Barnsley Gardens

English cotton merchant Godfrey Barnsley bought 8,000 acres of former Cherokee land in the 1840s to build this estate, though his wife Julia died of a lung ailment before the manor and gardens were finished in 1848. A 1906 tornado tore the roof off the house, leaving the family to live out of the kitchen wing, and in 1935 one of Godfrey's great-grandsons murdered his own brother in a dispute over control of the property. Employees and guests report a playful child's laughter, footsteps, and toys moved overnight in the historic Adair House, while the mansion ruins themselves are said to be haunted by Godfrey and Julia, reunited at last and seen strolling the gardens in the evening, along with a Confederate soldier some believe to be Colonel Robert Earle, killed on the grounds during the Civil War.