Hidden behind its alluring name and turn-of-the-century charm, Magnolia Manor Bed and Breakfast, named, in part, for the gigantic magnolia trees that virtually conceals the historic home from the street, flaunts something that most places would be tripping over themselves trying to hide; the fact that the plantation is teeming with ghosts!
Located less than an hour away from Memphis in Bolivar, TN, the Georgian Colonial was built in 1849 by a well-to-do-attorney named Judge Austin Miller, who is not only mentioned by name in the Constitution of the state of Mississippi, but has also been credited as one of the people responsible for establishing the southern boundary of Tennessee, which resulted in Memphis being located just inside the Tennessee border rather than in Mississippi.
A two-story home indicative of the era, each brick of the manor was hand made and sun dried on the premises by the slaves that were responsible for the care of the plantation, and features fourteen foot ceilings and thirteen inch thick walls, and was used as Headquarters for the Union Army by Generals Logan, McPherson, Sherman, and Grant during the Civil War and is suspected as being the exact location in which the generals planned step by step the battle of Shiloh.
Featured on HGTV’s “If Walls Could Talk” and the stomping grounds to more than a few paranormal research teams, the identities of a majority the ghosts have not been determined, but the there is speculation that one of the resident haunts is that of Annie Miller, who was the last Miller to reside in the home upon her death in 1979 at the age of 84.
Reported claims include numerous, full-apparition sightings, including a spectral woman wearing a Victorian dress, who is said to actually pull the covers from the guests while asleep in “The 1849 Room.” Lights turning on and off by themselves and doors opening and closing when no one is around are also commonly reported, along with heavy-heeled footsteps ascending the massive staircase, but the most spine-chilling claims involves a portrait that hangs in the above mentioned 1849 room.
Said to be the image of Priscilla McNeal, a wealthy cousin of the Miller family who died at the age of eighteen and who’s painted eyes seem to “come alive” and watch your every movement, it’s rumored that the portrait was painted post mortem, and it’s the unrested ghost of Priscilla that pulls the bed sheets from the room’s occupants in the middle of the night.
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