Louisiana Offers Gators and Ghosts

Location: Myrtle’s Plantation, St. Francisville, LA

Date: June 1-2, 2007

Summer rolled around once again, and in this family that can only mean one thing: vacation. This summer it would be a little different though, instead of taking Mitch with us, we had my mom’s older sister, Linda with us. We had our sights set on Key West, Florida, but we decided to do a little ghost hunting on our journey south. And so we spent the first night of our trip at the beautiful Myrtle’s Plantation in Louisiana.

The Myrtle’s is reputed to be one of the most haunted locations in the southern US, and having seen it featured on Ghost Hunters, we hoped it might live up to our name, if not for our amusement, for Linda’s. The home had quite a history to go with it’s age and rumored hauntings. According to history, the original owners of the plantation suffered several deaths and murders within not only their own family, but also their slaves. The head slave, also the owner’s mistress, laced one of the kids’ birthday cakes with Oleander leaves, killing several of the children. This incident also resulted in the death of that slave. Later, one of the remaining children fell ill and a voodoo priestess was brought in to cure her. When the priestess’ methods failed, both she and the child ended up dead in the nursery. These stories and many others make up the violent past of what is today a hot spot in the south for vacationers and paranormal enthusiasts alike.

Of course, after finding out about the plantation, we called and asked to stay in two of the most “active” rooms in the bed and breakfast. The entire house is reportedly active, but they gave us the nursery where several of the children had died and it’s adjoining bedroom.  And, although we came back with no hard proof of any spirits having been present, we did have some interesting personal experiences, not the least of which was trying to climb onto the rather lofty beds.

It was while laying on the bed in the adjoining bedroom that I had my one and only paranormal experience in the house. I had laid down to wait on everyone to get ready for dinner, and while I was laying there the bed began to vibrate. It wasn’t violent enough to be visible when I told my mom about it, but from my perspective the mattress was definitely vibrating below me. In an attempt to debunk the movement, my mom walked back and forth across the room, but nothing happened.

That night we went on a “ghost tour” of the main house. I caught several orb pictures outside, but other than that it was uneventful. The guide spent the evening telling stories of the different experiences people had reported and showed us pictures of apparitions that had been caught. I thought it was rather interesting that there were common reports of children being heard and felt playing upstairs, particularly in the nursery area…

After going to bed that night, some very interesting things happened. I shared a room with Linda, and she asked me several times that night if she was crowding my space in the bed. I always said no, because there were in fact at least two feet of space between us all night; it was a large bed after all. The next morning she told me that she had been asking because it often felt like there was something beside or behind her while she slept, she had assumed during the night that it was me.

In the adjoining room where my parents slept, they also seemed to have uninvited company in their bed. According to both of them, they spent all night on opposite sides of the bed. My mom however heard someone breathing right next to her all night long… maybe one of the children decided to sleep between them?

The most prominent experience happened the next morning though. We woke up long before the other upstairs guests that morning. I was still in bed and my dad was out walking around outside. My mom had already showered and was getting ready in the hall bath when she heard what sounded like children playing in the hallway. A quick look outside proved there were no children, and after asking both Linda and me she realized only she had heard it.  A little while later, when I was showering in the hallway bathroom it happened again. Except this time both Linda and my mom experienced it. Linda was in the other bathroom and my mom was packing in the bedroom when they both heard muffled laughter and playing coming from the adjoining bedroom. There were definitely no children playing in our rooms that morning, in fact there were no children on the plantation grounds at all.

While we have no way of proving what we experienced to anyone, it certainly made for an interesting stop on our vacation. Who knows, maybe if we ever go back the playful kids will let us take a picture.

Hayley.