Georgia
Antebellum Plantation
Stone Mountain
Rather than a single plantation house constructed by a single planter, the buildings of Antebellum Plantation at Stone Mountain Park are actually a collection of structures that give visitors a glimpse of what nineteenth century plantation life was like. All of the buildings of Antebellum Plantation were constructed between 1790 and 1845 and were found at various locations throughout Georgia. Once State Mountain Park was opened, the buildings were carefully transported to the site, where they have been standing to this day.
Three of the more prominent structures at Antebellum Plantation are believed to be haunted by former residents who lived in the buildings before they were moved to Stone Mountain Park. This gives credence to the fact that in some cases a ghost haunts a building rather than a piece of property; if ghosts were attached to the original land rather than the buildings, there would be no hauntings in the buildings that were moved to Stone Mountain Park.
The most haunted building at Antebellum Plantation is believed to be the Thornton House, which was originally located in Union Point, Georgia. It is also the oldest building at Antebellum Plantation, being constructed in 1790, and is perhaps the best preserved example of this type of antebellum architecture in the entire state.
The ghost associated with the Thornton House is of an unidentified boy about ten or eleven years old. He is described as having blond hair and brown eyes and wearing a long-sleeved shirt and long pants with suspenders. He has always been seen on the second floor of the mansion near a bedroom that was used by the original owner’s son.
Another haunted building at Antebellum Plantation is the Dickey House. This plantation house was originally constructed in 1840 near Dickey, Georgia. Although it lay abandoned for several years before it was relocated, the Dickey House was chosen to be on display at Stone Mountain Park because of its good physical condition.
Unlike the Thornton House where there have been close-up experiences with the boy’s apparition, the ghost at the Dickey House is always seen from a distance. This ghost is that of a young dark-haired woman who appears in the top-floor window of the mansion. Initially, visitors who saw the woman believed that she was a Civil War re-enactor or a staff member. However, when repeated searches of the mansion found nothing, it became apparent that the woman was actually the ghost of somebody associated with the original mansion. The dark-haired woman is described as sad or depressed and is always seen looking from the window onto the lawn in front of the mansion.
The third location believed to be haunted at Antebellum Plantation is two slave cabins that were originally part of Graves Plantation in Covington, Georgia. These two cabins were constructed in 1830 by slaves who lived in them for several years. The paranormal activity connected to the slave cabins includes an overwhelming sensation of oppression and of being watched, an occasional and noticeable drop in temperature, and the faint sounds of voices in hushed conversation or singing.
Barnsley Gardens/Adair House
Adairsville
Godfrey Barnsley emigrated from England in 1823 when he was only eighteen years old. Approximately six years after settling in Georgia, he found a job at a warehouse that shipped cotton to all parts of the nation. Through hard work and dedication, Barnsley developed a reputation for being a very ambitious and astute employee.
By saving his earnings from working at the warehouse and by making wise business investments, Godfrey owned over 10,000 acres by the time he met Julia Scarborough. After a fairly short courtship, he and Julia were married on December 24, 1828. When they were married, he and Julia moved to one of his plantations and planned the construction of a large mansion that was going to be a combination of Italianate Villa and Gothic Revival designs. As the plans for the plantation began to materialize and even before construction of the mansion commenced, Godfrey and Julia referred to this property as the Woodlands.
Before Godfrey broke ground on the mansion at the Woodlands, he was approached by a close friend of Cherokee descent. Godfrey excitedly shared his plans to build a mansion on a particular area on his property, but was informed by his friend that the land was sacred to the Cherokee and desecrating it in any way would cause misery and tragedy for the person responsible for its desecration. Godfrey felt that his friend was superstitious and ignored the warning about building the mansion. When Godfrey broke ground, his friend never spoke to him again.
Godfrey wanted to have an elaborate botanical garden built to compliment the mansion. The garden was completed before the mansion and Godfrey and Julia spent hours walking through it. The botanical garden was so beautiful that soon the property became known as Barnsley Gardens.
Construction of the mansion began in late 1841 or early 1842 and was nearly completed by early 1845. Although not quite finished, Godfrey and his family moved into a section of the mansion that was completed. A few months after moving in, Godfrey’s wife, Julia, contracted tuberculosis and died in the summer of 1845. Without the support of his wife, Godfrey ceased construction of the mansion for a few years. Before he was able to resume the building of the plantation house, one of his young daughters died in 1848 after a short illness.
