In her teenage years, Jennie was part of a privileged foursome (Duncan Minor, Jennie’s beau and heir to one of the largest fortunes in town; Octavia Dockery, a brilliant poetess destined for literary greatness; and Dick Dana, Octavia’s paramour and an accomplished concert pianist) which dominated the glittered cotillions and garden parties of Natchez’s elite society.[2] Together, the two couples became the envy of the social scene until tragedy quickly took hold. In 1883, Ayres Merrill died and the family broke apart, with Jennie moving into the Glenburnie plantation alone.[3] Shortly following this, Duncan’s mother terminated the couple’s engagement and the jilted Jennie became a recluse, entombing herself in the plantation’s confines and seeing only her darling Duncan, who refused to marry another woman and ritualistically visited his beloved every night in her solitary confinement.[4] Fate would deal Dick and Octavia equally devastating blows.
Happily married, the two moved into the Glenwood plantation next to their dear friend, where an incident with a window left Dick’s fingers mangled and financial hardships endured. Forced to support the family herself, Octavia ceased writing and abandoned any hopes of a prosperous literary career. As the money dwindled, so did Dick’s sanity. He began wandering the woods between Glenburnie and Glenwood during the day, where Octavia often found him hidden in trees wearing only a potato sack, and sitting at his grand piano at night, where his maimed fingers hammering out discordant melodies.[5] Akin to Dick’s collapsing mind and the deteriorating Glenwood, the relationship between the four rapidly declined, with Jennie perpetually fighting with her former friends over their home’s derelict state and Duncan threatening to purchase the property out from under them.[6] Then, on the night of August 3, the unthinkable occurred when Duncan entered Glenburnie and found the drawing room a gory mess of broken furniture, smudged fingerprints made by a deformed hand, and a discarded bloody overcoat.[7] A search party was immediately assembled, which scoured the woods throughout the night and eventually stumbled upon Jennie’s body.
Dick and Octavia were quickly charged and imprisoned. In a search for evidence, police discovered that Glenwood had declined far worse than anyone had expected: furniture lay in broken shambles; moldy stacks of newspapers toward throughout the manor; fleas and mites – along with inches of dust – covered every surface; and chickens, ducks, and goats freely meandered throughout the home and left trails of excrement.[8] The shocking condition of Glenwood gave the plantation the nickname “Goat Castle” and, throughout the nation, the public reveled in the story of the madness surrounding these former-friends-turned-murders. Yet, the case would take an even odder turn when, on the night of Jennie’s funeral, a vagrant was shot and killed over two-hundred miles away in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The incident seemed of little importance until it was discovered that the drifter possessed a deformed hand and .32 caliber handgun which ballistics testing traced back to Jennie’s murder.[9] Dick and Octavia were exonerated and Jennie’s death was labeled the product of a botched robbery. National coverage of the trial made Dick and Octavia celebrities and crowds flocked to Glenwood to pay fifty cents for a tour of “Goat Castle” and to be serenaded by Dick, whose playing had evolved from lumbered melodies to enthusiastic waltzes. For some, though, the crime’s official verdict seemed erroneous and that’s when the stories began.[10]
Residents of Natchez claimed they could hear deathly moans – which started shortly after Dick and Octavia returned home from their incarceration – drifting through the woods between Glenburnie and Glenwood at night. They also noticed a change in Dick’s playing. It had become louder and more passionate. Furthermore, it commenced directly before dusk and lingered on throughout the night.[11] For some, it appeared as though he was attempting to drown the bewitching wails from Jennie, which only fueled whispered rumors that he had killed his former friend and, haunted by the ghost of her restless soul, manically played his piano each night to wash out her accusatory chants from his guilty mind.
Works Referenced
Anderson, Jean. The Haunting of America: Ghost Stories from Our Past. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973.
Matrana, Marc. Lost Plantations of the South. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
Miller, Mary Carol. Lost Mansions of Mississippi. Vol. 2. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2010.
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[1] Miller, 45.
[2] Miller, 42-44.
[3] Miller, 45.
[4] Matrana, 145-146.
[5] Anderson, 80-81.
[6] Miller, 45.
[7] Anderson, 82.
[8] Miller, 46.
[9] Miller, 46.
[10] Anderson, 82-83.
[11] Anderson, 84.
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