Speaker 1: Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener, Discretion is advised.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, an often cited parapsychology experiment took place.
Speaker 1: The experiment, conducted by Toronto parapsychologist Dr A. R. George
Speaker 1: Owen and psychologist Dr Joel Whitten, was called the Philip Experiment,
Speaker 1: and it sought to create a fictional character, a ghost,
Speaker 1: through a deliberate methodology, and in turn communicate with this
Speaker 1: ghost through a series of seances. The research team consisted
Speaker 1: of Dr Owen's wife, Iris, an industrial designer and his wife,
Speaker 1: a heating engineer, an accountant, a bookkeeper, and a sociology student.
Speaker 1: The research collective settled on a character named Philip Aylesford,
Speaker 1: referred to as Philip throughout the bulk of the experiment.
Speaker 1: His fictional history was a smorgeseport of real history and
Speaker 1: complete applications per the experiment. Philip was born in England
Speaker 1: in sixteen twenty four, served in the military throughout young adulthood,
Speaker 1: and was subsequently knighted at sixteen. Philip was serving in
Speaker 1: the English Civil War, where the parliamentarians and Royalists went
Speaker 1: to war over issues of England's governance and record on
Speaker 1: religious freedom. When he met and later became a close
Speaker 1: ally for Charles, the second King of Scotland, England and
Speaker 1: Ireland until his deposition in sixteen fifty one, and later
Speaker 1: king from the sixteen sixty Restoration until his death in
Speaker 1: sixteen eighty five. Philip, though never had a chance to
Speaker 1: see much of Charles's rule, Having fallen in love with
Speaker 1: the romane E girl, she was accused of witchcraft and
Speaker 1: burned at the stake. Despondent, Philip died by suicide in
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty four. He would have been thirty years old.
Speaker 1: The group worked tirelessly to contact their invention, their fictional Philip,
Speaker 1: hoping that by sheer belief in him, they could in
Speaker 1: effect will the spirit of Philip to exist. These attempts,
Speaker 1: at first proved unsuccessful. Dr Owen then changed the experiment conditions,
Speaker 1: altering several key environmental variables, dimming the lights, for instance,
Speaker 1: to more closely resemble a conventional seance. After dr Owen
Speaker 1: made these changes, participants reported phantom breezes, vibrations, vocal echoes,
Speaker 1: and a rapping sound whenever questions were posed to Philip.
Speaker 1: The table was said to tilt and move about the
Speaker 1: room without human contact. Audio, visual and firsthand accounts documented
Speaker 1: this phenomena. I've had luck with conducting experiments very close
Speaker 1: to this one. If any of you have ever watched
Speaker 1: my show Kindred Spirits, you may remember an episode called
Speaker 1: Zombie Boy in season five where Adam Burry and I
Speaker 1: very much create a spirit, give it a backstory, and
Speaker 1: proceed to interact with it. What does any of that
Speaker 1: have to do with the historic haunt we're about to discuss,
Speaker 1: you ask, Well, we'll get into that at the end
Speaker 1: of this podcast, but keep it in the back of
Speaker 1: your mind until then. Let's take a little trip to
Speaker 1: one of the most haunted states I know, Louisiana, and
Speaker 1: explore one of the most haunted locations I know, the
Speaker 1: Myrtles Plantation. I'm Amy Brunei, and this is haunted Road
Speaker 1: built in the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, is an
Speaker 1: outstanding example of a raised cottage plantation house. Particularly noteworthy
Speaker 1: is its size. Its front porch extends on seven ft,
Speaker 1: it's handsome cast iron vine and great patterned galleries, and
Speaker 1: its interior plaster work. St. Francisville, where the plantation is located,
Speaker 1: is a charming, pocket book sized town with lavishly restored
Speaker 1: Creole style cottages and is situated on the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: Myrtles Plantation hovers just beyond St. Francisville's Historic district up
Speaker 1: a long and meandering road. The plantation has manicured grounds
Speaker 1: of moss draped oaks and crape myrtles. As for the
Speaker 1: main home itself, it's an aged two story cottage just
Speaker 1: around a bend in the road beyond the plantation entree gates.
Speaker 1: The structure appears delicate, even dainty, with outstretched porches below
Speaker 1: and galleries above, all be decked by ocean green shutters
Speaker 1: and decorative iron railings. The original home, called Laurel Grove,
Speaker 1: seemed destined to be a home of note, as it
Speaker 1: was built by Whiskey Rebellion conspirator David Bradford in the
Speaker 1: late seventeen nineties. Bradford was born in Cecil, Maryland, in
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty two. He was one of five children born
Speaker 1: to Irish immigrant parents. He first made a name for
Speaker 1: himself in Washington County, Pennsylvania as a successful attorney businessman
Speaker 1: and deputy Attorney General for the county. His first attempt
Speaker 1: to marry ended only days before his wedding. Nothing is
Speaker 1: known about this, but he later met and married Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Porter in seventeen eighty five and started a family. The
Speaker 1: family had a beautiful home built in Pennsylvania, but had
Speaker 1: little time to enjoy it. David was forced to flee
Speaker 1: the house in October seventeen ninety four after he became
Speaker 1: involved in the infamous Whiskey Rebellion, and legend has it
Speaker 1: that President George Washington placed a price on the man's
Speaker 1: head for his role in the affair. The Whiskey Rebellion
Speaker 1: began in seventeen ninety one in the wake of a
Speaker 1: new federal tax on all distilled spirits, including whiskey. The
Speaker 1: tax law was intended to cover debt from the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 1: but because of the popularity of whiskey, it was easier
Speaker 1: to preserve for longer than rummer beer. It was opposed
Speaker 1: by many in places like the Western Frontier, where farmers
Speaker 1: relied on whiskey as a means of using up surplus
Speaker 1: materials as well as a form of currency. The whiskey
Speaker 1: tax was hotly resisted. In the summer of seven, a
Speaker 1: mob of five hundred men attacked the home of a
Speaker 1: tax inspector in Pennsylvania. President Washington rode at the head
Speaker 1: of an army to suppress the insurgency with thirteen thousand
Speaker 1: militiamen provided by the governors of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. The rebels all went home before the arrival
Speaker 1: of the army, and there was no confrontation. Of the
Speaker 1: twenty or so arrested, all were acquitted, but it scared
Speaker 1: those involved and scattered some of them to the win,
Speaker 1: one of whom was our whiskey Dave Bradford. Leaving his
Speaker 1: family behind, Bradford fled Pennsylvania. He first spent time in
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh before settling near what is now Sat. Francis Phille, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Bradford was no stranger to the area. He had originally
Speaker 1: traveled here in seventeen ninety two to try and obtain
Speaker 1: a land grant from Spain. When he returned in seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety six, he purchased six hundred acres of land and
Speaker 1: a year later built a modest, eight room home that
Speaker 1: he called Laurel Grove. He lived there alone until seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, when he received a pardon for his role
Speaker 1: in the Whiskey Rebellion from newly elected President John Adams.