Godfrey went into a deep depression and had given up on not only finishing the mansion, but also on his career. He spent hours walking through the elaborate botanical garden that he built for his wife near the mansion. One day while walking through the garden, Godfrey claimed to have had a visitation from the spirit of his deceased wife. She told him that she loved him and wanted him to complete the mansion, which was a testament of their love. After his experience with Julia’s ghost, Godfrey immediately resumed work with a renewed vigor and made the necessary arrangements to finish the mansion as quickly as possible. The mansion was finally completed by the end of 1848.
Godfrey remained at the Woodlands into the mid-1860s. Although he was greatly interested in the outcome of the Civil War and was a Southern sympathizer, he really did not want to become too involved with the conflicts associated with it. However, that mindset changed in May 1864 when a ground battle between Union and Confederate cavalries was fought on Godfrey’s property.
Colonel R.G. Earle of the second Alabama Light Calvary was a close friend of Godfrey’s and broke rank to warn him to leave the Woodlands before the battle reached the plantation house. Before Earle could reach Godfrey, he was shot five times by Union troops and was killed in the botanical garden in front of the mansion. The Union troops overtook the Confederates near the plantation house. After the battle, Union soldiers entered the mansion and destroyed most of Godfrey’s furnishings and other belongings.
After the Civil War ended, Godfrey lost all of his fortune because Confederate money was no longer of value. Penniless, he moved to New Orleans and died there in 1873. After Godfrey’s death, his body was returned to the family graveyard at the plantation.
With such an emotional connection to the plantation, it makes sense that Godfrey Barnsley’s ghost would haunt Barnsley Gardens. There are two areas where Godfrey’s ghost is usually encountered. First, eyewitnesses have seen a man in his late thirties or early forties standing near the main entrance to the mansion. When approached or after a few seconds, the apparition disappears. The apparition is sometimes preceded by the sound of hammering or sawing, so it is believed that the apparition is definitely of Godfrey continuing to work on his mansion. Barnsley’s ghost has also been seen inside the botanical garden where he was visited by his wife’s spirit in 1848.
The ghost of Confederate Colonel R.G. Earle has also been seen in Barnsley Gardens. Most often, Colonel Earle’s apparition has been seen in both the botanical garden area where he died and near the family graveyard where he was buried.
Bonaventure Cemetery
Thunderbolt
Although Bonaventure Cemetery may seem to be out of place in a book on haunted plantations, the most famous cemetery in Savannah, Georgia, actually started out as Bonaventure Plantation in the mid-eighteenth century.
In 1760 or 1761, John Mullryne was well on his way to owning several thousand acres in this part of Georgia. He transformed a 600-acre tract of land near Savannah into his primary residence and named it Bonaventure Plantation, which translates from French to “good fortune.” In 1762, Mullryne built a massive plantation house for his family on the property.
Apparently 1771 was a very eventful year for John Mullryne. Before the end of the year, he and his son-in-law, Josiah Tattnall, had acquired approximately 10,000 acres of land throughout Georgia. According to some accounts, it was also the year that the plantation house built at Bonaventure was totally destroyed by a fire. As soon as the rubble from the fire was removed, Mullryne began construction on a larger, more impressive brick mansion.
The Revolutionary War was particularly devastating for Savannah and its residents. In 1778, the British Army took control of the city. On June 9, 1779, American and French troops attempted to free Savannah from British control. The second deadliest battle of the entire American Revolution has become known as the Siege of Savannah. The battle led to 244 deaths and approximately 600 injuries among the French and American troops, while the British only had 40 soldiers killed and approximately 63 wounded. In the aftermath of the siege, several of the French troops, led by Charles Henri d’Estaing, used Bonaventure Plantation as a makeshift hospital for the wounded soldiers. Many of the French soldiers who died at Bonaventure Plantation were believed to be buried in unmarked graves near the plantation house.
The war was also devastating for Mullryne and Tattnall, who were vocal about their support for Great Britain while all those surrounding them were loyalists determined to start a new country. Because of their loyalty to the British crown, the two men were forced to leave Georgia and told not to return under fear of death. In 1782, the 10,000 acres that both men owned were auctioned off to men who were citizens that would uphold the right for independence. The man who purchased Bonaventure Plantation was a patriot by the name of John Habersham.
