Allen Marston
Latest posts by Allen Marston (see all)
- Resurrection Mary - January 15, 2015
- Haunting in Conneticut - January 15, 2015
- The Smurl Family Haunting - January 15, 2015
Our story begins sometime in the 1800’s on a plantation near St. Francisville, Louisiana. Like many southern plantations of this time, slaves took on many of the duties on the farm and in the home. This plantation was no different than any of the others. The owner at the time, Judge Clark Woodruffe, had chosen a slave girl by the name of Chloe to serve as the governess for his two girls.
Chloe tended to the day to day activities of what ever the Judge’s daughters needed. After some time the Judge became very fond of Chloe. He began to make sexual advances towards the governess. Chloe did not really want to go along with his advances, but you have to remember at this time pretty much anything was better than being sent back to fields to hard labor and discipline, so she complied. This went on for some time and she began to get the feeling that he may have began to get tired of her. She feared that he would find someone new and she would be stripped of her “freedoms” and be sent back to the fields.
[pullquote align=”left|center|right” textalign=”left|center|right” width=”30%”]Her fears got the best of her, so she decided to see what she could find out by eaves dropping on the day to day activities in the house.[/pullquote] Story has it that she would sneak up to the doors and listen through the key hole. Its unsure of how long this went on, but one day the Judge caught her. After talking with Chloe he was so furious that he chopped off her ear. From that day forward she wore what has become her recognizable green turban. Sadly enough her fears of being sent back to hard labor didn’t cease.
Chloe began to thinking of ways that she could make herself seen as an asset and was needed in the house. She devised a plan to take oleander, a poisonous plant that grows in the south, and bake it into a birthday cake. She figured that that the family would get sick and she would be there to nurse them back to health. She felt that this plan would make her valuable again.
Chloe decided to go through with her plan so she gathered just enough oleander leaves to make the family sick and baked the cake. After dinner she brought out the cake for everyone to “enjoy”. It’s unclear if the Judge had any of the cake, but the rest of family definitely partook in it. Immediately after eating the cake the judges wife and two daughters fell to ground in agony. She helped the family to the beds and began to take care of the family. Despite all her efforts the daughters and mother (who was also pregnant) died.
It didn’t take long for the news of what happened to spread between the other slaves. Now it’s know if Chloe told someone, or they put two and two together and figured out that it was her that made them sick, but they decide to take care of the problem before the Judge took it out on all of them. Story has it that late one night they got together and captured Chloe as she slept. They proceeded to hang her from one of the oak trees on the property till she was dead. Supposedly they then they cut her down, weighted her body down with rocks and threw her into the Mississippi River.
Guests have stated that they have woke up in the middle of the night by what seems to be a slave girl with a green turban on her head. She has also been seen in numerous places on the grounds. Something is definitely going on there, but it’s not known if it is Chloe. To be honest, they are not sure that Chloe ever existed. From what I can tell there is no record of anything going on at the Myrtle’s Plantation involving this girl. I’ll leave the mystery for you to find out.
