Destrehan Manor House Ghosts

Louisiana Plantation’s Haunters Make Their Presence Known Quietly

Oct 26, 2007

This is the oldest plantation house and a place of legends and phantom activity. Vestiges of some long-dead residents and a visitor still remain.

Charles Paquet built the plantation’s manor house in 1787. He sold it to Robert Antointe Robin DeLogny whose daughter, Marie-Claude, was married to Jean Noel Destrehan, son of Jean Baptiste Destrehan de Tours, royal treasurer of Louisiana’s French colony. When DeLogny died in 1792, the Destrehans inherited the property.

After the Civil War, the plantation was used as a facility to teach trades to the newly freed slaves.

Descendants of the family owned the property until the early 1900s when they sold it to an oil company that eventually became AMOCO. The company built a refinery on the land. When the facility closed in 1958, the manor house was left to ruin. The River Road Historical Society bought it in 1972 and restored the building. Today, there are daily tours and craft demonstrations in the manor house, the oldest documented plantation home and a Historic Landmark.

Legend of a Pirate

Elenore Destrehan married Stephen Henderson. One of their frequent visitors was Jean Lafitte, a patriotic privateer who was one of Henderson’s business associates and a family friend. Lafitte amassed a fortune by raiding treasure ships, smuggling and slave trading.

There is a legend that he buried treasure on the Destrehan Plantation. When the house was abandoned, it was broken into by vandals and treasure hunters searching for the pirate’s bounty.

Ghosts and Other Happenings

The otherworldly beings that haunt the house have been reported for many years. Encounters increased after the renovations began. Witnesses include employees, their families and visitors.

Henderson’s ghost is the most often sighted. He was married to Elenore for about a year before she unexpectedly died when she was nineteen. Henderson was devastated, never recovered and died a few years later. They are buried in a cemetery near the manor house.

Another male specter has been seen. People believe this one is Jean Lafitte’s.

When Annette Roper’s parents were employed by the plantation, the family lived in a trailer behind the manor. In 1984, she was reading in bed and saw a transparent form that appeared to be sitting in a chair that, in reality, didn’t exist. She was brave enough to try to touch it, but her hand went through the misty shape. She was extremely frightened and stayed in bed, with closed eyes. When she heard her father moving about, she opened her eyes and saw the form had disappeared.

She saw the phantom two more times. One day at dusk she saw it in a second-floor window. The other time, she observed it walking across the driveway.

Glenn Williams, Annette’s cousin, encountered the same shape in the manor’s ballroom.

Ghostly sounds, including phantom footsteps, are manifested. The front door slams shut. Mysterious shapes appear in photographs. There have been reports of witnesses feeling someone or something watching them on the porch.

There is an intriguing story of a former owner who attended a reception held at Destrehan Manor. He had died earlier that day while he was in New Orleans. Legend or crisis apparition?

The copyright of the article Destrehan Manor House Ghosts in Ghosts & Hauntings is owned by Jill Stefko . Permission to republish Destrehan Manor House Ghosts in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.