After the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, John Mullryne’s grandson, Josiah Tattnall Jr., returned to Savannah, Georgia, and purchased Bonaventure from Habersham in 1788. When Josiah Tattnall Jr. died in 1804, he was one of the first people to be buried in the family graveyard on the plantation.
The property remained in the Tattnall family until Josiah Tattnall III sold the entire plantation to Peter Wiltburger on March 10, 1846. The following year, Wiltburger transformed seventy acres of the property into a public cemetery for Savannah residents, which he named Evergreen Cemetery.
Sixty years later, the city of Savannah purchased Evergreen Cemetery and city officials agreed to rename it Bonaventure Cemetery in recognition of the plantation that once stood on the site.
Today, Bonaventure Cemetery is a popular tourist attraction and is still used as a public cemetery. It has been featured in two separate books: John Muir’s A Thousand Mile Walk (1867) and Jack Leigh’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).
In addition to being of great historical significance to Savannah, Bonaventure Cemetery has been featured in many of the city’s ghost tours. According to the tours and local legends, the cemetery is believed to be one of Savannah’s most haunted locations.
When people visit the Bonaventure Cemetery, there is no sign of the plantation house. The fact that it is not standing any longer goes back to around 1803 when Josiah Tattnall and his wife were hosting a Christmas party for some of the elite in and around the Savannah area. At some point during the evening, the house caught fire, which spread quickly throughout the entire mansion.
Realizing that the house could not be saved, Josiah ordered his servants to enter the burning mansion and carry the tables, chairs, food, wine, and other items onto the front lawn. There, the servants set the tables for Josiah’s guests, who continued to party and drink for hours as the plantation house burned to the ground.
As the house finally collapsed, Josiah made a toast to his guests and threw his wine glass against the nearest tree. His guests raised their glasses in a toast and shattered them on the ground or against trees. According to some accounts, if a person walks into the older section of the Bonaventure Cemetery near where the old plantation house stood, he or she can hear the sound of people enjoying themselves, sometimes accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.
The most famous ghost believed to haunt Bonaventure Cemetery is that of a young girl named Gracie Watson, who was the daughter of hotel manager W.J. Watson. She caught pneumonia and died on Good Friday, April 21, 1889, when she was only six years old. Gracie’s father arranged for her burial in the Bonaventure Cemetery and had asked sculptor John Walz to make a statue in Gracie’s likeness for her grave marker. Once the statue was completed, Gracie’s parents left Savannah, Georgia, and returned to New England, where they died several years later.
In the years following Gracie’s death, visitors to the cemetery have claimed to have heard a young girl laughing and crying near the girl’s tombstone. It has become somewhat of a Savannah tradition for people visiting Bonaventure Cemetery to bring a small stuffed animal, doll, or other inexpensive toy to leave at Gracie’s grave.
Although not necessarily associated with the cemetery, there have been several reports that a girl fitting Gracie’s description has been seen in front of the Pulaski Hotel, which is the hotel that her father managed at the time of her death. There are even claims that sometimes a small item owned by guests of the Pulaski Hotel can be found lying in front of Gracie’s statue.
Bulloch Hall
Roswell
James Stephens Bulloch was a veteran of the War of 1812, in which he attained the rank of major. At the end of the war and throughout the 1820s, Major Bulloch pursued a variety of vocations, including politician, lawyer, and plantation owner.
Partially because of the name that he made for himself in the political arena, in 1838 Major Bulloch was offered a huge tract of land by entrepreneur Roswell King in exchange for his help in establishing a new township. Bulloch took King up on the proposition. This agreement and Bulloch’s determination were pivotal in the formation of the town that is now known as Roswell, Georgia.
Immediately after acquiring the land in 1838, Major Bulloch constructed a large Greek Revival mansion for his family. As soon as the mansion was completed in 1840, Major Bulloch focused on expanding on his new plantation, which he named after himself. According to records, the primary crop for the 600-acre Bulloch Plantation was cotton, which was regularly tended to by thirty-one field slaves. In addition to the field hands, Major Bulloch had a number of house servants who helped with cooking, cleaning, and other miscellaneous domestic chores.
After Major Bulloch died in 1849, Bulloch Hall was sold by his widow to a family friend who allowed her and her children to live on the property. Five years later, his daughter, Martha Bulloch, repurchased the property, which brought it back into the Bulloch family.
