The Haunting of the Beecher House

   The Haunting of the Beecher House

Suzanne Marsh

The sweet nectar of myrtle mingled with smell of mold inside the Beecher Plantation Home, in Martinsville, Louisiana. I had no intention of staying the night but did take up Jake’s dare to enter the old Plantation main house. We found a broken window, climbing in cautiously. Rumors had circulated for many years that a young, enslaved woman named Annie haunted the plantation. The bet was on, Jake and I were going to spend the night. I did some research on Annie, hers was a very sad story from the beginning. We looked around the plantation, in the daylight it seemed just as it was an old house, with many secrets. We walked through the rooms one by one. One room at one was a music room, there was a beautiful grand piano forte, one leg was broken but it made no difference, I could picture the mistress of the house, Elizabeth Beecher, sitting at the piano forte playing “Dixie”, as the second rebellion thundered near her home.

Jake found himself in a formal parlor, where a painting, although dusty was that of a beautiful dark eyed young woman, we supposed that was Elizabeth Montrose Beecher. The other portrait was that of a reserved looking blond-haired man, with broad shoulders and a thin waist. The next three hanging on the wall were smaller with children’s faces. The first one must have been Matthew, then Anna Lee, obviously named for General Robert E. Lee and finally Thomas, the youngest. We determined that their ages were roughly twelve, ten and six. They were a lovely family, whose lives were shortened by a series of events they had no control over.

When we had finished looking into every room, Jake and I decided we should have something to eat. Since this was a spur of the moment dare to stay the night, we had brought provisions, however there was a pond full of fish, so we grabbed a sword from above the fireplace, determined to spear a few fish for dinner. We managed to spear two good sized carp, we started a small fire in the fireplace and roasted the fish.

We settled into what we thought must have been the master and mistress’s bedroom. The bed was huge, covered by a red coverlet, almost as if they would return to sleep there. We both had just fallen asleep, when we heard the clattering. It almost sounded like chains, I rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep. Jake began to toss and turn; this was not working well. Then we heard some eerie ghostly sounds, that seemed like they were either outside or downstairs. We bolted out of bed running down the circular staircase. There was nothing there, so we decided to check outside nothing there either. Back to be we trudged, laid back down. Suddenly an apparition in a long dress, with a rag tied around her hand. I sat up and stared, was this Annie? How was I going to ask tis apparition? Jake saved me the trouble:

“Are you Annie? What happened to you?”

The apparition, moved slowly closer to the bed, then in a small whisper she began:

“I am Annie, I was Mammy to Mistress Beecher, I was seventeen then. I was right

pretty and the master mated with me. The mistress was able to overlook what the master

did, since was havin a thing with one of the stablemen. I guess those things went on a lot.

I thought my son Tom would be safe since he looked like the master, he wasn’t. He were

twelve when the master sold him to some man in South Carolina. I never saw the boy again.

Meanwhile, master got me with child once again, I was not gonna have another baby born into

the life I had. I ran away from de plantation, only to be found. Master had a special way of

dealing with pregnant runaways. There was a hole dug, the flung me down, I was whipped

like an old mule. My back was laid raw, Mammy came out and from the main house and

dressed my wounds. Master told me if I tried that again, he would cut my foot off. I did

try, he had the tip of my foot cut off. It was then that mistress decided I should be in the

kitchen. I learned to cook everything they wanted. The only thing I wanted was my freedom.

I had a plan, and I murdered the entire family with fresh baked cake with oleander. The three

children died quick, mistress followed. The master hung on, he knew I did something. Master

called Big Jim, his overseer to his room. As weak as he was Master was not about to let me

go free. He told Big Jim to hang me after I was whipped. I was hung the following morning,

the same day Master passed on. I want to go to the hereafter but that ain’t gonna happen

because I murdered them white folks, so here I am haunting who ever enters this place.”

Jake had awoken and listened to most of what the apparition had said. Somehow, the entire scene seemed surreal to both of us. This was 2022, those things simply did not happen, especially to us. We had been to haunted houses before, we spent Halloween in a graveyard in New Orleans waiting for the ghost of Marie Laveau. We even scribbled three XXX’s on her tomb, nothing. So why were able to see this apparition? We really don’t have any clear answers, perhaps she was in dire need to cross over into the other world, and first had to unburden herself about the murders, and her hanging. Whatever her reason, it was a night to remember.

The following morning, we began to pack up our gear for another adventure, possibly to another haunted plantation. We decided to take one last look around in the daylight. The bed we slept in was made; we had no idea who had done that since we hadn’t. The wind blew open the door, and a faint chill came into the room. We waited to see if this were another visitor from the past. The chill was just that a chill wind coming in off the gulf. We left but hope to return to that haunted plantation again.