Magnolia Plantation and Gardens

Located in Charleston County, Magnolia Plantation offers tours through its historic 1870 home and more than 60 acres of well-maintained flowering gardens. The property tells stories of both grandeur and oppression.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens has been tied to the Drayton family since 1676, when Thomas and Ann Drayton acquired a four-hundred-acre property along the Ashley River from Stephen Fox. Over the next two centuries, the Draytons expanded their holdings to nearly 1,700 acres, building their vast wealth on Carolina Gold Rice cultivated by enslaved Africans. At the peak of slavery in the 1800s, 235 enslaved people were owned by the Drayton family and housed in small cabins divided in two, each half sheltering a family regardless of size. Four of these restored cabins still stand on the property today, and they are among the most paranormally active locations on the grounds.

The original plantation house was burned by British troops during the Revolutionary War, and its replacement was destroyed again during the Civil War when Union soldiers torched it in 1865. The current main house was actually a Summerville hunting lodge that the Drayton family had floated down the Ashley River and placed atop the old foundation. In 1871, Reverend John Grimke Drayton opened the gardens to the public, making Magnolia one of the earliest tourist destinations in the American South. But it is the property's long history of human suffering that visitors say generates the supernatural energy they encounter.

The most feared room in the main house is known simply as the Dying Room -- a space where generations of Magnolia's residents are believed to have spent their final moments. Most employees who work at the plantation today avoid entering the room at all costs, citing an oppressive dark energy that pervades the space. Visitors report overwhelming sensations of exhaustion, dizziness, and sudden waves of sadness, despair, and grief when they enter the main house, with some describing the feelings as so intense they last long after leaving the property.

In the slave cabins and surrounding fields, the paranormal activity takes on a different character. Neighbors report hearing the anguished screams of a murdered overseer and sensing his chilling presence on the grounds. According to legend, Confederate soldiers who died in the slave cabins during the Civil War were buried in shallow graves nearby, and their restless spirits are said to whisper the names of the living and, on rare occasions, attempt to possess them. Visitors have reported seeing dark figures and the spirits of young women in the fields, and some claim to encounter a grieving mother endlessly searching for her lost children. Enslaved blacksmiths at Magnolia allegedly carved voodoo symbols onto Christian crosses marking LeComte family graves -- a powerful form of spiritual resistance whose energy some believe still resonates.

The plantation has attracted serious paranormal investigators. In a 2012 episode of Ghost Hunters on Syfy, the TAPS team documented unexplained music emanating from the slave cabins, the voice of a young girl, a cough, and a distinctive growling sound. One of the most compelling recordings captured a woman's voice asking What are you doing? The investigators concluded that there was significant paranormal activity but could not attribute it to any specific spirit. Visitors have also reported cold spots in the gift shop -- housed in former servants' quarters -- electronic devices draining inexplicably and restoring once they leave the property, and the persistent feeling of being watched from the tree line.

Today Magnolia Plantation and Gardens welcomes visitors for house tours, garden walks, a nature train, and a From Slavery to Freedom tour that centers the experiences of the enslaved people who built and sustained the property. The juxtaposition of breathtaking natural beauty and profound human tragedy gives the plantation its particular haunted quality -- a place where the past refuses to remain buried and the voices of those who suffered here still demand to be heard.