All Hallow's Eve at the Haunted Myrtles Plantation

Myrtles Plantation

Since I was 'in the neighborhood' I drove over to St. Francisville, Louisiana. I'd decided to spend my All Hallow's Eve at the famous Myrtles Plantation. The plantation is now mostly a lovely inn where honeymooners and other guests can stay in genuine antebellum accommodations. I've heard tell of the plantation while rotting my brain watching ghost chasing & otherwise haunt riddled TV fare. Arriving at the plantation I was a good hour early for my 6PM pre-paid tour time. I decided to take a short stroll on the grounds. As I've been cursed by a witch with laziness, it was quite a short walk.

Autumn Color on the walkways

As I walked up the cobbled lane towards the 'big house' a pair of twee little girls stared at me, eyes wide as saucers. "Happy Halloween', I cheerily called to them. Just then, I recollected that atop my noggin I wore devil's horns, procured at the Renaissance Faire years ago. No wonder their eyes bugged - guess the tots had never met a real 'she-devil' before. Interesting fact, all day, with me trepsing all over central eastern Louisiana and I saw not a single person - adult or child - in Halloween garb. In my California home town you only have to step outside and shake a dead black cat to be overwhelmed by your fellow citizens in full on Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars garb. I'd have thought Louisiana, with its voodoo history would have overridden its bible belt sensibilities. Seems to be quite the opposite. No Halloween shenanigans here.

Ghost of Chloe...?

Shortly thereafter I froze in my tracks as I espied a ghostly white figure, floating in the air - OHMYGOD, is that the ghost of Chloe? It wasn't even dark yet.... um, no - I concluded it was a white umbrella.

Nevermind.


Didn't take me long to wander over to the Plantation's general store/gift shop. There I checked in for my tour time, and then greedily eyed all the shop's merchandise. Had to use all the behavior modification skills in my arsenal to evade buying handspun Shetland Wool, which would only end up in my spare bedroom, with the bales of other 'pedigree' wools, hand spun & unspun. I did buy a tiny flask of Praline liqueur/spirits... for later...

For the knitting dilettantes such as myself

I suspect I will be cremated in a hand spun, hand knit casket. I should get to work on that as soon as I return home.

Looking past corn shucks is the courtyard &
door to the gift shop (Valhalla for 'moi')

At six sharp, the tour began and everyone gathered on the porch of the second plantation building, unseen to the right in the photo above.

The notorious haunted mirror has a sort of T-rex jaws
with a few ribs on it... that's what I see anyway...

Our tour guide explained we would only be allowed to photograph a restricted area of the inside of the building. Not because of fear we would photograph the plantation ghosts, scare ourselves and wet the beautiful original flooring throughout the building, but because the effing insurance company wouldn't insure the plantation & it's inn & rooms otherwise. Bugger the insurance mongers, eh?

The mirror macabre

Entering the building, we received a talk on the history of the plantation mansion, and were told, to our delight, we could photograph in this entrance way to our hearts content. Several took photos of a mirror, from which it seemed impossible, despite professional cleaning, to remove stains, of dripping... blood.

OH CRAP! A GHOST... erm... no, that's actually one of the inn's guests shooting up the stair well to his room. Damn, I need to get a grip.

patriotic mirror

Here's a brief of the plantation's most notorious, and frankly, innocent-ish ghost. The plantation has had many owners over the centuries and one of them had carnal feelings for a v. young enslaved girl on another plantation. He bought her, so she might baby sit his children & provide him with a mistress.

The enslaved girl was named Chloe. She was a nosey body in that she listened through closed doors when the master had meetings with important male type guests. Thus nosey Chloe fell out of favor with her master, and even lost credence with the other plantation slaves.

Foyer chandelier

But young Chloe had a cunning scheme (cue Black Adder music here) in which - with an oleander laced birthday cake no less - she poisoned the master's little children. She wanted to nurse the stricken children back to health & thus, regain the master's good graces. Her scheme failed when the kiddies died. Poor misguided Chloe was hung by the Mississippi River, her lifeless body fung into its waters. 

But the cat came back - as a ghost. The children came back too, perhaps seeking more of that yummy  oleander cake.

Another Ghost in the haunted mirror... . nooo... that's me. Sorry. 

 Did I see any ghosts? Nope. All of us in the group were taken into the bedroom of the master & mistress & there, on the crimson bedspread we all saw the tiny handprints of the plantation's ghost children. I felt rather uncommitted to the idea the prints were ghostly, I mean there were a couple of deep indentations but I figure they could have been placed there before we entered the room. One appeared while the guide spoke to us - telling us spooky plantation tale after spooky plantation tale - but um... maybe we just hadn't noticed it before he pointed it out?

The AWESOME haunted bedroom and it's creepy bedspread - not my photo

The tour took about an hour, during which the guide gave great details on the antebellum aspects of the building. We toured the gentleman's smoking room, the dining room and other rooms. Thoroughly enjoyed the the tour. 

The Plantation dining room - not my photo

The haunted stairwell 

This is the famous haunted stairwell. This photo faces the entrance. One of the plantation owners was shot, then famously died on the 17th step.

At the end of the entryway, stands this piano, said to play all on its own, without the benefit of anyone - alive - actually setting fingers to keys. Of course as with any well behaved haunted instrument, it ceases to play the second anyone enters the room. Good piano. Here's a piano biscuit.


