Magnolia Haunted House
Magnolia Lane Plantation
Outside of New Orleans, on the banks of the Mississippi River, near a slave
cemetery and the graves of Civil War soldiers from the North and South, sits an
all-but-abandoned sugar plantation known as Magnolia Lane. First built in 1784,
it has been owned by the same family for 150 years, though the last of the
family members to actually live in the house died decades ago.
In its prime, Magnolia Lane Plantation played host to everyone from the infamous
pirate Jean Laffitte to Confederate generals. At one point during the Civil War,
the plantation was taken over by the Union Army and occupied by Union General
Nathan Banks.
Today the house sits frozen in time, filled with artifacts of inhabitants of
different eras. A turn of the century wheel chair sits besides an antebellum
bed. In the kitchen, chairs from 1880 surround a 1950's table. The current owner
will not enter the house after dark because of the ghostly history and the
activity he has witnessed inside the house. He lives instead in a trailer on the
plantation grounds.
The Major's Room
One bedroom has remained locked and sealed with wax because, according to the
owner, "too many people had died in there." This had been the room of a Union
Major who was driven mad by the Confederate prisoners he held captive on the
plantation.
The Basement
When it was a working plantation, one room of the basement was used for curing
meats. In the early 19th century, a cruel slave overseer brought slaves there to
punish and torture them. Some of the slaves rebelled, killing him and curing him
... no one knows if the overseer was ever fed to his compatriots, but for more
than a century residents and even neighbors up the road say that his screams are
heard and his icy presence still felt.
The Kitchen
Inside the old kitchen it is believed that Confederate prisoners performed a
cruel form of torture by slowly poisoning the Major who was their captor. No one
knows exactly what they did, but kitchen workers would often find the remains of
gray rats covered with blood, their tongues pulled out and stuffed in the
teakettle. Animal eyes were scattered about and black ash was sprinkled on food.
As recently as 50 years ago, the last residents of the plantation said they
would see a man's horrible, distorted face that would often appear at the
window. When the moon was full, the kitchen door would open to reveal what they
called "horrible misty things" crawling around the floor on their hands and
knees ... a bizarre mystery.
The Slave Cabin
Before the Civil War, this shack was one of Magnolia Lane's slave cabins.
Sometimes 10 or more people lived crammed into the small room. At the end of the
Civil War, it is said that a Union Major kept as many as 25 Confederate
prisoners of war locked in the shack, where some suffocated to death.
It was in this room that several Confederates planned their vengeance against
the Major. The prisoners called on the voodoo spirits of war and vengeance in a
ceremony where they would become these spirits. The prisoners' dark rituals were
intended to drive the Major mad. They succeeded, but not before he could go
after the men he thought were haunting his every waking hour and his dreams. In
a blind rage, the Major had all the prisoners put to death.
It is believed that the remains of some of the Confederate soldiers can be found
under or around this cabin in shallow graves, but nobody has every made a
thorough search. In this room, it is said that the spirits of the dead often
whisper the names of the living. Still wanting vengeance on their captor, they
try to influence and possess the living in order to help them get it.
