Spooky Madison's Haunted Places

Located seventy miles north of New Orleans. The Myrtles Plantation  contains some of the most interesting architecture seen in the south; lacy ornamental ironwork outside and plaster friezes inside the large airy rooms. The Myrtles Plantation also has been featured in such magazines as Life, Southern Living, The Wall street Journal, USA Today, Family Circle and many other publications. Many T.V. stations have also done features on this  house. Not all publicity had to do with the architecture. According to the U.S. Tourist Bureau the Myrtles Plantation is one of the authenicated haunted houses of America. 

It seems the Myrtles Plantation of Louisiana has many different 
spirits that roam its beautiful landscaped areas outside and inside the manor  itself. The most famous ghost would have to be Chloe, she was a governess for  Judge Clark Woodruffe's children. The Judge also carried on a affair with the 
mullatto woman. He soon tired of her and banished her from connection with the family. He then caught her eavesdropping on a conversation of his. In 
anger he decided to make an example of Chloe and have her ear cut off. After that she wore a green turban to hide her deformity.  She extracted her  revenge however, she asked to bake a birthday cake for one of the Judges  children, a peace offering in a way and was granted permission. While mixing  up the cake she added a few choice ingrediants to the batter that wasn't in  the recipe. She poisoned two of the judges children and his wife to death. She was hanged for her wickedness,  her corpse was then thrown in a nearby river.

 
The ghost of Chloe has been seen several times roaming around the mansion in the middle of the night. Sometimes a baby's cry is heard when she is seen.  She also likes to disturb the sleep of the guests by lifting the mosquitto netting that surrounds the beds.  Some say she is still checking on the Judges children she used to govern.

Another spirit that makes himself known is William Winter who owned the 
Plantation between 1860-1871, his spirit is said to linger because of the strange circumstances surrounding his death. He was called out on to the  porch one night where he was shot in the chest,  he then staggered back into  the house and managed to climb 17 of the 20 stairs where he died in his wife's arms. He is now heard climbing the stairs but he only makes it to the 17th one.

Other sketchy sightings at the Myrtles Plantation have included a pool of blood, apparitions of two little blonde girls peering through the windows, a mischievous child entity who likes jumping on freshly made beds, he is followed closely by a young woman in a maids uniform who smoothes the rumpled bed linens.  A confederate soldier marches across the porch, a man in khaki waits at the gate to warn customers away, no-one living is posted there.  Handprints, etched forever in eternity,  appear in a foyer mirror that has been replaced several times.  

A VooDoo preistress spirit is seen from time to time chanting over the still form of a young girl.  Legend has it she was unable to use her powers to save the girl from a fatal disease.  All these spirits and more are seen, felt, and heard at the Myrtles Plantation. It really is a house of spirits...

The LaLaurie House is a lavish building at 1140 Royal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. Most accounts agree that it was built in 1832 by Madame Delphine Macarty LaLaurie, a wealthy New Orleans socialite. 
   

The ghosts in the house are of some of her many slaves. While living, these people attended to her every whim and helped to keep up her stylish lifestyle. LaLaurie's friends often joked that she had one slave for every little task. 
   

In 1833 LaLaurie's slaves began disappearing frequently. One day a young
servant girl, Lia, ran from LaLaurie up to a roof top. She was trying to escape and screamed for help. Witnesses on the street watched LaLaurie beat the girl. Then Lia plunged to her death as she jumped from the roof trying to get away. LaLaurie had the body concealed in a well, but police soon found it. She was soon forced to sell her slaves at auction, but her friends bought them and retuned them to their former life. 
   

On April 10, 1834, a fire brigade reported to a call from 1140 Royal Street. Entering the kitchen, they found an elderly cook chained to the floor. She claimed to have lit the fire to draw attention to the goings on at the house. The woman directed them to the attic. 
   

The fire brigade could hardly believe what they saw. The attic had been turned into a torture chamber with naked victims chained to the wall. Corpses were rotting where they had expired. Worse still were the torture victims, many of whom were still living. One woman had been gutted and tied up with her own intestines. Another woman had her mouth sewn shut.

