady in the gift shop were still inside chatting and the morning tour was over! That was very strange. The sound was so clear! Well, I walked up to the front of the plantation to look at some statues and right in front of me I saw what I can only describe as a white blur of light move quickly behind a tree! It was as quick as a squirrel running, but much larger & higher off of the ground. I ran to the tree to see if it was an animal but there was nothing up the tree, or anything running away in the open grass! The image moved just like the vampires did in "Queen of the Damned". Like a delayed warp speed of sorts... Weird!
Our next store neighbors bolted out of the place very quickly that morning (My girlfriend told me it had to be around 6am or so)! We were sad that we couldnt find out what they "experienced"! A few of the other couples that stayed there didn't experience anything but One lady did hear & see something that didn't sit too well with her or her husband.
Now like anything else, no one is ever guranteed an "experience" anywhere, but if you want to stay at a really beautiful bed in breakfast that is very "historical" in "American History" terms, this is the place to go! Are you brave enough?