Speaker 1: He retrieved his family in Pennsylvania and they settled into
Speaker 1: Laurel Grove. When David Bradford died in eighteen o eight,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth or Eliza inherited the property. In eighteen seventeen, their daughter,
Speaker 1: Sarah Matilda Bradford, married Clark Woodruff, a lawyer who would
Speaker 1: become a judge. Woodruff would also eventually take over ownership
Speaker 1: of the property from Eliza, but in the meantime managed
Speaker 1: the property for the family. Both Woodruff and Bradford enslaved people.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty, Eliza had twenty four persons in bondage,
Speaker 1: Woodruff had five. By eighteen thirty, Woodruff had thirty three
Speaker 1: enslaved persons associated with him, while Eliza had ten. According
Speaker 1: to author Troy Taylor, Woodruff expanded the holdings of the
Speaker 1: plantation and planted about six hundred fifty acres of indigo
Speaker 1: and cotton. Together, he and Sarah Matilda had three children, Cornelia,
Speaker 1: Gayal James, and Mary Octavia. However, tragedy was on the horizon.
Speaker 1: Yellow fever was a threat in New Orleans and South
Speaker 1: Louisiana virtually every year during the warmest months. Between eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty three and eighteen twenty four, Sarah Bradford Woodruff died
Speaker 1: along with two of her children. Yellow fever may have
Speaker 1: been the cause. The legend handed down says otherwise, Historians
Speaker 1: insist that Sarah Woodruffe and her daughters died in a
Speaker 1: yellow fever epidemic. This is hotly contested, and we'll get
Speaker 1: more into that shortly. Sarah went first on July twenty three.
Speaker 1: Their son James passed almost a year later on July fifteen.
Speaker 1: In September eighteen twenty four, daughter Cornelia Gale was the
Speaker 1: third Woodroof to die from yellow fever. But they were
Speaker 1: not alone, as the epidemic raged through the Louisiana region. Clearly,
Speaker 1: the eighteen twenties were probably emotionally challenging for Woodruff, but
Speaker 1: not financially. The eighteen thirty census listed property ownership at
Speaker 1: four thousand acres and four hundred eighty enslaved people. Woodruff
Speaker 1: eventually bought the property from his mother in law, Eliza Bradford.
Speaker 1: At this point, Eliza had outlived her husband, her daughter,
Speaker 1: and at least two grandchildren. She lived with Woodruff in
Speaker 1: the estate until her own death in eighteen thirty In
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four, Woodruff sold Laurel Grove to married couple
Speaker 1: Rough and Gray Sterling and marry Catherine Cobb. The Sterlings
Speaker 1: were a very wealthy family who owned several plantations on
Speaker 1: both sides of the Mississippi River. On January first, Ruff
Speaker 1: and Gray Sterling and his wife, Mary Catherine Cobb took
Speaker 1: over the house, land and buildings. They enslaved one hundred
Speaker 1: seventy three black men, women, and children, ranging an age
Speaker 1: from infancy to seventy years old. As prominent members of
Speaker 1: the community, they remodeled Laurel Grove to reflect their status.
Speaker 1: They enlarged and embellished the house, orchestrated the planting of
Speaker 1: a myriad of crape myrtle trees and renamed the plantation
Speaker 1: the Myrtles. They added the ornate European chandeliers and elaborate
Speaker 1: floral moldings formed of moss and clay plaster. The completed
Speaker 1: project nearly doubled the size of David Bradford's original house.
Speaker 1: Ruff and Sterling died from tuberculosis in eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: so Mary assumed the responsibility for the property. Ruff And
Speaker 1: Sterling and his wife had nine children. The most notable
Speaker 1: daughter for our purposes was Sarah. Their oldest son died
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four, the year his father passed away.
Speaker 1: Her daughter, Sarah Mulford Sterling, had married attorney William Winter
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty two, and Mary Cobb requested Winter's help
Speaker 1: in managing the properties. Then came the Civil War. The
Speaker 1: Civil War certainly affected the family and the people they enslaved.
Speaker 1: Many of the families personal belongings were looted and destroyed
Speaker 1: by Federal soldiers, and the wealth that they had accumulated
Speaker 1: was ultimately in worthless Confederate currency. To make matters worse
Speaker 1: for them, Mary Cobb had been invested heavily in sugar
Speaker 1: plantations that had been ravaged by the war. She eventually
Speaker 1: lost all of her property. Through her financial challenges, Mary
Speaker 1: decided to grant Sarah and William Winter the myrtles for
Speaker 1: their personal use. Additionally, William was engaged as the family
Speaker 1: agent and attorney. In eighteen sixty seven, the Sterling Winter
Speaker 1: family lost the home due to debt after the Civil War,
Speaker 1: but Sarah Winter later regained her father's property. It isn't
Speaker 1: clear just what happened to put them in the financial
Speaker 1: position to retake the home, but it seemed as though
Speaker 1: things were improving for the family until in eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: William Winter was shot and, according to legend, staggered upstairs,
Speaker 1: reaching the seventeenth step before expiring. A newspaper accounts hells
Speaker 1: Us slightly different story. William was called to his front
Speaker 1: door by some person unknown on the night of the
Speaker 1: six at about seven and a half o'clock, and as
Speaker 1: he appeared at the door of his sitting room, there
Speaker 1: being no one in sight, he requested to know who
Speaker 1: wished to see him, and at that instant a double
Speaker 1: barrel gun was discharged at him, loaded with seven large buckshot,
Speaker 1: six of which took effect upon his person, five in
Speaker 1: his breast and one through his neck, killing him instantly.
Speaker 1: Upon his stand, he fell and expired instantly without uttering
Speaker 1: a word. There are a number of theories and rumors
Speaker 1: about his death, especially regarding political or economic motivations about
Speaker 1: the plantation itself. According to a contemporary newspaper account, Mr
Speaker 1: Winter was not known by his most intimate friends, to
Speaker 1: have any enemies, or to be involved in any controversies
Speaker 1: calculated to create bitter and homicidal passions against him. He
Speaker 1: was a gentleman of mild and dignified deportment, calm, prudent,
Speaker 1: and temperate in all things, who, whilst not engaged in
Speaker 1: professional pursuits, passed his time in the bosom of a
Speaker 1: happy family, dispensing a liberal hospitality, and living the life
Speaker 1: of a Christian gentleman. The death on the seventeenth step
Speaker 1: detail seems to have been a later addition to this legend. Together,
Speaker 1: the two widows, mother Mary Cobb Sterling and daughter Sarah
Speaker 1: Sterling Winter, lived at the Myrtles until their respective deaths.
Speaker 1: Mary died in eighteen eighty and Sarah died in April
Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy eight. A Sterling son named Stephen owned
Speaker 1: the property until March of eighteen eighty six, when he
Speaker 1: either lost it due to gambling or could no longer
Speaker 1: manage the debt associated with the property. After this time period,
Speaker 1: details of the property became more scarce until the middle
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. By the nineteen fifties, the property
Speaker 1: surrounding the house had been divided among the Williams's hairs,
Speaker 1: and the house itself was sold to Marjorie Months and
Speaker 1: an Oklahoma widow who had been made wealthy by chicken farms.