Bulloch Hall was significant during the Civil War. In 1864, Roswell, Georgia, was overtaken by Union forces. General Sherman ordered General Kenner Garrard to bring in approximately 27,000 soldiers, burn down any mills in the town, and commandeer any local plantation houses to be used as either field hospitals or headquarters. Bulloch Hall was believed to be occupied by an unknown number of Union officers who maintained contact with Sherman to ensure that his orders were followed.
Bulloch Hall had a very significant history associated with at least two United States presidents. Martha Bulloch had spent most of her childhood at Bulloch Hall. As an adult, she married Theodore Roosevelt Sr. at the plantation on December 22, 1853. Together, the couple would have several children, including Theodore Roosevelt, who became the twenty-sixth president of the United States in 1901. A second child that Martha Bulloch and Theodore Roosevelt Sr. raised was a son by the name of Elliot Roosevelt. Elliot had a daughter named Eleanor Roosevelt, who married her cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the thirty-second president of the United States.
With such a significant history, it is hard to imagine that from the 1950s until the 1970s, the mansion was abandoned and was in danger of being lost. In the 1970s, the city of Roswell, Georgia, purchased the property and restored the mansion to its original condition.
Today, the renovated Bulloch Hall is a historical museum that features permanent and temporary exhibits designed to preserve the history of antebellum Georgia. Bulloch Hall also offers tours for a much younger audience to allow them an opportunity to gain an appreciation of pre-Civil War life and culture.
Although paranormal activity has been experienced by visitors to Bulloch Hall for years, one ghost in particular has become synonymous with the plantation house. This ghost story has been the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles and has caught the attention of visitors and paranormal investigators throughout the nation.
According to local legend, a female house servant about thirteen or fourteen years old fell into a well behind the plantation house and drowned. It is not certain what led to the girl’s drowning, but most believe that she was simply drawing water from the well and fell in. Others believe that the girl was actually murdered and thrown into the well to make it look like an accident. In either case, the girl is believed to have haunted Bulloch Hall for well over a century.
While the mansion was abandoned, and even after it was renovated into a historical museum, dozens of people have heard the faint cry of a young female pleading for help or weeping from the well. Although the well has periodically been examined, the source of the crying has never been found.
Another manifestation of the girl’s ghost takes place inside the plantation house itself. As a house servant, one of the girl’s major responsibilities was to light and extinguish the oil lamps and candles located throughout the mansion. After the girl’s death, visitors to Bulloch Hall have had difficulty keeping candles and lamps lit for any period of time. At other times, candles and lamps are found lit throughout the house.
There have even been reports where eyewitnesses have seen the candles extinguish or light themselves without anybody standing near them. Even during the nearly two decades that the mansion was vacant, passersby sometimes saw lights inside the mansion that appeared to be either candlelight or lamplight. Although it could have simply been trespassers, it is thought that it was the ghost of the servant girl making her rounds.
While being renovated in the 1970s, Bulloch Hall was wired with electricity, and candles and oil lamps were no longer necessary. Although candles and oil lamps are no longer used, the electric lights and electric lamps throughout the house have been known to turn on and off on occasion at all hours of the day or night. Many believe that the electrical disturbances are caused by the girl’s ghost carrying on with her duties.
Early Hill Plantation
Greensboro
In the late 1700s, Greensboro mayor and planter John Brown purchased several hundred acres outside of town and named his new plantation Early Hill. Less than a year after Brown and his family moved into the Early Hill Plantation House, he lost his youngest daughter in a horrible and unexpected accident. One summer day his daughter was swinging from a tree branch in front of the mansion. The weight and momentum of the swinging caused the branch and swing to collapse. She plummeted to the ground and was crushed to death by the large branch that fell on her. The unexpected death devastated Mayor Brown and his entire family, who never quite got past the tragedy.
Early Hill Plantation was not really involved in the Civil War and went through several owners from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. A few decades ago, Early Hill Plantation was renovated and converted into a bed-and-breakfast that could also be reserved for weddings, parties, and other gatherings. However, the bed-and-breakfast has since closed.
Several ghosts are thought to haunt the Early Hill Plantation House. Most of the ghosts are of friends and family of Mayor John Brown.
Brown’s seven-year-old daughter, who died when the tree branch crushed her, is the most commonly encountered ghost at Early Hill. Since her death, an apparition of the little girl has been seen near where Mayor Brown’s daughter was killed. Unlike some hauntings that appear at approximately the same time that a person’s death occurred, the apparition of Mayor Brown’s daughter has been known to appear at all hours of the day and night.
