Asked if she had ever talked with any of the apparitions, Ms. Kermeen shook her head. “I certainly am not brave enough to try to communicate with any of them. I got used to the footsteps, the door slamming, and the voices, so now I don’t keep my hand on the phone, ready to dial the police, as I did at first. I know this sounds absurd, but it’s funny what you later come to accept when you didn’t believe in this sort of thing at all before.
“About seventy-five percent of the people who come here do so because they want to hear about our ghosts. The other twenty-five percent just happen upon it. Oddly enough, the ones who get scared and want to check out in the middle of the night are sometimes the big, macho-type men.”
What sort of person is most apt to have a supernatural experience? Ms. Kermeen noted, “It is usually the skeptic or the one who isn’t expecting anything to happen. When people have been so eager to see a ghost and then report it, I wonder if it isn’t their imagination.”
She continued. “There have been ten murders here at The Myrtles, and that’s quite a few, even for a house that is almost two hundred years old. I think some of those poor, tragic victims may have been the ghosts I have seen. I believe that this house sets off intense emotions in the people who live here for any length of time. The overseer of this plantation in 1850 was a white man twenty-four years old, and he committed suicide. I later hired a young man of twenty-four who tried the same thing. Fortunately, he was unsuccessful. He may have been unstable from the beginning, but some people are very impressionable. I don’t hire men that age anymore. I try to hire happy people, and I have always been a healthy, happy person myself. Most visitors who come here seem to leave content and rested. At least I think they do, for a great many return each year.
“At first the ghosts terrified me. Then there was a year or two when the knowledge that they were there was just fun and games. But of late, I really believe that they have led me to God. They have brought me closer to a sense of His reality and the meaning of life. Once you are confronted with a ghost, you can’t brush off the existence of life after death.”
Now operated as a bed and breakfast, The Myrtles Plantation offers visitors the opportunity to book a room at “one of America’s most haunted homes.” It is also open for regular tours. Visit www.myrtlesplantation.com/ or call (225) 635-6277.
HOUSE OF TRAGEDY
CARNTON PLANTATION, FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE
Carnton House is probably Tennessee’s best-known haunted house.
“There will never be another Carnton House,” his friend had said. “Never a place that’s seen such tragedy and grief.”
Perhaps that was the reason Paul Levitt was determined to go there. Up the curving drive, set far back from the road, the house stood alone in a grove of maple trees, its darkened windows staring out from between tall, white columns. There was something lonely and mysterious about it.
November 30th had been one of those timeless autumn days, but now it was late afternoon, with darkness falling fast. As Paul drove up to the house in his black Ferrari, he realized that he had arrived too late. It was just after five, and the tour guides would already have left. Well, it didn’t matter; he would walk about the grounds. All was quiet. He and this house were alone in another world. The only sound was the faint crunching of his footsteps on the gravel drive. It was a time to think and to absorb the unfathomable atmosphere of this place that his friend John Carter had described.
Underfoot, a profusion of leaves lay like a golden treasure spread out by some profligate Midas. It seemed almost wrong to tread upon such beauty. Bending down, Paul picked up one perfect, five-pointed yellow maple leaf, then another; but on the second leaf were splotches of crimson, bright as blood.
It reminded him of how many men had suffered and died here. What was it his great-grandmother in Ohio once said? Something like, “Your great-gran-daddy fought in a terrible battle at a place called Franklin.” He was walking over the same ground where his ancestor had fought. Wasn’t it a strange coincidence that today was the anniversary of that struggle? It had lasted just five hours, but what a bloody, disastrous battle it had been.
Paul walked without considering the time, for he was in no hurry to return to the motel. He found the pressures of his work beginning to leave him. Almost automatically, his feet followed a path that led from the house across the fields. Where was he going? Did it matter?
Finally, the path brought him around to the back of the house, and near the porch he saw the figure of a man getting on a horse. If the fellow paused, Paul decided he would speak to him. On second thought, he would take the initiative and hail him.
“Hello, there. Nice horse.”
“Yep. Had my own horse shot from under me. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. Whether you ride or whether you go on foot, you are still at their mercy tonight.”
This was strange talk. Paul wasn’t frightened, but he did find himself tingling slightly.
The man spoke again. “If you’re coming with me, you had better find a pistol or a carbine; otherwise you won’t last long out there. But not many of us will live through tonight, anyway.”
What was he talking about? thought Paul, now close enough to see the man fairly well. He