Speaker 1: It was at this point that the ghost stories of
Speaker 1: the house began. They started innocently enough, but soon what
Speaker 1: may have been real life ghostly occurrences took on a
Speaker 1: life of their own. Many of the stories, especially the
Speaker 1: details that culminated in the story of a ghost named Chloe,
Speaker 1: traced to Marjorie Munson. According to oral tradition, Munson experienced
Speaker 1: odd things in the house. Wondering if perhaps the old
Speaker 1: mansion might be haunted, She asked around, and that's when
Speaker 1: the legend of Chloe got its start. Locals and members
Speaker 1: of the Williams family, who owned the house after nine
Speaker 1: swap stories about a woman in a green bonnet who
Speaker 1: haunted the halls of the Myrtles. The woman in those
Speaker 1: accounts was older than Chloe and specifically not characterized as enslaved,
Speaker 1: and rumors of an affair didn't exist yet when Munson
Speaker 1: heard this account, she soon penned a song about the
Speaker 1: ghost of the Myrtles, a woman in a green beret
Speaker 1: over the ars have we seen in many reported hauntings.
Speaker 1: The story grew and changed. The Myrtles changed hands several
Speaker 1: more times, and in the nineteen seventies it was restored
Speaker 1: again under the ownership of Arlands and Mr. And Mrs
Speaker 1: Robert f. Ward. During this period, the story grew even
Speaker 1: larger and evolved to include poison murders and a severed ear.
Speaker 1: Up until this point, though, it was largely just a
Speaker 1: story that was passed on by word of mouth, and
Speaker 1: it received little attention outside of the area. James and
Speaker 1: Francis Kiramin bought the Myrtles seemingly on a whim after
Speaker 1: passing through the area on a riverboat. That happenstance changed
Speaker 1: the course of the Myrtles Haunted history in general, and
Speaker 1: specifically impacted the legend of Chloe. Francis Kiramine and her
Speaker 1: husband Jim were the first Myrtles owners to turn the
Speaker 1: plantation into a business, a bed and breakfast that hosted
Speaker 1: a mystery dinner, theater, and offered tours. The Kiramans published
Speaker 1: stories of the hauntings well beyond the scope the local community,
Speaker 1: and paranormal experts and enthusiasts from all over the country.
Speaker 1: Were enthralled. Apparently, the earliest accounts of Chloe to appear
Speaker 1: in print appeared in a November nineteen eighty issue of
Speaker 1: Life magazine and in Richard Weiner's book Houses of Horror.
Speaker 1: Both of them mentioned the poisoned deaths of Sarah, Matilda
Speaker 1: and her daughters. Remember those names from the earlier yellow
Speaker 1: fever epidemic In the nineteen eighties, National Enquirer dubbed the
Speaker 1: site America's most haunted house, and the Appellachian stuck from
Speaker 1: the eighties and beyond, the hauntings associated with the property
Speaker 1: have snowballed. Additional deaths. Up to six more murders were
Speaker 1: added to the list. One of them Louis Sterling, the
Speaker 1: oldest son of Ruff and Gray. Sterling, was claimed to
Speaker 1: have been stabbed to death in the house over a
Speaker 1: gambling debt. However, burial records in St. Francisville state that
Speaker 1: he died at the age of twenty three in October
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four from yellow fever. Now, what about the
Speaker 1: legend of Chloe. The story says, shortly after Clark Woodruff
Speaker 1: married Sarah Bradford in eighteen seventeen, he noticed a teenaged
Speaker 1: enslaved girl named Chloe as she went about the property.
Speaker 1: Woodruff brought Chloe into the main house to be his concubine,
Speaker 1: but Chloe had a bad habit of eavesdropping on the judge.
Speaker 1: He caught her with her ear pressed to the door
Speaker 1: of the gentleman's parlor while he was engaged in business
Speaker 1: one day. As punishment, he had Chloe's left ear cut
Speaker 1: off and banished her to the plantation kitchen behind the
Speaker 1: big house. After the mutilation, Chloe wore a head wrap
Speaker 1: to disguise the wound and a single earring in her
Speaker 1: other ear. Banishment didn't please her at all, so the
Speaker 1: legend goes, a plan was devised Chloe would bake a
Speaker 1: birthday cake for the judge's twin daughters and spike it
Speaker 1: with the poisonous leaves of the oleander plant. The cake
Speaker 1: would sicken the girls, but Chloe would nurse them back
Speaker 1: to health and all would be forgiven. Except again, according
Speaker 1: to legend, that didn't happen. The two girls and their
Speaker 1: mother ate enough to die from the oleander poison, and
Speaker 1: Chloe fled to the quarters for the enslaved, but she
Speaker 1: was found out and a local judge ordered her hanged.
Speaker 1: After her death, her remains were dumped into the near
Speaker 1: by Mississippi River. Due to her violent death and improper burial,
Speaker 1: Chloe haunts the Big House and the grounds of the
Speaker 1: Myrtles to day. So the story goes. As for the
Speaker 1: specter of a woman in a green turban, that very
Speaker 1: well may be true, but there's no evidence that she's Chloe.
Speaker 1: It comes from a family oral tradition and wasn't meant
Speaker 1: for the general public. None the less, she may have
Speaker 1: been what prompted the owner, Marjory Munson, to start asking
Speaker 1: around in the first place. Francis Myers claimed that she
Speaker 1: encountered the ghost in the Green Turban in nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: She was asleep in one of the downstairs bedrooms when
Speaker 1: she was awakened suddenly by an African American woman wearing
Speaker 1: a green turban and a long dress. She was standing
Speaker 1: silently beside the bed, holding a metal candlestick in her hand.
Speaker 1: She was so real that the candle even gave off
Speaker 1: a soft glow. Knowing nothing about ghosts, she was terrified
Speaker 1: and pulled the covers over her head and started screaming.
Speaker 1: Then she slowly looked out and reached out a hand
Speaker 1: to touch the woman who had never moved, and to
Speaker 1: her amazement, the apparition vanished. Through research, author Joe Nickel
Speaker 1: hasn't found any sources that provide any evidence that the
Speaker 1: Chloe tale is true, attributing it, if at all, to legend.
Speaker 1: Archives in St. Francisville do nothing to enlighten the situation.
Speaker 1: Their holdings have not proven that Chloe existed at all.
Speaker 1: Historical sources don't support the existence of Chloe, let alone
Speaker 1: the crimes associated with her. The legends usually claimed that
Speaker 1: Sarah and her two daughters were poisoned, but Mary Octavia
Speaker 1: survived well into adulthood. Finally, Sarah James and Cornelia Woodruff
Speaker 1: were not killed by poisoning, but instead succumbed to yellow fever.
