For many years, employees, their families and visitors have reported seeing ghosts at Destrehan Plantation. Stephen Henderson’s ghost is the most sighted. Henderson was married to Elenore Destrehan, whose family owned the property until the early 1900s. Henderson was a friend of Jean Lafitte, and while Lafitte never visited the home, there is a legend that he buried treasure there. The legend continued and, even after the house was abandoned in 1958, has attracted treasure hunters.
Henderson was only married to Elenore a year before she died. He died a few years later. Both are buried in a cemetery near the plantation.
Annette Roper, whose parents were employed by the plantation in 1984, was in bed reading when she reportedly saw a transparent form sitting in a chair. When Roper tried to touch it, she says her hand went through the misty shape.
Roper said later saw it in a second-floor window and then observed it walking across the driveway.
Established in 1787, Destrehan Plantation is the oldest documented plantation home in the lower Mississippi Valley.
Destrehan Plantation has ranked fifth among the 10 Most Haunted Places in the New Orleans area. Several ghosts have been sighted there, including Lafitte.
In June of 2006, during the Destrehan Plantation Spring Festival, Australian mystic Victoria Maison said she saw a ghost on the stairway in the back of the plantation. The specter was even captured on film.
Because people are increasingly enthralled with a good haunting, the plantation does draw visitors during Halloween.
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