THE MYRTLES PLANTATION

Built in 1796 by General David Bradford,this stately old home is said to be haunted by several restless ghosts.Some researchers say that ten murders have been committed here,while others have only been able to confirm one murder.Long perceived as one of the most haunted house in America,the Myrtles attracts an endless stream of visitors each year and many of them come in search of ghosts.David Bradford was a successful attorney and businessman.In 1785 he married Elizabeth Porter and started a family.Bradford occasionally took in students who wanted to study the law.One of them,Clark Woodrooff,not only earned a law degree but he also married his teacher's daughter Sarah Matilda.Together they had three children-Cornelia Gale,James and Mary Octavia.In 1823, Sarah died after contacting yellow fever.In 1824,his only son James and Cornelia also died from the dreaded disease.There is no question that the most famous ghostly tale of the Myrtles is that of Chloe, the vengeful slave who murdered the wife and two daughters of Clark Woodruff in a fit of jealously and anger.According to the story,the troubles that led to the haunting began in 1817 when Sarah Matilda married Clark.Sarah had given birth to two daughters and was carrying a third child,when an event took place that still haunts the Myrtles today.While his wife was pregnant with their third child,he started an intimate relationship with one of his slaves.This particular girl,whose name was Chloe,realized that if she didn't gaved in to Clark's sexual demands,she could be sent to work in the fields,which was the most brutal of the slave's work.Eventually,Woodruff tired of Chloe and chose another girl.Chloe feared the worst,sure that she was going to be sent to the fields,and she began eavesdropping on the family's private conversations.One day,the Judge caught her and ordered that one of her ears be cut off.After that time,she always wore a green turban around her head to hide the ugly scar.Because of this,Chloe put a small amount of poison into a birthday cake that was made in honor of the Woodruff's oldest daughter.The two children and Sarah had slices of the poisoned cake but Clark didn't eat any of it.Before the end of the day all of them were very sick.In a matter of hours all three of them were dead.The other slaves dragged Chloe from her room and hanged her from a tree.Her body was later cut down, weighted with rocks and thrown into the river.Woodruff closed off the children's dining room where the party was held and never allowed it to be used again as long as he lived.To this day,the room where the children were poisoned has never again been used for dining.It is called the game room today.Since her death,the ghost of Chloe has been reported at the Myrtles and was even accidentally photographed by a past owner.The plantation still sells picture postcards today with the cloudy image of what is supposed to be Chloe standing between two of the buildings.She has often been seen in her green turban,wandering the place at night.But she is not the only ghost there.During the Civil War,a confederate soldier dragged himself through the front door where he died from his wounds.Legend says that he left an impression of his fallen body that could not be removed and that the spot even resisted cleaning.The Woodruff children have also been seen and heard on the property,laughing and playing.William Drew Winter,an attorney who lived at Myrtles was shot on the side porch of the house by a stranger.Winter staggered into the house and began to climb the stairs to the second floor but didn't make it.He collapsed and died on the 17th step.It is his last dying footsteps that can still be heard on the staircase to this day.Strange sounds also seem to abound at the Myrtless.The grand piano has been known to play by itself.One movie was a television mini-series remake of The Long Hot Summer.A portion of the show was shot at the Myrtles and it was not an experience that the cast and crew would soon forget.One day the crew moved the furniture in the game room and the dining room for filming and then left the room.When they returned,the furniture had been moved back to its original position.No one was inside of either room while the crew was absent!This happened several times,although they did manage to get the shots they needed.Even after leaving out the ridiculous stories of the poisonings and Winter's dramatic death on the staircase,the history of the Myrtles is still filed with more than enough trauma and tragedy to cause the place to become haunted.There were a number of deaths in the house and it's certainly possible that any of the deceased might have stayed behind after death.If ghosts stay behind in this world because of unfinished business,there are a number of candidates to be the restless ghosts of the plantation's stories.