Speaker 1: So all of that being said, many claimed the legend
Speaker 1: of Chloe is just that a legend, but those connected
Speaker 1: to the home sometimes say otherwise. William Winter's spirit is
Speaker 1: believed to haunt the home since his murder, as is
Speaker 1: the spirit of his morning wife, Sarah eternally in black. Allegedly,
Speaker 1: the labored footsteps of Winter's ghost can be heard on
Speaker 1: the stairs. As I mentioned, legend has it that once
Speaker 1: reaching the seventeenth step of the staircase, Winter had climbed
Speaker 1: just high enough to die in his beloved's arms. Ever since,
Speaker 1: it's been claimed that ghostly footsteps have been heard coming
Speaker 1: into the house, walking to the stairs, and then climbing
Speaker 1: to the seventeenth step, where they of course come to
Speaker 1: an end. There's mention of a Confederate soldier spirit who's polite,
Speaker 1: but there's also a rumor that specters from the Union
Speaker 1: side have also lingered on the property. There's a story
Speaker 1: that during the Civil War, three Union soldiers broke into
Speaker 1: the Myrtles with the intent to rob the home. However,
Speaker 1: they were allegedly shot to death in the gentleman's parlor,
Speaker 1: leaving bloodstains on the floor that refused to be wiped away.
Speaker 1: Researchers claim to have discovered no historical record indicating that
Speaker 1: any of this happen, and specifically, the story has been
Speaker 1: refuted by some descendants. Another spirit attributed to the property
Speaker 1: is that of a nineteen twenties caretaker who wanders the grounds,
Speaker 1: sometimes telling tourists that the place is closed. During another
Speaker 1: attempt to rob the home, this time in nineteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: a caretaker was supposedly murdered, but again according to historians,
Speaker 1: as of now, there's no evidence that it happened. The
Speaker 1: Myrtles also has a very famous haunted mirror that hangs
Speaker 1: in a prominent position. This mirror contains dark shadows that
Speaker 1: are said to be the imprinted spirits of the dead
Speaker 1: wife and children of Judge Woodruff. Another legendary haunted artifact
Speaker 1: on site is the portrait of an anonymous man hanging
Speaker 1: in the second floor foyer. His expression is believed to
Speaker 1: change right before viewers eyes, and his eyes seem to
Speaker 1: follow people as they move through the room. So the
Speaker 1: Myrtles as quite a storied fiast of property, no doubt.
Speaker 1: It's certain you've seen its share of dark history, tragedy
Speaker 1: and death. So it's no wonder it's haunted. But let's
Speaker 1: hear some of these stories firsthand from the Myrtles property
Speaker 1: Ambassador Hester eb Miss Hester worked at the Myrtles for
Speaker 1: decades and even now retired, continues to be their spokesperson,
Speaker 1: and she does have some very fascinating stories. After that,
Speaker 1: I want to dive a bit into what I think
Speaker 1: maybe going on at the Myrtles and how even if
Speaker 1: the leadend of Chloe isn't true, and she never existed.
Speaker 1: She could still very much be haunting the old plantation
Speaker 1: home all right. Now, I am currently joined by Miss
Speaker 1: Hester Hester Eby, who is now the property ambassador for
Speaker 1: Myrtles Plantation. She was the former director of tours, but
Speaker 1: she recently retired, but she's still very much involved in Myrtles.
Speaker 1: So thank you for joining me, Miss Hester. Thank you
Speaker 1: for asking us. Of course, Now, Myrtles is interesting because
Speaker 1: every other location just about on Haunted Road I have
Speaker 1: visited in some way, and Myrtles is one of the
Speaker 1: few that I have not yet had the pleasure to
Speaker 1: pay a visit too. So I'm learning along with all
Speaker 1: of the listeners about the property. And you know, the
Speaker 1: history is vast, it sounds like. So before we get
Speaker 1: into it too deeply, can you just kind of tell
Speaker 1: us how you got involved in the property and how
Speaker 1: long you've been involved with the property. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'd like to invite all of you to come visit us.
Speaker 1: It's really an experience. It's easy to talk about, but
Speaker 1: once you've been with us and sid the night or
Speaker 1: even spent a couple of hours on the grounds taking
Speaker 1: a few photographs, or whatever. It's amazing. It's really an
Speaker 1: experience that you want to have for yourself. But I
Speaker 1: started the Myrtles about twenty some years ago, and like
Speaker 1: anyone else looking for a job, I didn't have transportation
Speaker 1: at the time, a long time ago. So I called
Speaker 1: and the owner at the time was Francis Kermy and
Speaker 1: she said, well, come by please and let's talk. And
Speaker 1: so I did. And I say that the Myrtles for years.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm still there. But you know, we're known
Speaker 1: to be hard, and it's not anything that just started yesterday.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm an old woman. I'm in my sixties now.
Speaker 1: So even when I was a child living in Woodville, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: if we drove by the Myrtles, it's like, don't point
Speaker 1: over there, don't point over there. It's bad luck because
Speaker 1: it's haunted. So not just the tale told, it's really true.
Speaker 1: Anything from hearing footsteps for no reason, or hearing your
Speaker 1: name Carled and thinking that it's a co worker because
Speaker 1: it's their voice and they're into what they're doing. But
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety six was when it was built to the
Speaker 1: states that it is now. Seventeen ninety four's when it
Speaker 1: started and a man named General David Bradford thought it
Speaker 1: at all. He came from Pennsylvania, built the Myrtles, and
Speaker 1: it went on to his son in law and then
Speaker 1: from then seventeen uh the Sterlings added all the beauty
Speaker 1: that we see today to the Myrtles. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have taken a pretty deep dive into the history and
Speaker 1: the first half of the episode, and there's just so
Speaker 1: much history to it as far as who has been
Speaker 1: associated with it over the years, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: there's also a lot of stories that kind of have
Speaker 1: come from it that may not necessarily actually have happened,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like kind of trying to weave through,
Speaker 1: you know, what's historically accurate and what is lore and
Speaker 1: things like that. And you said in the beginning about
Speaker 1: how important it is to visit it, and I completely
Speaker 1: agree with you. You know, it's so interesting because I've
Speaker 1: heard stories for so long about the Myrtles, and I
Speaker 1: have friends that just feel very attached to it in
Speaker 1: a way that it's just a very important place to them.
Speaker 1: They go back and visit every year, and it's just
Speaker 1: kind of one of those haunts and one of those
Speaker 1: places that draw people in. Do you think there was
Speaker 1: kind of a bit of that when you started, Did
Speaker 1: you feel just kind of compelled to be there in
Speaker 1: some way? Well, when I first started, of course, as
Speaker 1: I said, it was a job. But then the first
Speaker 1: day that I got there, the beauty of it, it's
Speaker 1: just overwhelming. It's I walked into the parlors and it
Speaker 1: was like I was walking into something out of the
Speaker 1: movies that you just didn't know what exists in San
Speaker 1: Francis too, Louisiana. So you have an attachment to it.
