Myrtles Plantation

The Myrtles Plantation was built in 1796 by General David Bradford and was called Laurel Grove at the time. General Bradford lived there alone for several years, until President John Adams pardoned him for his role in the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion. He then moved his wife Elizabeth and their five children to the plantation from Pennsylvania. David Bradford died in 1808. In 1817, one of Bradford's law students, Clark Woodruff (or Woodroff) married Bradford's daughter, Sara Mathilda. Clark and Sara Woodruff managed the plantation for David Bradford's widow, Elizabeth. The Woodruffs had three children: Cornelia Gale, James, and Mary Octavia. Legend has it that Sara Bradford Woodruff and two of her three children died in 1823 and 1824 of oleander poisoning from a slave trying to regain her position back in the house after being caught eavesdropping on family business. The slave, Chloe, who was eavesdropping, had her left ear cut off and was assigned to kitchen duty, a very bad position. So, to earn her position back in the house, she put oleander leaves, a very toxic plant, into the cake, thinking she could cure the children when they ate the cake. Her plan backfired: she killed two of the children and Sara. Mr. Woodruff did not want cake and the youngest child was in bed. As a result, Chloe was hanged in the front yard on the oak tree and then cut down after dying, weighed down with bricks and tossed into the Mississippi River. The historical record, however, does not support this legend. There is no record of the Woodruffs owning a slave named Chloe or Cleo, or any slaves. The legends usually claim that Sara and her two daughters were poisoned, but Mary Octavia survived well into adulthood. Finally, Sara, James, and Cornelia Woodruff were not killed by poisoning, but instead succumbed to yellow fever. Regardless of the factual accuracy of the Chloe story, some believe a woman wearing a green turban haunts the plantation.

When Elizabeth Bradford died in 1831, Clark Woodruff and his surviving daughter Mary Octavia moved to Covington, Louisiana, and left a caretaker to manage the plantation. In 1834, Woodruff sold the plantation, the land, and its slaves to Ruffin Gray Stirling. Woodruff died in New Orleans in 1851.

and his wife, Mary Catherine Cobb, undertook an extensive remodeling of the house. When completed, the new house was nearly double the size of the former building, and its name was changed to The Myrtles. They imported fancy furniture from Europe. The Stirlings had nine children, but five of them died young. Stirling died in 1854 and left the plantation to his wife.

In 1865, Mary Cobb hired William Drew Winter to help manage the plantation as her lawyer and agent. Winter was married to Mary Cobb's daughter, Sarah Stirling. Sarah and William Winter lived at the Myrtles and had six children, one of whom (Kate Winter) died from typhoid at the age of three. Although the Winters were forced to sell the plantation in 1868, they were able to buy it back two years later.

In 1871, William Winter was shot on the porch of the house, possibly by a man named E.S. Webber, and died within minutes. Sarah remained at the Myrtles' with her mother and siblings until 1878, when she died. Mary Cobb died in 1880, and the plantation passed to Stephen, one of her sons. The plantation was heavily in debt, however, and Stephen sold it in 1886 to Oran D. Brooks. Brooks sold it in 1889, and the house changed hands several times until 1891, when it was purchased by Harrison Milton Williams. 20th century

In the early part of the 20th century, the land surrounding the house was divided among the heirs of Harrison Milton Williams. In the 1950s, the house itself was sold to Marjorie Munson, who apparently noticed odd things happening around the area surrounding the Myrtles. The plantation went through several more ownership changes in the 1970s before being bought by James and Frances Kermeen Myers. The Myers ran the plantation as a bed and breakfast. Frances Myers, writing as Frances Kermeen, wrote a book about Myrtles Plantation, naming it as the most haunted house in America

Paranormal Claims

• Foot steps to the seventeenth step.
• Voices.
• Piano playing by itself.
• Apparitions of two children.
• Apparitions of several slaves.

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