Springhill Winery and Plantation B&B

This stately 1857 plantation combines a working winery with a bed and breakfast in a historic antebellum mansion. The property has witnessed over 165 years of Kentucky history.

The plantation now known as Springhill was originally called Anoatop, a Native American name meaning 'Windy Hill.' It was built in 1857 by John R. Jones, a Virginian who arrived in Nelson County with a land grant for 1,050 acres and forty enslaved people -- nine who worked inside the house and the rest living in cabins along the perimeter of the property. Jones constructed a stately brick manor on the hilltop, featuring Federal-style interior woodwork that still survives today. The plantation operated as a prosperous antebellum estate until the Civil War tore through central Kentucky.

On June 17, 1864, the incident that would become known as 'the darkest day of Bloomfield's history' unfolded at Springhill. CSA Lt. Col. George M. Jesse, a regimental commander who had served under General John Hunt Morgan, was leading roughly 150 cavalrymen through Nelson County. Jesse's men had been operating out of Camp Charity, a Confederate encampment established near Bloomfield in 1861, and were securing fresh horses and provisions in the area. When a Confederate captain spotted a fine saddle at the Jones plantation and attempted to take it, the 78-year-old Jones -- who had married his second wife Anna just forty days earlier -- refused. Jones slipped through the back servants' entrance beneath the stairway, grabbed his rifle, and fired through the front door, fatally wounding the Confederate officer. The guerrillas withdrew briefly but returned and set fire to parts of the house, including the balcony and porches. Fearing his wife and daughter would perish in the flames, Jones stepped onto the porch, where he was shot dead.

The aftermath proved equally tragic. Under General Stephen Gano Burbridge's infamous Order No. 59, issued on July 16, 1864, Union forces were authorized to execute Confederate prisoners of war in reprisal whenever a Union-sympathizing citizen was killed by guerrillas. Union Major Francis Henry Bristow of the 8th Kentucky Cavalry oversaw the selection of prisoners from a Confederate POW camp in Louisville. The two men who drew the marked beans were John May Hamilton, 37, of Richmond, Indiana, and Richard Berry, 20, of Livingston County, Kentucky. They were brought to Bloomfield and taken to Bunker Hill on the south side of town for execution. According to accounts, Berry began to weep, but Hamilton told him to die like a brave Confederate soldier. Berry asked for and was given time to write a final letter to his father before both men were shot. More than 150 such reprisal executions took place across Kentucky under Burbridge's order, earning him the title 'Butcher of Kentucky.'

The violent deaths of Jones, the Confederate captain, and the two executed prisoners have left what many believe to be lasting spiritual imprints on the property. Guests staying overnight at the bed and breakfast have reported unexplained sounds throughout the mansion, sudden cold spots in the hallways, and the unsettling feeling of being watched. Some have described hearing phantom footsteps on the stairs near the servants' entrance where Jones made his fateful decision to grab his rifle. The front porch area, where Jones was shot, and the front yard, where the reprisal executions occurred, are considered the most active locations. According to local legend, a Bloomfield attorney recalled that as a boy playing at the property, he could still see bloodstains on the concrete where Jones lay dying whenever it rained.

Paranormal investigator Patti Starr, a certified ghost hunter and author of 'Ghosthunting Kentucky,' featured Springhill as one of thirty haunted locations in the state. The property has also embraced its dark history through cultural events, including a dinner-theater production called 'Restless Spirits -- The Murder Mystery of 1864,' written and directed by Toni Wiley and performed by the Bardstown Theater Group in 2007.

In the early 1900s, Dr. James Robert Hughes acquired the property from the Jones family, trading his Missouri farm for the Nelson County plantation. Hughes attempted to change the manor's haunted reputation by extensively renovating the house, adding a new front wing rather than rebuilding the burned porches, and importing ornate ironwork from Paris, France, in 1904 for the two front porches. The Hughes addition features Victorian 'keyhole' design woodwork that contrasts with the original Federal styling. Around 1999, Eddie O'Daniel purchased the property and planted a vineyard on Easter Sunday 2000, establishing Springhill Winery -- one of Kentucky's oldest small wineries. O'Daniel, who had developed his passion for winemaking while living in Napa Valley and visiting Mediterranean wine regions during military service, operated the plantation as a bed and breakfast and winery until his passing in December 2018. Today visitors can tour the antebellum mansion, sample Kentucky wines, and spend the night in a house where the spirits of the Civil War era are said to remain restless.