During the last bit of the tour, we were told the story of how the plantation got its history of haunting started. It began when a modern day owner bought the plantation, planning to make it into a bed & breakfast. She was on the property by herself one day, photographing it with the goal of providing the photos to an insurance company to insure her property & business. She'd been told to provide photos with no one shown in them. After turning in the photos, the insurance people insisted she retake one of the photos, as clearly, the woman wasn't alone on the property that day. WHAT THE...!

Our guide showed us the infamous photo. The inset to the left shows a close up of the alleged, transparent Chloe. Professional National Geographic photographers examined the photo and negative and said they could not find any trickery in the photo. They also pointed out that over the porch on the right, there appear to be two small children crouching. You know... ghost children.

The photo that started it all. The house on the right is the one we toured. 

It is said Civil War soldiers march around porches and bricked walkways.

What fun to get to visit the haunted & hallowed grounds of the Myrtles Plantation, known to be haunted by at least a dozen spectors. How many did I see? Thank heavens, none! Whew. Hope my luck continues to hold out. Below are two episodes from the annals of Ghost Adventures, if you're hankering for a little seriously spooky viewing.

Baton Rouge - Rural Life Museum

Metal Mule - representing the Rural Life Museum of Baton Rouge Louisana

I arrived in Louisiana yesterday, did a tiny bit of wildlife refuge loitering near New Orleans, then drove north to Baton Rouge. After a tiny bit of research - I am an abysmal planner - I managed (just barely) to find the Rural life Museum. Am sooo happy I found it, as who doesn't appreciate a trip through a time portal?

Before arriving at the 'portal' there were fields of decorated hay bales I passed, no surprises, today being Halloween.

Massive campus

Spider Hay!




Sheepziz Hay!

No bull, just hay!

The hay bales really got themselves done up for Halloween.






I stopped briefly at a botanical gardens, then drove on to the museum, thoroughly enjoying the views from every acre. 

The porch of the Rural Life Museum's main building

A look just one section of the museum

Spinning wheels, great and small

Being Louisiana, I had to gird the old loins, in prep for facing the state's history of slavery. Some of it as strangely touching, such as this teeny, weeny doll, one can imagine some much loved enslaved child carrying about. Perhaps the doll's size - no more than 3 inches tall - was too keep the doll hidden from anyone who might take it, or because the limited amount of material to clothe the mite, kept it restricted in size?

The sad, tiny dolly that no doubt brightened
life for a tiny, enslaved child

Carpenter's kit? Nope, a Doctors' field operation kit 

It took like an hour to see just some of the stuff inside. So I rambled out back. I fell in love with this 'Dog Trot' house, straight out of The Yearling. The Dog Trot, built in the late 1860s, was in use by a family until the 1970s. All the houses at the RLM were moved there from other areas of Louisiana.

The Dog Trot has porches on its front and on its back

The Dog Trot has a central breezeway - the 'dog trot' separates two halves of the house

Dog Trot's kitchen

There's a small, not-actually-real cemetary which I entered to chase a few birds around. Then I headed through the cemetery gate towards a tiny white church.

View of College Grove Baptist Church

Inside are neat white pews and stained glass 'win-ders'

 The coolest bits of this little church are the arches over the alter - one on left is devil's webbed wing, vs the one on the right hand (of God no doubt) with white, feathered angel wings. Too cute!

Wilt thou sit to the dastardly left or the heavenly right? 

Super rare, Louisiana barn, made of hand split cypress 

Look inside the southern Louisiana barn

Cajun house circa 1805

Okra Plants, with several ripening pods 

This interesting old house has a garden in its front area, including - okra, which as brought by enslaved peoples to North America

'Single pen' Slave quarters circa 1840 

Fireplace w/boots, high chair, adults chair & a rickity bed

There are at least a dozen examples of buildings that housed enslaved peoples at the museum. Most were one room, i.e., single pen. Some were two roomed, and shockingly many housed poor people right into the 1970s.




The slave quarters below is from the 1830s. It was called a 'Saddlebag' type building as it had 2 single rooms, straddled on either side of a single chimney.

Double-pen - two room -Slave Quarters

In overcrowded quarters, the enslaved folks bedded down on the floor 

Inside the 'Sick House' where ailing enslaved people were nursed. Note the bed ropes,
pulled to hold the mattress rigid, so people could 'sleep tight', & wake without a sore back

Below is a Sugar House circa 1700s, that housed a row of kettles for boiling down sugar cane juice. Boiled, the juice was gradually moved along from giant kettle to a slightly smaller kettle, to another smaller kettle until the final & smallest metal pot held the nearly finished product. Gradually the last step was reached wherein crystallizing brown sugar was separated from the molasses.

The Sugar House

The first kettle

The sugar house techniques used were imported from the West Indies. After the 1830s, the sugar shacks were mostly replaced by factories.

A house of many uses - circa 1835

The building pictured just above, started off as slave quarters. It was then converted to a cook house for a plantation overseer. Later, in the late 1800s, post Civil War, it was used as a school house, right up into the 1930s. This well used building was brought to the museum in 1971. The poor thing deserves a break, don't you think?

You know what this is. 'Nuff said.










Totally enjoyed the Rural Life Museum. Seeing the old wood buildings makes one ponder about life when transportation meant your feet or a mule, and if you were lucky enough to have some 'learnin' you attended a one room school house. Yeah. I'd have hated it too. Nevertheless, today's Halloween, so on to tonight's adventure.