{"id":2356,"slug":"rosedown-plantation-st-francisville-louisiana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Rosedown is the garden plantation — the 1835 house at the end of the 660-foot oak allée, the 28 acres of formal gardens that were among the few private ones in America, and the diary that documents all of it. Martha Turnbull's garden book ran from 1836 to 1895 — the most complete record of a Southern garden that exists.","The plantation was the fortune — Daniel Turnbull's cotton empire that made him one of the richest men in the country, the 3,455 acres worked by 450 enslaved people, the house furnished with the best the North and Europe could send. The gardens were Martha's; the labor that kept them was enslaved.","The house is the state's now — the 1950s restoration, the 2000 purchase by Louisiana, the gardens that are the best-documented antebellum landscape in the South. The file keeps the diary's record: the sixty years of Martha's entries, the 450 who did the work, and the oak allée that's still the approach.","Rosedown is the archive's garden file — the 1835 house, Martha Turnbull's sixty-year diary, and the 28 acres of formal gardens that are the South's best-documented plantation landscape."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Rosedown is the archive's documentation file — the plantation with the sixty-year garden diary, the formal gardens that are the best survival, and the 450 enslaved people in the record.","A plantation with a diary keeps its record — the file's suggestion being that Rosedown's hold is Martha's book: the sixty years of entries, the garden she built, and the enslaved hands the diary sometimes names."]}],"name":"Rosedown Plantation","aliases":[],"type":"PLANTATION","type_label":"Plantation","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_ESTATE"],"groups":["dark-history","hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The 1835 mansion whose family kept it until the state did.","full_desc":"Rosedown Plantation is a plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. The 1835 mansion whose family kept it until the state did. It sits in the archive under local folklore and haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"St. Francisville","county":null,"state":"Louisiana","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":30.784234,"lon":-91.376417,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Southern Gothic batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1791,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence in the house and figures in the garden. A house with St. Francisville's history behind it gives the reports a setting that needs no exaggeration. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting. The file stays open on it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Rosedown Plantation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosedown_Plantation","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Built 1835; acquired by the state in 2000 with interiors intact. Rosedown Plantation's history is documented rather than told — this entry is part of that spine. The fact is historically verified — the part of the file that doesn't need hedging. 'Rosedown Plantation' documents the entry. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1835","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Rosedown Plantation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosedown_Plantation","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported a presence in the house and figures in the garden. A house with St. Francisville's history behind it gives the reports a setting that needs no exaggeration. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Rosedown Plantation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosedown_Plantation","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Rosedown Plantation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosedown_Plantation","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Rosedown Plantation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosedown_Plantation","desc":"United States historic place","extract":"Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site is an 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) historic home and former plantation located in St. Francisville, Louisiana, United States. Commissioned in 1835 by owners Daniel and Martha Turnbull and built by enslaved people under their control, Rosedown is one of the most documented and intact plantation complexes in the Southern United States. It is known for its extensive formal gardens surrounding the house.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/RosedownWM.JPG/960px-RosedownWM.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":30.796015,"lon":-91.370945},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}