John Brown’s wife has been seen in the master bedroom that they shared. Rather than as a full-body apparition, only her upper torso is seen as a reflection in a large antique mirror. The ghost of Brown’s wife is described as a very attractive young woman brushing her hair and is completely oblivious to any eyewitnesses. Like most apparitions, she is only seen for a few seconds before disappearing. It is also interesting that she is only seen as a reflection in one particular mirror and nowhere else in the bedroom or the mansion.
An unidentified older woman has frequently been seen in a rocking chair on the front porch of the plantation house. She is described as a woman about sixty or seventy years old with her hair in a bun, and wearing a long light-colored dress. Research into Early Hill’s history has failed to positively identify the old woman as a resident, so it is likely that she was a family friend who visited the Browns at some point.
Although there are conflicting stories about the last ghost at Early Hill, there have been reports of sounds coming from the basement of the mansion. If these accounts are indeed accurate, it is believed that the sounds are of the chains of slaves that resided on the property when Brown owned it. According to legend, Mayor Brown was believed to have buried more than one slave in the mansion’s basement.
Ezekiel Harris House/
Augusta Museum of History
Augusta
In the late 1700s, many tobacco planters from Virginia and adjacent states grew so much tobacco without rotating the crops that it made the soil infertile. As a result, several of these planters decided to just leave their tobacco plantations and establish new ones in southern states such as South Carolina and Georgia. Sometimes these plantation owners simply gave their new plantation the same name as the one they left. Having two plantations of the same name owned by one individual can be very confusing when it comes to doing historical research.
In the 1790s, Ezekiel Harris saw that several northern planters were moving to the southern states to establish new plantations. He moved to Augusta, Georgia, from Edgefield, South Carolina, in order to establish a tobacco inspection center. He thought that he could make a great living by opening one of the first tobacco inspection stations in the state. Before tobacco planters could sell tobacco in large quantities, the tobacco would sometimes go through an inspection station prior to leaving the state. When he realized that there were approximately twenty other such inspection centers, Harris decided to take a different route to make a living.
In 1797, Harris purchased several hundred acres of prime farmland and founded a new tobacco plantation of his own. During that summer, he built a beautiful Federal-style plantation house and in September of the same year built a very large warehouse in which to dry tobacco. Unlike most other plantation owners, Harris had no intention of being a planter himself, but rather had prepared the property to be sold to one of the planters who wanted to establish a plantation near Augusta, Georgia. Rather than purchase hundreds or thousands of acres of undeveloped land, Harris could sell a ready-made plantation to a planter for the right price.
Being a man of vision, Harris also noticed that when several tobacco plantations were established in an area, a town would often be started to accommodate the needs of the planters. Harris wanted to be involved with the designing and founding of a town that he hoped would rival nearby Augusta, Georgia.
Ezekiel Harris did not sell the property, but lived on the plantation for nearly ten years with his wife, Eleanor, and their children. Eleanor Harris died in March of 1806 of cancer, and Ezekiel decided to leave Augusta, Georgia, the following year and moved to Wilkes County, Georgia, where he died in 1829.
Although he did not sell his plantation, he did reach his goal by helping to found Harrisburg, Georgia, which is now part of Augusta’s historical district. Today, the Ezekiel Harris House is operated by the Augusta Museum of History and offers tours of the house for a small fee.
Most paranormal enthusiasts who have studied the plantation’s history claim that there are three distinct ghosts connected to the Ezekiel Harris House.
The oldest ghost associated with the Ezekiel Harris House is that of a soldier from the Revolutionary War. It should be noted that the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, over a decade before Harris built his house in 1797. It is likely that the Revolutionary War soldier’s ghost has been around for considerably longer than the Ezekiel Harris House. Augusta, Georgia, was founded in 1735 and did play a major role in the American Revolution, including the Siege of Augusta, which took place in May 1781.
According to legend, the soldier either hanged himself or was hanged near the spot where the Ezekiel Harris House now stands. For nearly 200 years, the apparition of a man hanging on the porch or standing inside the main entrance of the house has been seen.
Not only have there been sightings of the soldier for over two hundred and fifty years, but another ghost is believed to have haunted the Ezekiel Harris House since 1806. The apparition of a woman has been seen standing on the porch and near a window on the second floor the house. It is believed that this ghost is of Ezekiel Harris’s wife, Eleanor.