When rescuers cut the stitches, they found her mouth filled with feces. A man had a hole cut in his head with a stick inserted to "stir" his brains. Some people had been chained up just to starve to death. Many men were missing eyes, ears, fingers, and other small parts of their bodies. Obviously, despite the rescue, these people didn't live for very long. 
   

This time, even LaLaurie's friends turned on her. She was run out of town and she went to Paris. Some reports claim that she died after being gored by a wild bull while there. Others believe that she returned to New Orleans to covertly live under the name "Widow Blanque". Her murder count has never been accurately tabulated. During renovations, skeletons dating to LaLaurie's time have been found, and there may be more. 
   

The house went through many functions, including a girl's school, a tenement, an antique shop, an bar, and now apartments. Many of the people living in the house over the years have witnessed apparitions, noises, and screams. 
   

During the 19th century, a Black servant was awakened by the ghost of LaLaurie choking him. She is seen in all areas of the house. A large Black man in chains has confronted people on the stairs before vanishing. Some of LaLaurie's other servants have been seen. During the summer of 1999 a tourist photographed balls of light floating in the area of the roof where
Lia jumped to her death. 
   

The attic and staircase are among the most haunted. The building's ghosts are still believed to be active though the current residents don't speak about it. Ghost hunters insist that LaLaurie's spirit is evil and still dangerous. The house is a stop on several New Orleans ghost tours. Ghostly screams have been heard by people simply walking down the street.Viewing the home from the outside seems to be the safest way for an armchair ghost hunter to experience the LaLaurie house ghosts.

What better place to film a movie about creatures that walk the night than Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana?  Seen in numerous films including, "Interview with a Vampire," the plantation has it's own way of making visitors feel welcome. A canopy of tall oaks shield visitors from sunlight as it frames the main house, its soft pink walls beckon to you relax under the formidable veranda.  Is it no wonder that the original family was loathe to leave it?

The wealthy Creole family, the Romans, have left an indelible mark on the mansion. A lady in black strolls the widow's walk or beneath the shade of the oaks. Could she be the spirit of Louise Roman? As a young woman, she ran to escape the amorous advances of a drunken suitor and fell, slicing open her leg on the iron hoop frame. Gangrene set in and to save her life, doctors amputated the leg beneath the knee. Was the drama of that night carved into life of the oaks?  Does she still walk beneath the trees of her youth? Louise, in her late twenties, founded a Carmelite Convent in New Orleans and died peacefully many years later, so perhaps not…

Employees at the plantation are regularly visited by the supernatural. Lights turn off and on during tours, touches as they walk by certain rooms, the smell of lavender wafts through the room of the original lady of the house along with the presence of a shadow just out of the corner of the eye. Phantom carriages have been heard riding up a gravel road, the clip-clop of hooves resounding in the stillness that sometimes accompanies the sound. A child weeps, it's plaintive misery being carried through time and echoes in the empty mansion.

Recently, a candlestick flew across a room while a tour was being conducted. Visions of a violent and deadly struggle accompanied one woman while on tour, she watched as two men of the house wrestled with a Confederate soldier. The soldier is pushed from a second floor balcony, his body was then dragged to the river and rolled in. Later, a houseguest reported intense back pain while on the veranda. As he moved away, the pain lessened but returned if he ventured back to the spot. He was so amazed by the experience that he shared it with his hostess who then revealed that that was the area in which the scuffle in the vision had taken place.

Clocks hold a time all their own at Oak Valley. In an old southern custom, the clocks are stopped at the exact moment of the last owner's death (in this case, 7:30 am). The clocks were not touched again since. Recently, several guides have found that many of the clocks were set to different hours around the house. Did they reflect the death of other family members or do they follow the mysterious ticking of a clock only heard but never seen in the mansion?

Perhaps the most intriguing question at Oak Alley pertains to a photograph taken by Mr. Bernard of Fort Worth, TX. While touring the rooms, he snapped a picture in the master bedroom. When the film was developed, the shade of a young woman with waist-length chestnut colored hair appeared to be gazing out the French doors towards to the alley. When sending the photograph back to Oak Alley for their opinion, at first glance they thought it was a dressmaker's mannequin that is displayed in the room. Of course, however, the mannequin is headless so you may draw your own conclusions