The Myrtles Plantation: A Haunted House With A Ghost On Camera
Bogdan Oporowski/Wikimedia CommonsThe Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana is allegedly home to a number of wandering spirits.
Some American haunted houses are scary because of stories and rumors. But the Myrtles Plantation, some claim, has physical evidence that ghosts haunt it.
This St. Francisville, Louisiana, plantation, which dates back to the 18th-century, has a gory history of slavery, murder, and more. Two people, in particular, are alleged to have died bloody deaths here.
The first is an enslaved girl named Chloe. As the legend goes, she was forced into a sexual relationship with the plantation owner, Clarke Woodruff. Worried that his wife would find out and punish her, Chloe began eavesdropping on the family’s conversation. When they caught her, the Woodruffs cut off her ear.
Chloe started wearing a turban to cover her mutilated ear — and began to plot her revenge. According to the story, she killed Woodruff’s wife and children with poison. Other enslaved people on the plantation panicked because they thought Woodruff would punish everyone — so they killed Chloe themselves.
But although they threw Chloe’s body in the river, her spirit stayed at Myrtles Plantation. And in 1992, a photo taken for insurance reasons purportedly caught her on film.
Fortean Slip/ YoutubeThe circled figure, wearing a turban, is allegedly the spirit of Chloe.
This story does have a few holes, however. For starters, there is no documentation that the Woodruffs held someone in slavery named Chloe. And Clarke Woodruff’s family died of yellow fever, not poison. That is if you believe their version of history.
The second person who died at Myrtles Plantation has a better-recorded death. William Winter, who inherited the plantation in 1871 after marrying one of the family’s daughters, died on its grounds. A mysterious man shot him in the chest, giving Winter just enough time to stumble up the stairs before he died in his wife’s arms.
Today, some claim to have seen William run indoors, only to collapse on the 17th step of the house — where he died in real life.
