The Myrtles Plantation
A 1796 plantation called 'one of America's most haunted homes': the legend of Chloe and a mirror said to hold handprints.
Case File No. 015
FILE 01 The Legend
The 1796 plantation near St. Francisville markets itself as 'one of America's most haunted homes'. Its legend: Chloe, an enslaved girl whose ear was cut for eavesdropping, baked poisoned oleander cakes that killed two children, and was hanged by other enslaved people, her spirit remaining. The house's documented history includes William Winter's 1871 murder on the porch — shot by a still-unidentified assassin — and the antique mirror that 'holds' the family's souls.
FILE 02 The Sightings Log
Chloe is the headline ghost: a turbaned figure photographed on the grounds (the 1992 photo is the plantation's most-reproduced artifact) and heard at night. The 1871 murder replays on the porch: Winter climbing the stairs and dying on the 17th step. The haunted mirror, sealed after the poisoned children's deaths 'trapped their souls', shows handprints that won't clean off. Guests in the plantation's B&B rooms report children's voices and the famous footprints.
FILE 03 The Skeptic’s File
The Chloe story is the plantation's admitted invention: owners have acknowledged no Chloe appears in the property's records, and researchers found the tale assembled in the 20th century from fragments. The oleander-poisoning deaths have no documentary basis. The Winter murder is real; the rest is the South's most profitable ghost story — a haunted B&B that admits the legend while selling it. The plantation's honest layer is the documented brutality of slavery it sits on.