👻 HAUNTED PLACE · EXP. Nº9046
ACTIVE
Myrtles Plantation
Myrtles Plantation is a location reputed to be haunted in Louisiana, US. Its reputation comes from reported apparitions, unexplained phenomena and eyewitness accounts gathered over time.
Where is Myrtles Plantation?
- Location
- Louisiana, US
- Type
- House / mansion
- Coordinates
- 30.803, -91.388
- Testimonies
- 0
- Last updated
LOCATION
Why is Myrtles Plantation said to be haunted?
Built in 1796 by planter David Bradford on land near St. Francisville, Louisiana, the Myrtles Plantation was worked by enslaved laborers before passing through several owners tied to a string of documented and rumored deaths, including at least one killing on the property's front gallery. Its most famous ghost story, that of an enslaved woman named "Chloe" who allegedly poisoned a birthday cake and killed members of the family, has never been substantiated in any historical record and is now widely regarded by researchers as a later embellishment layered onto the home's genuinely tangled and often violent past, added to draw tourists during 20th-century "haunted house" tours. Visitors nonetheless report a repeating handprint that reappears on a mirror no matter how often it is cleaned, and the sound of a phantom piano playing in empty rooms. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, the plantation now operates as a bed-and-breakfast.
What is the history of Myrtles Plantation?
The Myrtles is an antebellum plantation house of about 1796 in St Francisville, Louisiana, and it is routinely called one of the most haunted houses in America. Almost all of that reputation rests on a single story, and the story is not true.
The legend runs like this. An enslaved woman named Chloe, a household servant, was caught eavesdropping on her owner Clark Woodruff, who cut off her ear as punishment. Seeking revenge — or, in the softer version, seeking to make the family ill so she could nurse them and regain favour — she baked a birthday cake laced with oleander. Woodruff's wife Sara and their two daughters ate it and died. The other enslaved people, fearing collective punishment, hanged Chloe and threw her body in the river. She is said to walk the house still, in a green turban covering the missing ear.
It is a vivid story with names, motives and a specific poison, which is exactly why it has travelled so well. It also appears to have been assembled in the 1950s as a marketing device for the house, and it has been circulating as history ever since.
The real history of the property is not in dispute and is a good deal grimmer. The U.S. Federal Census records the Woodruffs as owning five enslaved people in 1820 and thirty-three by 1830. Those people existed, worked and died on this land, and their names are recoverable from records in a way that "Chloe" is not.
The house itself is genuinely fine: a 120-foot veranda, ornamental ironwork, hand-painted stained glass and elaborate plaster friezework. It operates today as a bed and breakfast and a tour house.
Timeline: the documented record of Myrtles Plantation
- c. 1796 The house is built in what later becomes St Francisville, Louisiana. Over time it acquires the 120-foot veranda, the ornamental ironwork and the stained glass visitors see today.
- 1820 The Federal Census records the Woodruff family as holding five enslaved people on the property.
- 1820s Sara, James and Cornelia Woodruff die. The cause is yellow fever, not poisoning. Mary Octavia, whom the legend kills, survives into adulthood.
- 1830 The census now records thirty-three enslaved people held by Clark Woodruff. None is named Chloe, and the estate record is complete enough for that absence to mean something.
- 1950s The "legend of Chloe" appears as a marketing device for the house, more than a century after the events it claims to narrate. It has circulated as history ever since.
Is there a rational explanation for Myrtles Plantation?
The Myrtles case comes apart with documents rather than arguments, and it is worth doing slowly, because what the legend displaces matters.
There is no record of the Woodruffs owning an enslaved woman named Chloe. The researchers David Wiseheart and Troy Taylor went through the archive and found no evidence she existed. And this is not a case of missing records: the Federal Census documents precisely how many enslaved people were held there — five in 1820, thirty-three by 1830. The archive works. Chloe simply is not in it.
Nobody was poisoned. Sara Woodruff, James and Cornelia died of yellow fever, not oleander. Nor do the details match the actual victims: the legend speaks of a wife and two daughters, when the people who died were Clark Woodruff's pregnant wife and two children, a boy and a girl. Mary Octavia, whom the legend kills, survived into adulthood.
The chronology finishes it: the "legend of Chloe" surfaces in the 1950s, as a draw for the house, more than a century after the events it claims to narrate.
And here is what genuinely needs saying. This is not a harmless legend. It invents an enslaved Black woman and casts her as a child-killer, attributing to her a crime that never happened, in order to sell admission to the house where real enslaved people were held, people whose names are on record. The ghost story occupies exactly the space that the history of those thirty-three people should occupy.
That the house feels unsettling at night — footsteps, doors, cold draughts — is entirely compatible with a timber building from 1796. What does not stand up is the name, the crime or the culprit.
Can you visit Myrtles Plantation?
The Myrtles is in St Francisville, Louisiana 70775, about twenty-five miles from Baton Rouge and eighty-five from New Orleans, in the Mississippi River plantation country.
It operates both as a bed and breakfast — eighteen rooms, with a restaurant and breakfast — and as a tour house. There are daily guided tours of the historic house and evening "Haunted Mystery" tours on Friday and Saturday, for which reservations are advised. Rooms run around $200–250 a night depending on dates.
The house is worth seeing for what it is: domestic architecture of 1796 with a 120-foot veranda, ornamental ironwork, hand-painted stained glass, plaster friezework, a Baccarat crystal chandelier and gold-leafed French furnishings.
One recommendation worth carrying with you. St Francisville has other historic houses nearby — Rosedown, now a state historic site, and Oakley, where Audubon painted part of The Birds of America — and several of them address slavery far more directly. If you visit only one plantation in the area, the useful question is not which is most haunted but which tells you best who worked there.
And a reasonable request: on the tour, asking about the thirty-three people the 1830 census documents on this property gets you better answers — and better history — than asking about Chloe.
Sources consulted
- Visit St. Francisville, «Myrtles Plantation — información oficial de visita y alojamiento» — Oficina de turismo de St. Francisville, 2026 archive
- Jennifer Mack, «The Myrtles Plantation: Ghosts, Trauma and Truth — contraste entre la leyenda de Chloe y el registro censal» — Southern Strange, 2024 web
- Troy Taylor, «Myrtles Plantation: legends, lore and lies — investigación de archivo» — American Hauntings, 2019 report
- Paranormal Pajama Party, «Historical horror and plantation tourism: Chloe, Cleo and the Myrtles Plantation» — Análisis del turismo de plantaciones, 2024 academic
Reviewed by V. Serrano on 2026-07-28 · How we verify our content
💬 Field testimonies (0)
No testimonies yet. Add the first.
Add your testimony
🔒 Log in to add a testimony