Speaker 1: And the more people visit, and the more you get
Speaker 1: to know people, and the more they tell you their
Speaker 1: stories about the mysteries of the Myrtles, and you can
Speaker 1: relate to it because well, you know, this happened to
Speaker 1: a couple of few days ago or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: it's conversation. And when I first started working at the Myrtles,
Speaker 1: unlike now, people just didn't believe. They didn't talk about ghosts.
Speaker 1: They just didn't believe some of the things that happened
Speaker 1: at the Myrtles. And although haunted places as well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure actually happened, but I mean, we have proof of it.
Speaker 1: It's too many of us that sat at each other
Speaker 1: and talk with each other and experience pretty close to
Speaker 1: the same things. Yeah. Absolutely, So what was the first
Speaker 1: thing that happened to you there that you knew something
Speaker 1: was going on at the Myrtles. Well, the very first
Speaker 1: thing that happened is when And this was very, very
Speaker 1: just the first day that I came. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: what was happening at the time, but a few months
Speaker 1: later I realized. I came to on the parking lot.
Speaker 1: It was the early morning. I didn't see but one car,
Speaker 1: and I was looking for the owner at the time,
Speaker 1: so I didn't see anyone. And my first thought was,
Speaker 1: you know, you got the times mixed up. No one
Speaker 1: is here. I came to the front of the house
Speaker 1: and the door was a jar a bit, just opened
Speaker 1: just slightly, and there was a lady. She was on
Speaker 1: the staircase, I mean, just a lady, and she begged
Speaker 1: for me to come up. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been there before. I didn't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. So I kind of peeped in
Speaker 1: and I called and I don't know if I said
Speaker 1: hello there or whatever, but no one answered. And what
Speaker 1: by the time I looked back up after kind of
Speaker 1: peeping my head in and calling. The lady was on
Speaker 1: the staircase kind of becking for me to come up.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I didn't do that, and I left the
Speaker 1: door the way it was, and I was headed back
Speaker 1: to the parking lot and Francis Kerman was in a
Speaker 1: little garden area, whether a sister and or well is,
Speaker 1: and she was doing flowers and she said hey, and
Speaker 1: so we got to talking and whatever, and I remember
Speaker 1: very well she had on a green movement that's, you know,
Speaker 1: a big dress and uh, purple pump, and purple is
Speaker 1: my favorite coast. I know this goes plump. And so
Speaker 1: we were talking a bit and she said, can you
Speaker 1: start work tomorrow? Well, first of all, you don't know
Speaker 1: me that well, you hadn't got a resume or anything on.
Speaker 1: It kind of puzzled me just a bit, but I
Speaker 1: said yes, and she said, oh, you can start doing tours.
Speaker 1: I said tours? Was that about? Because I wasn't familiar.
Speaker 1: And then she went on and told me. I said,
Speaker 1: I know nothing about this house. And she said, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't give you the information you need. And so
Speaker 1: I started and then it went on and about three weeks. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess maybe a month, maybe a little over a
Speaker 1: month or so. Maybe. I asked her about the lady
Speaker 1: on the staircase. She said, Oh, don't worry about her,
Speaker 1: but that lady, I mean, she was a spirit. She
Speaker 1: was a lady, and she just begged for me to
Speaker 1: come up. She was not an antevelop gown or anything
Speaker 1: like that. She had on what looked like maybe a
Speaker 1: day dress or something that would have been popular for
Speaker 1: the arian. I don't know. It was so quick, but
Speaker 1: the lady she was telling me, was a spirit. She existed,
Speaker 1: but not in human form. But I mean she was
Speaker 1: a lady, becking for me to come up. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: hear that a lot, where people will see an apparition
Speaker 1: and it just to them looks like a person. And
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder how many times we've seen apparitions
Speaker 1: in our lives and just didn't realize that they were
Speaker 1: a spirit because they do look so solid, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: We have photographs and one of the most famous one
Speaker 1: is a lady and she's an antebellum gown, but she's
Speaker 1: on the staircase, you know, I mean, she's seeing who's
Speaker 1: coming into her home. That's the way I feel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so who do you think that was? You have
Speaker 1: any idea? I don't know, because I wouldn't go as
Speaker 1: far back as the eighteen hundreds. The way the lady looks,
Speaker 1: I really don't know. We with our cameras now, even
Speaker 1: our phone cameras or whatever, we're picking up things so quickly,
Speaker 1: you know. It's not like the old photographs used to
Speaker 1: be had to wait for her to get developed and
Speaker 1: all that. We're picking up things that are actually happening
Speaker 1: around us that we're not aware of, right right, I
Speaker 1: have no idea of who she was, But as I said,
Speaker 1: I don't believe she goes as far back as the
Speaker 1: eight hundreds the way she was dressed. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: you can tell they're dressed in period costa. We had
Speaker 1: a young man not that long ago thought it was
Speaker 1: a thrill to have his wife come to a hunting
Speaker 1: house to do some surprise that happens all the time.
Speaker 1: And she realized she was at the myrtles and it's like, honey,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can stay in the main house,
Speaker 1: you know, And so we got ready to move them
Speaker 1: to one of our cottages, which people do want to
Speaker 1: stay on the grounds, but not actually stay in the
Speaker 1: main house because of the age and because of so
Speaker 1: many stories. And he went upstairs. She went to the
Speaker 1: other room him. He went upstairs to get the rest
Speaker 1: of their stuff and their luggage, and he took a while.
Speaker 1: But when he came down, he said, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: I met the owner and we, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: looked at each other and he said, yeah. He said,
Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to meet Mr Winter. And he said,
Speaker 1: it's great that all of you dressed in costume. Now
Speaker 1: I never dressed in costume, but our cher guys to do,
Speaker 1: and it adds to it. People love that. But Mr
Speaker 1: Winter owned the home in the eighteen hundreds, and for
Speaker 1: someone to tell him that he was Mr Winter and
Speaker 1: then someone to be up there in costume, because he said,
Speaker 1: you know, he even tipped his top hat to me
Speaker 1: when we first started our conversation. But who he talked
Speaker 1: to with someone from the past, I don't doubt he
Speaker 1: talked to him at all. That's fascinating. Yeah, But when
Speaker 1: he went over, you know, to talk to his girlfriend
Speaker 1: and let her know that they were all settled for
Speaker 1: the night. Uh, she still didn't feel comfortable saying Mr Winter,
Speaker 1: he was shot right according to legend, did that actually
Speaker 1: happen or oh, yes, it really did happen. He died
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth step of the main staircase. And the
Speaker 1: story goes that Mr Winterer he had a few things
Speaker 1: going on. He had married the sterling's daughter, their only daughter,
Speaker 1: and he was from St. Louis. He had left a
Speaker 1: lady in St. Louis spoiled the so the writing said.
Speaker 1: But in that time he may have even kissed her.
