Americana #8
Louisiana 1981
In 1981, the Prothro Mansion at St. Maurice Plantation was consumed by a mysterious fire, which many believe was started by the restless ghost of a child. This child’s spirit is said to haunt the mansion, causing strange and eerie events that have only added to its legendary reputation. People claim to hear sudden noises, feel cold gusts of air, and see a ghostly child rush past them, sometimes even changing the pages of a calendar.
For years, housekeeper Lessie Jackson, who worked at the mansion, witnessed unsettling occurrences. She described seeing ghostly figures, like a man in a flap-down cap and light-colored shirt, who appeared to be conversing with others—until she looked away, and he vanished. Another time, Jackson watched a spinning wheel move on its own, despite no one being near it. Lessie also heard the sounds of galloping horses behind the house, as if spirits were still riding across the old pasture.
One of the most vivid stories involved Mrs. Chitquita Squires, the woman who hired Lessie. Late one night, Mrs. Squires woke to a strange, sweaty odor and heard noises upstairs, like pictures falling off the wall. When Lessie checked, the pictures were still in place. It wasn’t just the sounds that unnerved the staff—there was an eerie feeling that lingered in the house, as though the past inhabitants had never left.
The Prothro Mansion, steeped in a dark history of tragedies, blurs the line between the living and the dead. Its haunting is anchored by the ghostly child, believed to have sparked the 1981 fire, cementing the mansion’s place in local ghost lore with eerie, unexplained occurrences.