A third ghost that is sometimes seen on the first floor of the Ezekiel Harris House is that of an African American woman in her late twenties or early thirties. Her identity is not known, but she is believed to be a house servant of Ezekiel Harris or a person who lived in the house after Ezekiel left the property in 1807.
Gaither Plantation
Covington
About twenty years after Covington, Georgia, was established in 1822, Dr. Henry Gaither purchased over 1,000 acres of prime farmland to start a cotton plantation in Newton and Jasper Counties, Georgia. While clearing the land to plant cotton, Dr. Gaither built a small two-story farmhouse for his family to live in while he managed Gaither Plantation, which he named after himself. To accommodate the vast size of his plantation, Gaither had between 130 and 150 slaves on the property to harvest the cotton.
Not only was he a successful planter, but Dr. Gaither was also a prominent and well-respected physician in the area. Dr. Gaither was able to handle both professions fairly proficiently until his death. After his death, his son, William Gaither, took control of the plantation. He and his wife, Cecelia, continued to maintain the plantation well into the late 1800s.
On November 17, 1864, approximately 15,000 Union soldiers led by General William Sherman marched through Covington, Georgia, and the surrounding area. Sherman made an agreement with the mayor of Covington that his soldiers would not touch any items inside area houses, but that anything left outside would be fair game for his troops.
A small band of Confederate soldiers used this agreement to their advantage. Being a Southern sympathizer and realizing that the Confederate troops were vastly outnumbered, William Gaither allowed some of them to hide in his basement and attic until the Union troops had left the area without incident.
After the Civil War, the plantation stayed in the Gaither family until 1929, when William’s wife lost the property to a local bank for less than $30 in unpaid taxes. After the bank acquired the plantation, it was sold a few times over the next several years until it was finally acquired by the Newton County Board of Commissioners in 1996.
Today, Gaither Plantation hosts a number of events for the Covington community, including an annual Fall Festival and Civil War reenactment. The property can also be reserved for private engagements such as weddings and reunions. Gaither Plantation has been used in several movies, including Madea’s Family Reunion (2006). In fact, the entire town of Covington, Georgia, has been used in several television shows such as The Dukes of Hazzard (1978) and The Walking Dead (2010), and movies such as Remember the Titans (1999) and Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (2009).
Other than Gaither Plantation being a prime location for movies and television, it is also the site of several ghosts and hauntings. The main dining room on the first floor seems to be the place in the mansion that has the most unexplained phenomena. Poltergeist activity such as doors opening and closing inexplicably and lights turning on and off have been encountered and recorded in this room for decades. According to several paranormal investigators fortunate enough to investigate the mansion, there have even been instances where the water faucet in the main kitchen has turned on by itself.
Footsteps have been heard in two bedrooms on the second floor and in the main dining room. Faint music and unidentifiable scraping or dragging sounds have been heard in the attic.
Although there have been some accounts of paranormal activity in the Gaither Mansion, most of the hauntings tend to be centralized in the nearby Harris Springs Primitive Baptist Church, which was not originally built on the property. Rather, the church was moved to the plantation site from a nearby location in an attempt to preserve it.
According to legend, the church’s pastor discovered that his wife was having an affair with a parishioner. The pastor confronted his wife and cornered her in the church where he shot and killed her. Realizing what he had done in a moment of blind rage, the pastor turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.
As a result of the murder-suicide of the pastor and his wife, some sensitives claim that there is a heaviness inside the church itself, which is now vacant. There have been EVP recordings of two people arguing, a gunshot, and screams from within the church. Although not as common, visitors standing inside the church have also heard the sound of a choir singing a church hymn.
Lockerly Plantation
Milledgeville
Richard Nichols was a wealthy merchant who purchased several hundred acres of property to start a plantation in 1839. Immediately after taking ownership of the property, Nichols named his new plantation Rose Hill. After living at Rose Hill for a decade, Nichols died there in 1849. Nichols had no heirs to pass the plantation to, and after his death, appraisers were called in to determine how much his personal property was worth in order to pay off his debts.
One of the appraisers was Daniel Tucker, who saw the potential for Rose Hill and purchased the property for himself. Within a month of Tucker purchasing Rose Hill, the house that Nichols built accidentally caught fire and was completely destroyed in the blaze. By 1851, Tucker started construction of a new mansion on the exact spot where the former house once stood.