Speaker 1: You know, that was considered an automatic engagement. And he
Speaker 1: owed a huge gambling debt, and he had a good
Speaker 1: chance of becoming governor at the time it was written.
Speaker 1: But he had quite a few enemies as well. So
Speaker 1: the story goes that someone wrote up following gentleman in
Speaker 1: need of an attorney, and Mr Winterer came out of
Speaker 1: his gentleman's parlor onto his north porchway to answer the collar.
Speaker 1: But when he got to the porch way, whoever it
Speaker 1: was on horseback shot him and continued to go, but
Speaker 1: the blast blew him back into his home, and he
Speaker 1: made it through the parlors trying to reach his wife,
Speaker 1: and the seventeenth step is where he died in her
Speaker 1: arms as he was calling for her. She was trying
Speaker 1: to get him, and this is where you know he
Speaker 1: took his last breath. So a lot of times people
Speaker 1: hear the footsteps, they hear a lady's cry, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the smell of perfume is overwhelming to people that are
Speaker 1: in that upstairs sweet where Mr Winter and his wife shared.
Speaker 1: So it is said also that a lot of people
Speaker 1: will put a ball on the seventeenth step because Mr
Speaker 1: Winter didn't like children playing ball in the home. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if they did it or not, but
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth step, if you place a ball there,
Speaker 1: the story goes. And I have not seen it personally happened,
Speaker 1: but I've seen it where people have set up their
Speaker 1: cameras and you will see that ball come off that
Speaker 1: seventeen step and it comes off with a force. It's
Speaker 1: just no one kicked it or something right. So, when
Speaker 1: I was going through the history, I think that sometimes
Speaker 1: people assume every spirit or ghost is from like an
Speaker 1: older time period, But the history has just been kind
Speaker 1: of constant with the myrtles as far as death's associated
Speaker 1: with the poverty who has lived there over the years now,
Speaker 1: you having spent so much time there, who do you
Speaker 1: think is maybe the most prevalent spirit in the plantation.
Speaker 1: I would guess Chloe is, because she loves the idea
Speaker 1: of being around people. She seems to be fascinated with jewelry,
Speaker 1: and so I do believe out of all the years
Speaker 1: that I have been there and out of personal things
Speaker 1: that have kind of happened to me, and you just wonder, well,
Speaker 1: you know, was this something out of the supernatural or
Speaker 1: was it just something that happened, you know that just
Speaker 1: does not happen every day. But I think she is.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think people see her more than we realize,
Speaker 1: because we have a restaurant on the grounds as well,
Speaker 1: so everything you need is right there, and we've had
Speaker 1: guests just on the back porch and the rockers, you know,
Speaker 1: in late evening, and they told us how nice it
Speaker 1: is they have everyone, the waitresses in the restaurant in costume.
Speaker 1: Who they're seeing, I don't know, because our waitresses are
Speaker 1: not in costume. But it was an area where you
Speaker 1: would go back and forth from the butler's pantry to
Speaker 1: get food prepared for the household. And who they're seeing
Speaker 1: is probably people from the past. That's so crazy because
Speaker 1: that happens like in Gettysburg a lot too. Or people
Speaker 1: will think they're seeing re enactments and then turn around
Speaker 1: and no one is there, and you know, they're just
Speaker 1: assuming that it's people in costume. Now, I feel like
Speaker 1: the Ghost of Chloe, like that is a story too
Speaker 1: that I don't know as always properly portrayed. You know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like not everyone is convinced that things happen
Speaker 1: the way they say they it historically, and that's something
Speaker 1: like we're always trying to clear up what have you heard?
Speaker 1: What is the story of Chloe according to what you
Speaker 1: all think? Well, the story goes that the second owner,
Speaker 1: Judge Clark Woodroff, General Bradford's son in law, took on
Speaker 1: a mistress that was one of his house servants and
Speaker 1: she was caught eavesdropping on some of the family business
Speaker 1: and as punishment, she cut off her left earload. Well,
Speaker 1: it left her so upset that a few days later
Speaker 1: she baked the birthday cake for his oldest daughter, used
Speaker 1: the juices some a popular leaf the oleander baked it
Speaker 1: in the family's cake, killing the Judges's wife, Sarah, and
Speaker 1: two of their children and their three of the ghosts,
Speaker 1: along with Chloe the slaves who still lived there. After
Speaker 1: Chloe confessed of poisoning, she was killed. And this is
Speaker 1: the story that we tell. But I do want to say,
Speaker 1: you know, Ki was a nanny of the children, so
Speaker 1: she care of them. It's just a personal feeling that
Speaker 1: after she was sent to the fields, away from the children,
Speaker 1: that she wanted to do something to get back in
Speaker 1: the good graces of the family. So this is and
Speaker 1: this is in my opinion, that she did the cake,
Speaker 1: not thinking that put the lander in a birthday cake,
Speaker 1: not thinking that she would kill the children by any means,
Speaker 1: or the mother which also died, but that she would
Speaker 1: make them ill having to care of them for years.
Speaker 1: She could come back in knowing what was already wrong.
Speaker 1: There's them back to health and get on the good
Speaker 1: graces of everyone again and be invited back into the household.
Speaker 1: But it was overdone. Regardless to why the reasons, it
Speaker 1: was overdone and they all died. And after Coli confessed
Speaker 1: to the poisoning, I believe she confessed taking someone older
Speaker 1: or wiser will be able to save the family. Of course,
Speaker 1: she is killed, but that is the most popular story,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people question that story, but I
Speaker 1: do not, because something happened there, and she and the
Speaker 1: children are very often seen, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: say that she has a knack of showing up. We
Speaker 1: have a mirror in the fourier that's very popular. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've heard about it, and they the face of
Speaker 1: the children and Chloe show up, without a doubt. I
Speaker 1: have seen that and people have said that they took
Speaker 1: the picture and it looks like a first children are there,
Speaker 1: but then it looks like something larger shape of a
Speaker 1: person comes and kind of coverage the children, as if
Speaker 1: she's pushing them away. I believe it's Chloe and our
Speaker 1: children that were poisoned, but I believe she's still trying
Speaker 1: to protect them no matter what. So that's the most
Speaker 1: popular story of the Myrtles in my viewpoint, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people have the scene the in mirror, the
Speaker 1: image of Choe as well as the children, and most
Speaker 1: of the time the children first, and this this image
Speaker 1: coming as if it's protecting them. A lot of our guests,
Speaker 1: and then especially in the old side of the hall,
Speaker 1: which would have been the only side that was they're
Speaker 1: doing Koe's time. A lot of times they've gotten warm,
Speaker 1: pulled their covers back a wake an hour so later
Speaker 1: it's only two of them, but yet they're tucked in tightly.
Speaker 1: Things like that has happened. We used to have school,
Speaker 1: or COVID has now kind of delayed us with everything.
