The Myrtles looks exactly like the sort of place a ghost story would choose for itself.
The veranda stretches across the front. Moss hangs from the trees. Inside, mirrors, portraits, and old furniture seem ready to remember more than they should.
The house is real. The history is complicated. Its most famous ghost may not have been.
Who Built the Myrtles Plantation?
David Bradford established the property near St. Francisville, Louisiana, in 1796 and called it Laurel Grove. He had left Pennsylvania after his involvement in the Whiskey Rebellion and built a new life in what was then Spanish West Florida.
Bradford’s daughter Matilda later married Clark Woodruff. Their family lived at Laurel Grove, where yellow fever brought repeated loss. Matilda died in 1823, and two of her children died the following year.
The property changed hands in the 1830s. Ruffin Gray Stirling and his wife, Mary Catherine Cobb Stirling, expanded and remodeled the house, giving it much of the appearance visitors recognize today. They renamed it the Myrtles.
It was also a plantation where enslaved people lived and worked. Any honest account of the property has to keep that fact in the room.
The Murder of William Drew Winter
One death at the Myrtles is well documented.
William Drew Winter, who had married into the Stirling family, was shot outside the house in 1871. He made it inside before dying.
The legend adds a staircase. In that version, Winter staggered up the steps and died on the seventeenth one. Visitors say his final climb can still be heard.
The shooting is part of the historical record. The dramatic staircase detail is harder to pin down.
That difference is small on a ghost tour and enormous in an archive.
Who Was Chloe?
Chloe is the Myrtles’ best-known ghost.
The familiar story describes her as an enslaved woman owned by Clark Woodruff. After she was caught listening at a door, Woodruff supposedly had one of her ears cut off. She began wearing a green turban and later poisoned a birthday cake, killing Woodruff’s wife and children. Other enslaved people then hanged her.
It’s a powerful story. It’s also unsupported by the known records.
Woodruff’s wife and children weren’t killed by a poisoned cake. Historical accounts attribute their deaths to yellow fever, and researchers haven’t found dependable evidence that a woman named Chloe lived at the property.
The legend still shapes the way visitors see the house. A figure in a green turban appears in stories, photographs, and souvenirs. Chloe may be the most visible person in the Myrtles narrative even though the documents can’t confirm she was there.
The Haunted Mirror
A large mirror inside the house has its own reputation.
Visitors say it holds handprints, faces, or shadows that return after the glass is cleaned. The usual explanation connects them to the Woodruff family and the poisoned-cake story.
The mirror legend depends on the Chloe legend, so its history is just as uncertain. The marks themselves may have ordinary causes. Old glass changes, silvering deteriorates, and reflections behave badly in dim rooms.
That hasn’t stopped people from photographing it.
Nobody wants to be the person who notices a face later.
Is the Myrtles Plantation Haunted?
Guests and staff have reported footsteps, voices, moving objects, and figures on the grounds. Some hear a child or see an impression appear on a bed. Others describe a woman in period clothing or the sound of someone crossing the staircase.
The house has leaned into that reputation for decades. It offers overnight stays and evening mystery tours alongside daytime historical tours.
The setting does part of the work. A plantation house at night is full of reflective glass, long sightlines, and rooms where visitors already know what they’re supposed to notice.
The history does the rest.
What’s Documented—and What’s Legend?
David Bradford established Laurel Grove in the 1790s. The Woodruff family suffered deaths from yellow fever. Ruffin Stirling expanded the house. William Drew Winter was murdered in 1871.
The Chloe story doesn’t fit the surviving evidence. The poisoned cake, severed ear, green turban, and hanging belong to folklore rather than established history.
That doesn’t make the legend meaningless. It shows how ghost stories can replace people with symbols. Chloe has become a way to talk about slavery, violence, guilt, and the things plantation histories once left unsaid.
The danger comes when the ghost becomes easier to remember than the enslaved people who actually lived and worked there.
Staying at the Myrtles
The Myrtles operates as a bed-and-breakfast and offers tours in St. Francisville. Programs and room availability change, so check the property’s official website before visiting.
A night tour will give you the legends. A daytime history tour provides the structure underneath them. Take both if you can.
Old houses usually have more than one story.
This one has been arguing with itself for years.
Sophie’s Closing Note
Chloe is everywhere at the Myrtles.
She’s in the green cloth, the mirror, the photographs, and the pause before a guide says her name. The records remain quiet.
That silence matters. It doesn’t prove a ghost. It tells us how badly people wanted one particular story to be true.
If the staircase creaks, I’d listen.
I just wouldn’t assume I already knew who was walking.
— Sophie Vale
Frequently Asked Questions About the Myrtles Plantation
Is the Chloe story true?
There’s no dependable historical evidence that Chloe lived at the Myrtles. Major details of the legend conflict with documented family deaths from yellow fever.
Was anyone murdered at the Myrtles?
William Drew Winter was shot in 1871 and died at the property. The famous detail that he died on the seventeenth stair belongs to later tradition.
Is the mirror at the Myrtles haunted?
Visitors report handprints and faces in the glass, but these accounts haven’t been established as paranormal. The mirror story is closely tied to the unsupported Chloe legend.
Can you stay overnight at the Myrtles?
Yes. The St. Francisville property operates as a bed-and-breakfast and offers historical and mystery tours. Check the official site for current options.