The Myrtles Plantation: Counting Ghosts That Multiply in the Telling

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 15:56:00 +0000

The Myrtles Plantation, a handsome antebellum house near St Francisville, Louisiana, is routinely marketed as one of the most haunted homes in America, and the pitch comes with an unusually precise claim attached: that ten murders were committed on the property. The star of its resident mythology is Chloe, an enslaved woman in a green turban who, the story goes, was the mistress of the plantation’s owner, Judge Clark Woodruff. Caught eavesdropping, Woodruff had her ear cut off, which is why she wore the turban. In revenge, or in a bid to make herself indispensable by nursing the family back from an illness she herself induced, Chloe baked a birthday cake laced with oleander leaves. Woodruff’s wife and two of his children ate it and died. The other enslaved people, terrified of reprisal, dragged Chloe out and hanged her, then weighted her body and threw it in the river. Her turbaned figure is said to wander the house still.

Louisiana - vo.rs

The Myrtles Plantation: Counting Ghosts That Multiply in the Telling