Speaker 1: But we're on the National Register of Historical Places, so
Speaker 1: a lot of school groups come to visit us, and
Speaker 1: I had had a couple of times. Same day, two
Speaker 1: kids asked me, are you hungry? And one little girl
Speaker 1: asked me, I guess she was. I don't know how
Speaker 1: she was. She was in the elementary, but she was
Speaker 1: with her mother and there was a group of about
Speaker 1: fifteen of them and we were waiting for them to
Speaker 1: tap their turn to go into the house. I was
Speaker 1: just killing time and talking to him or whatever. And
Speaker 1: when I got to the end of the line, she
Speaker 1: and her mother were the last people, and she said,
Speaker 1: why are you dirty? And I kind of looked down
Speaker 1: at myself because it was after lunch, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: known to do that, and it looked pretty decent, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't look like I had it filled anything. And
Speaker 1: she said, are you hungry? And I realized as she
Speaker 1: was talking to me, she was looking to the side
Speaker 1: of me, is if someone was behind me, and she
Speaker 1: was not talking to me at all, but I was
Speaker 1: trying to answer her. And then I said, honey, are
Speaker 1: you talking to me? And she said no, and then
Speaker 1: she turned around as if she was talking to someone
Speaker 1: behind me, and uh. I looked at her mother, and
Speaker 1: her mother looked at me kind of smiled or whatever,
Speaker 1: because she never want to I don't know how parents feel,
Speaker 1: so we never said, oh, she sees a ghost and
Speaker 1: their children, so I didn't. I was waiting for the
Speaker 1: next step from her parents, and then her mother kind
Speaker 1: of winked at me, and I waked my eye back.
Speaker 1: And then after they went in, the mother stayed out
Speaker 1: and talked to me for a second and she said,
Speaker 1: I really think she was talking to someone else behind you.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I get that feeling too. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's really the way to handle it. We've always asked
Speaker 1: me like how to handle ghosts and children, and I
Speaker 1: feel like you guys were doing the exact correct thing.
Speaker 1: Was just kind of not make a big deal out
Speaker 1: of it, because then that makes them afraid, whereas if
Speaker 1: you just kind of act like it's, you know, just
Speaker 1: a normal happening. Then they just move on from it
Speaker 1: and don't dwell on it. You know, they see things
Speaker 1: I believe very often that we do not. I had
Speaker 1: a young man with his grandfather and they came on
Speaker 1: tour and I was just talking to him or whatever,
Speaker 1: and if we have extra time, we listened to a
Speaker 1: story that they want to tell. And this gentleman told me.
Speaker 1: He said he and his grandson were arriving around on
Speaker 1: their property and they do it almost every other evening
Speaker 1: on a four wheeler. And when his grandson was younger
Speaker 1: and the little boy was about ten at the time,
Speaker 1: they were using us. When the little boy was young
Speaker 1: or he would tell his grandfather to stop by this
Speaker 1: house that used to belong to an old lady that
Speaker 1: lived on the property way before he bought it. And
Speaker 1: he wouldn't get off before Willow, but he would wave
Speaker 1: that Miscedi, and he would do it. You know, he
Speaker 1: just do it because he asked him to. We do
Speaker 1: all you things to our grandchildren. And so this particular evening,
Speaker 1: after he stopped seeing Mercedie and she would wave at
Speaker 1: him from the porch, his grandfather stopped by Mercedes house,
Speaker 1: you know, gave it a pause and he said, pahpa,
Speaker 1: while you stopping, He said, don't you want to wave
Speaker 1: that mess? Sadies said, Mercedes not here anymore. She's gonna heaven.
Speaker 1: And so after that they never stopped by Mercedes house.
Speaker 1: But when he was at the Myrtles, we were talking,
Speaker 1: we were in the ladies parlor. He had his attention
Speaker 1: to the gentleman's parlor, which is right next door for
Speaker 1: some reason, and eventually, you know, he moved a little
Speaker 1: bit towards the parlor, moved a little more, and we
Speaker 1: knew as if he wanted to go in that room,
Speaker 1: and he couldn't wait for us, So I told his
Speaker 1: grand aither he could go ahead. So he went in
Speaker 1: the room, and he went to the corner. And when
Speaker 1: he went to that corner, I knew was the corner
Speaker 1: that a lot of kids have said that there's a
Speaker 1: little boy playing marbles. And I didn't hear the marbles
Speaker 1: on the floor, because sometimes we've heard that it's a
Speaker 1: wood floor. But he went in that corner and he
Speaker 1: acted if he was talking to someone. So he held
Speaker 1: his little hand out and then he closed it and
Speaker 1: we kept, you know, we kept talking to each other.
Speaker 1: And when he got into the next room, he opened
Speaker 1: his little hand to show his papa that he had
Speaker 1: a rock, and his papa asked, Hi, where did he
Speaker 1: get the rock? Prom he pointed, in there, a child
Speaker 1: gave it to him. In there, he said, And then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden he stopped talking to us about it,
Speaker 1: and he did his little finger over his lips like
Speaker 1: you would do when you were saying, you know, be quiet,
Speaker 1: And so he did that, and we knew that the
Speaker 1: person in there that he was seeing and we could
Speaker 1: not was telling him not to talk to us about it.
Speaker 1: If they sound like such interactive spirits, you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that people see them so strongly and think that
Speaker 1: they're just a living human being is so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: Like how often are people having experiences there? Well, when
Speaker 1: I was there on a daily basis, it was something
Speaker 1: that we could not predict. It would at least a
Speaker 1: month would not go by without someone having something happened.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times they didn't realize that at
Speaker 1: the time. They would send us photographs back saying who
Speaker 1: is this? You know, and of course you know you
Speaker 1: can't always answer, you can. Yeah, In fact, you never
Speaker 1: are sure of an answer, but you can tell them
Speaker 1: what this story was told about this area. You know.
Speaker 1: But some people I think are attracted to persons from
Speaker 1: their past. You know. I think that sometimes people from
Speaker 1: their past seemed to kind of connect at the myrtles.
Speaker 1: And I could be wrong about that, but I've seen
Speaker 1: so many times. We had some guests that came to
Speaker 1: visit and they went on a trip that they do
Speaker 1: every year. Well, unfortunately one of their friends had passed
Speaker 1: on and he was not able to come on this trip.
Speaker 1: They sent me a photograph and they said, look at this. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the photographs and I don't know because
Speaker 1: everyone seems like, you know, just normal. And I thought
Speaker 1: they meant I could see something in the background like
Speaker 1: other photographs. Who is this or whatever? But then when
Speaker 1: I looked at the two pictures that they sent me,
Speaker 1: I saw nothing. And then on the little letter that
Speaker 1: they sent me, which I should have read first, I
Speaker 1: guess the little note it says that Don is here,
Speaker 1: and so then they have a little arrow that they
Speaker 1: drew to the man that is done. Well, Don looks
Speaker 1: like everyone else to me, but Don is the person
Speaker 1: that was no longer with them. That is wild. It
Speaker 1: makes me wonder, like, what is it about the myrtles,
Speaker 1: Like what's going on there? You know, no, I know,
Speaker 1: but it's look not to be and I know you're
Speaker 1: not because you're so used to this and you travel
Speaker 1: to other places so much, and people are just so
Speaker 1: they're not like they used to be. You know. It's
Speaker 1: nothing to scare you. It's just I know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of unbelievable, but it happens, you know, it just happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know why they're drawn to the myrtles.