Soon after rebuilding the mansion, Tucker sold the property and moved from the area. Rose Hill was sold several more times throughout the rest of the 1800s and was finally purchased by Reginald Hatcher in 1928. At this point, the name of the property was officially changed from Rose Hill to Lockerly Plantation.
Since 1965, Lockerly has been open to the public as a historic museum and an arboretum. It hosts a variety of events for the community and local school children. In addition, Lockerly has received regional and national attention for its involvement with the Boy Scouts and various nature-themed summer camps for children.
Lockerly has developed a reputation not only for bringing the community of Milledgeville together since the mid-1960s but also for being haunted. Lockerly was featured on a second-season episode of Haunted History.
There are reports of at least three separate apparitions seen inside the plantation house, including those of a young girl, a tall man in a trench coat, and an older man with a beard.
The ghost of a girl in her early teens wearing a white dress has been seen on the first floor for over forty years. When she makes an appearance, she is usually accompanied by a tall, thin man wearing a long dark trench coat.
It is not certain who the ghosts are, but by the appearance of their clothing, they are likely from the mid-1800s, right before or after the Civil War.
The apparitions were first noticed in the 1960s when the mansion was undergoing extensive electrical and plumbing renovations. In the 1960s, plumbers were the first to see the couple when they were working inside the mansion. A decade later, electricians independently reported seeing the exact same ghosts when they were working on the mansion. Since then, the girl’s and the tall man’s ghosts have been seen several times by visitors.
Perhaps the most well-known of the ghosts of Lockerly Plantation is that of an old man with a long, gray beard. Although he has been seen throughout the mansion, the old man has never been seen at the same time as the girl or her companion. Some believe that the old man was a former owner of the plantation, and there are rumors that there is a photograph of the old man standing in front of the mansion.
Stately Oaks Plantation
Jonesboro
Between 1839 and 1840, planter Whitmill Allen constructed a moderately sized Greek Revival home on a 404-acre plantation he had purchased a few years before. In 1858, Allen sold The Oaks plantation to Robert McCord. Soon after selling the property, Allen and his family moved to Smith County, Texas, where he died several years later.
McCord lived on the property until the beginning of the Civil War, at which point he enlisted into the Confederate army. From August 31 to September 1, 1864, the Battle of Jonesboro took place near the plantation. After the battle, Union troops took control of the mansion and converted it into a makeshift field hospital to treat their wounded and dying. Those who were not injured or caring for their comrades took the opportunity to get a much-needed rest.
The Oaks Plantation stayed in the McCord family until it was sold in 1889 to Calvin Orr. Not long after purchasing the property, Orr changed the name of the plantation from The Oaks to Stately Oaks. Over the years, the Stately Oaks Plantation House has been referred to by a number of different names, including the Robert McCord House and the Orr House, each referencing the previous owners of the property.
When she was young, Margaret Mitchell lived on her grandparents’ plantation located near Stately Oaks Plantation. She and her family regularly passed the property when they traveled to and from town. It is believed that when writing Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell patterned Tara after Stately Oaks Plantation.
The original Stately Oaks Plantation House is no longer located on its original site, but was moved four miles south to the historical district of Jonesboro, Georgia. That’s where it became part of a series of historical buildings currently owned and managed by Historical Jonesboro/Clayton County, Inc. In addition to Stately Oaks Mansion, several other buildings of historical significance, including a tenant house, general store, and schoolhouse, have been moved here from all over the state. Today, the site is open to the public.
The ghost of a young, well-dressed man has been seen by dozens of people who have visited the Stately Oaks Plantation House since it was opened to the public. The man has been seen throughout the entire mansion, although he is most often seen walking through or standing in one of two rooms on the first floor and in the hallway on the second floor.
The second floor of the Stately Oaks Plantation House seems to be where most of the paranormal activity occurs. In addition to the man’s apparition, the sound of footsteps and unidentifiable whispers can be heard in the hallway and in one of the bedrooms. The apparition of a young girl in a dress has also been seen in the bedroom from which some of the whispers are believed to originate. She is sometimes seen looking out the window. However, unlike many of the other ghosts that are seen in the window, this girl has also been seen inside the room itself.
Finally, the ghost of a Confederate soldier has been seen inside the mansion on the first floor. It is believed that the soldier likely died during the Battle of Jonesboro. Whether he is connected to the plantation house itself or the property where the historical buildings are now located is not known.