5 Famous Haunted Houses

The houses we're going to be looking at today:   Myrtles Plantation; Chamber's Mansion; Franklin Castle, LaLaurie Mansion; Sprague Mansion.

I grew up in a house filled with paranormal activity and hauntings.  When I was young, in my grandmother's house, no one ever talked about it, or the strange occurrences were shrugged off and given lame mundane explanations.  It probably made the adults living in that house feel more secure about the world around them.  Logical excuses were easier to assimilate into our conventional mid-west lives.

But, aha, I kept a journal, not only during the time I lived with my grandmother in the old house on East Second St in Mitchell SD, but also in the house I raised six of my children in located in 
Fremont NE.  

Here's a link to some of those experiences.  The newest posts will be at the top, but there's more juicy interesting experiences if you scroll down as well:  click  HERE

• Myrtles Plantation
  Location:  St. Francisville LA

Take an historic old antebellum plantation home from 1796, surround it with trees draped with Spanish moss, and set it in voodoo-rich Louisiana and you have the perfect setting for ghosts. But, you still need mayhem and history to generate ghostly spirits and there are lots of both at the Myrtles Plantation.

In 1808, Clark Woodruff took charge of the plantation from his deceased father-in-law, General David Bradford, where he kept things running along with his wife, Sara, and their three kids. Legend has it that Woodruff also took a special liking to a slave he owned named Chloe. But Chloe was immensely jealous of Woodruff’s family and baked a birthday cake filled with poisonous oleander leaves. Woodruff’s wife, Sara, and two of the children died. Chloe confessed, but fellow slaves hung Chloe and dumped her body in the Mississippi.

A host of other natural deaths occurred in the home, but the only other murder was when plantation owner William Winter was shot and killed in 1871 while standing on the front porch. He supposedly staggered inside, dying on the 17th step of the home. Myrtles Plantation is also reportedly built on the site of an old Indian burial ground and during the Civil War, Union soldiers ransacked the home.

While it is hard to separate fact from fiction, popular sightings of ghosts around Myrtles Plantation include the large mirror in the home that contains the spirits of Sara Woodruff and her children, ghosts seen around the 17th step and, of course, Chloe who is outside, tending to her plantings. The house is on National Register of Historic places and is now a bed and breakfast.

• Chamber's Mansion
  Location:  San Francisco CA

In the prestigious Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco is the Chambers Mansion, which was built in 1887 and named after its first owner, Richard Chambers, who was a silver mine tycoon. Legend goes that Chambers lived here with his two nieces who hated each other.

When Chambers died in 1901, the nieces inherited the mansion. One reportedly bought the house next door and moved in while the other sister, Claudia, stayed. Claudia reportedly loved pigs but met her fate one day when she was nearly cut in half from what her family called a “farm implementation accident.”

Ghost expert Jim Fassbinder, who conducts haunted home tours in San Francisco, “claims that an insane member of the Chambers family, who was kept in the attic, chased Claudia downstairs into the Josephine room and killed her.”

The mansion was eventually converted to the Mansion Hotel in 1977, where celebs such as Barbra Streisand, Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams stayed. Many guests have reported strange occurrences while staying there.

• Franklin Castle
  Location:  Cleveland OH

Complete with a tower, turrets, balconies, stone outcroppings, gargoyles, wrought-iron fixtures and fences, this imposing, Gothic-style Franklin Castle is said to be Ohio’s most haunted home.

It was built in 1860 for Hannes Tiedemann, an immigrant from Germany who became a wholesale grocer-turned-banker. Depending on who you believe, Tiedemann was either an evil tyrant who had a hand in mysterious deaths that occurred in the home between 1865-1895 — including the deaths of three babies — or he was a decent and hard-working man, but faced unfortunate circumstances.

There have been many owners of the home including a German singing society and a church group. Presently, it is owned by an Internet businesswoman who wanted to renovate it and turn it into a B&B and hold “haunted mystery weekends,” but a fire in 1999 derailed her plans. 

Paranormal activity includes sounds of footsteps, babies crying, and doors slamming.

• LaLaurie  Mansion
  Location:  New Orleans LA

Horrific stories of torture and abuse inflicted on slaves who worked in this house were reported in the 1830s and the abuser was said to be Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a socialite of great wealth and prominence in New Orleans.

Delphine and her husband, Dr. Louis LaLaurie, would host elaborate parties at the house, but soon, stories of vicious cruelty emerged. In one tale, Delphine was whipping the child of a slave when the child broke away and ran to the roof, falling to her death. The turning point for the home came when a fire broke out and when help arrived, they witnessed horrific scenes of punishment and torture inflicted on the slaves.

The home has undergone many changes and owners over the years, with one of the most recent owners actor Nicolas Cage. Cage said of the LaLaurie house, “You know, other people have beachfront property; I have ghost-front property… ” Unfortunately, Cage lost the property in a foreclosure auction. Read the chronology of the LaLaurie House by the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

• Sprague Mansion
  Location:  Cranston RI

One of Cranston’s most prosperous families, the Sprague family, owned Cranston Print Works, a textile mill that was the first to make calico prints and help pioneer chemical bleaching.

When William Sprague died in 1836, he left the business to his two sons, Amasa and William II. Amasa concentrated on the family business while William II focused on politics, serving as a U.S. Representative, Governor, and United States Senator.

On Dec. 31, 1843, Amasa was found shot and beaten on the road between his textile mill and his mansion. A man was hanged for the crime, but later found to be innocent. The true killer was never found. The Sprague family’s fortunes eventually faded and the Sprague Mansion changed ownership many times until the Cranston Historical Society saved it from demolition in 1967.

Hauntings of the mansion most often observed include Amasa in the wine cellar and a spirit thought to be “Charlie the butler” descending the main stairway. Legend goes that Charlie’s hopes and dreams of riches were dashed when his daughter did not marry the wealthy home owner’s son. Read more about the Sprague Mansion ghosts.

The Source for this blog post:

cnbc.com
author:  Paul Toscano