Speaker 1: I know that we have a lot of past that
Speaker 1: involves you know, ghosts and mysteries and whatever, but it
Speaker 1: continues to happen. It just rolls on. We've had guests
Speaker 1: that have stayed in one room and the ladies they're
Speaker 1: overwhelmed with sadness for some reason, so much so that
Speaker 1: they're shedding a little tear and they don't know why.
Speaker 1: But we are sensitive as women, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times too if it involves a child, that really kicks in.
Speaker 1: So this particular room, the family Williams Room, there's always
Speaker 1: kind of a sadness there and people have said the
Speaker 1: children still play in the closet there, and I do
Speaker 1: believe it. Yeah, I mean, now you're you're making me
Speaker 1: want to visit even more. I always have wanted to visit. Now,
Speaker 1: how did everything I knew that IDA didn't really affect
Speaker 1: that area in particular, but I know the Myrtles was
Speaker 1: housing some evacuees and everything. So how are things bearing
Speaker 1: there now? Everything is going as well as can be expected.
Speaker 1: And we were lucky in this area, so we were
Speaker 1: able to help our neighbors and help our friends. And
Speaker 1: the Myrtles still has some guests staying with us because
Speaker 1: they're unable to go to their home right now, and
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. But in fact, you know, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: you've seen it on all of our commercials and it's
Speaker 1: really really true. As our Lieutenant governor and our governor says,
Speaker 1: we're set of people that look out for each other
Speaker 1: and we're strong people and we're not leaving this area
Speaker 1: because of hurricane and whatever else because we love where
Speaker 1: we are. But to answer you, the Myrtles is still
Speaker 1: sheltering people and we'll continue to do it as long
Speaker 1: as needed. And that's just the way it is. Well,
Speaker 1: Louisiana is one of my absolute favorite places to visit.
Speaker 1: I've been really fortunate to see quite a bit of
Speaker 1: the state, but I definitely need to at the Myrtles
Speaker 1: off at some point very soon. I do really appreciate
Speaker 1: you sitting and telling us some great stories, and I
Speaker 1: think everyone's interest is very peaked. I'm sure people will
Speaker 1: be paying a visit very soon. If they want to
Speaker 1: book a day or anything, they just head to the website.
Speaker 1: Right are you guys doing tours right now? We are.
Speaker 1: We only close for tour of the short period that
Speaker 1: you know we're asked to because of COVID, but everything
Speaker 1: is as close to normal as we can get it,
Speaker 1: and we welcome our guests. Bed and Breakfast still open.
Speaker 1: As I said, our restaurant is outstanding and some of
Speaker 1: the food that you will only get in the South
Speaker 1: is certainly there. But you know, we have tours every
Speaker 1: day and of course in the evenings. This is what
Speaker 1: really is exciting to me, and I love it because
Speaker 1: on Friday and Saturday nights we still do evening tours
Speaker 1: and those tours are focused on nothing but ghost stories
Speaker 1: and I love that and a lot of times when
Speaker 1: our GUIDs start the tours, you'll have someone. It's like
Speaker 1: children in a classroom have someone in the back wants
Speaker 1: to say something and they will raise their handle and
Speaker 1: they have a story to tell, and we take time
Speaker 1: for that because it's an our tour and it's it's enjoyable.
Speaker 1: I love that you guys are doing that because I mean,
Speaker 1: I just feel like the history of the Myrtles is
Speaker 1: incredibly important, and then I think sometimes when you add
Speaker 1: in ghost stories and legends and mysteries, it just really
Speaker 1: gets people interested and you know, they learned so much
Speaker 1: as a byproduct with that as well. So I love
Speaker 1: what you're all doing there and I can't wait to visit.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for spending some time with me.
Speaker 1: I know we went back and forth trying to make
Speaker 1: this interview happened. I'm so glad it finally happened, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it that it happened as well. And
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry I missed you on Friday, But you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Franceville is a beautiful town anyway,
Speaker 1: So you know, we have other plantations as well, so
Speaker 1: I mean, we're just in the heart of everything, and
Speaker 1: I want you to come and please let me know
Speaker 1: when you're coming. It's gonna be being news anyway, probably
Speaker 1: everyone will know. But let me know when you're coming
Speaker 1: so we can meet each other. I would love that
Speaker 1: so thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, love Blaye bye. The reason I
Speaker 1: cited the Philip experiment at the beginning of the podcast
Speaker 1: was because, after going through the history and research of
Speaker 1: the Myrtles, I was convinced the story of Chloe was
Speaker 1: a legend, a story passed down for decades, something we
Speaker 1: see all too often in the paranormal. Many times these
Speaker 1: bits of misinformation can be truly harmful because they cause
Speaker 1: existing spirits to be misidentified or ignored and in turn frustrated.
Speaker 1: But as I spoke with Miss Hester and she relaid
Speaker 1: the story of Chloe so strongly, it dawned on me
Speaker 1: that whether the story of Chloe actually happened, it has
Speaker 1: been so long perpetuated one way or another at the
Speaker 1: Myrtles and become so incredibly detailed and elaborate that our
Speaker 1: creation of Chloe could very well be walking those halls.
Speaker 1: The same apply is for every other rumored spirit or
Speaker 1: death that took place there. Maybe William didn't make it
Speaker 1: to step seventeen and fall dead in that spot. But
Speaker 1: in our minds he did. In the minds of the
Speaker 1: thousands upon thousands of people who have visited, they all
Speaker 1: stared at those steps. They all envisioned this man making
Speaker 1: it to step seventeen and collapsing in his love's arms,
Speaker 1: And then slowly the footsteps started. Am I saying this
Speaker 1: is for sure what's occurring at the Myrtles? Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I have yet to set foot inside. To be honest,
Speaker 1: the stories of Chloe could very well be true, just
Speaker 1: documentation of it well and purposefully hidden, as we've seen
Speaker 1: in so many other tragic instances when researching enslaved people
Speaker 1: of that time. Yet, if it is what's happening there,
Speaker 1: what does that mean for other hauntings? How do we
Speaker 1: determine which are of actual spiritual origin and which are
Speaker 1: coming from us? Regardless, as Miss Hester seemed to allude to,
Speaker 1: there is something very peculiar and very special happening at
Speaker 1: the Myrtles, something that seems very different from any haunting
Speaker 1: I've encountered before. Armed with all this information, theory and speculation,
Speaker 1: I intend to visit very soon, and I hope you
Speaker 1: will too, Haunted Road is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The podcast
Speaker 1: is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive producers include
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is
Speaker 1: produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young. Taylor Haggerdorn
Speaker 1: is the show's researcher. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.