The White Witch of Rose Hall

Rose Hall was built in the 1770 and still stands to this day and when it was first built as was a sugar plantation. One of the largest on the island with over 2000 slaves working at one point in its history.

Now known as Rose Hall Great House in Montego Bay, Jamaica it is now considered one of the most haunted houses in the western hemisphere. With such a notorious reputation that Johnny Cash, American singer and songwriter, wrote a song immortalising Annie Palmer.

Annie Patterson was born in 1802 and had a rough start to life. When she was 10 years old she lost both of her parents to yellow fever. While living with her nanny, it said that this was the time that she apparently learned witchcraft and voodoo, because her nanny was supposedly a voodoo priestess. Now it could have been fate or Annie’s voodoo skills but hen she was 18 years old she crossed paths with John Palmer (the owner of the plantation). John whisked Annie away from Haiti to Jamaica and married her. It’s been said that their marriage wasn’t a happy one – John was supposedly very abusive towards Annie, which is said to have been the source of her scorn. It was reported that Annie was unfaithful, taking several male slavers as her lovers. It’s still unclear if her lovers triggered John’s abuse or if it was a refuge from the abuse.

So over the years, their relationship deteriorated even more and then one day John died from apparently poisoned coffee. After John’s death, Annie inherited Rose Hall and her reign of terror began. She continued to take slaves as her lovers, murdering any that she was bored with. She would also regularly whip and torture her slaves and even kill those that upset her. Annie would also set traps around the property to capture slaves so they couldn’t escape and she refurbished the cellar to aid her in the torture. Annie even went as far as getting the house slaves to whistle when they were around food so she knew that they weren’t helping themselves to food. No slave wanted to get on the bad side of Annie because of her voodoo powers and so they started to call her the White Witch of Rose Hall.

Annie married again twice, murdering them both for their money. Husband no.2 was stabbed to death by Annie and to make sure he was dead she poured boiling oil in his ears. OUCH!! Husband no.3 was strangled to death with the help of Takoo (her slave lover at the time).

The Downfall

So everything started to go pear-shaped for Annie in 1831 when she began to fall in love with Robert Rutherford. However, Rutherford didn’t fall for Annie but for Takoo’s granddaughter instead. Three guesses how Annie felt…. Pissed. So Annie did the only thing she knew – she cast a voodoo spell on her. According to legend the spell was called “old hige” which was said have a ghost visit the spelled that would cause them to slowly wither and die. So as you can imagine Takoo became so enraged he strangled Annie to death.

The slaves took her body and buried it in a deep hole on the property. In fear of her spirit returning, the slaves burned all of her possessions and had a voodoo ritual performed to stop this from happening. Unfortunately, the ritual was performed incorrectly and Annie’s spirit now haunts Rose Hall.

Tourists and other visitors have claimed to have heard people walking around upstairs when no one is there, being touched, cold spots and men have said that they feel like they’ve been groped by someone who they believe is to be Annie’s spirit.