The c. 1840 frame plantation house of Princess Catherine Willis Murat — great-grandniece of George Washington — preserved on the grounds of the Tallahassee Museum, where visitors report her apparition in the parlor and bedroom.
3945 Museum Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Standard Tallahassee Museum admission includes the Bellevue exhibit; see tallahasseemuseum.org for current rates.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Outdoor museum grounds with mostly level paths; the historic Bellevue house has steps.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1840 · Home of Catherine Willis Gray Murat (great-grandniece of George Washington) · Widow of Prince Achille Murat, nephew of Napoleon · Pre-Civil-War Florida cotton plantation house · Site interprets the lives of enslaved laborers · Preserved at the Tallahassee Museum's Old Florida area
Bellevue Plantation is preserved on the grounds of the Tallahassee Museum at 3945 Museum Drive. The c. 1840 frame house was purchased in 1854 by Catherine Daingerfield Willis Murat, a great-grandniece of President George Washington and the widow of Prince Achille Murat (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte and a son of Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law). Catherine lived at Bellevue from 1854 until her death in 1867.
The Bellevue property at its original Jackson Bluff Road location was a 520-acre cotton plantation, and the Wikipedia article on Bellevue Plantation documents that Catherine owned twenty-five enslaved people who worked the cotton fields, performed skilled labor, and operated the household. Tallahassee Museum's own interpretive program at the Old Florida site addresses this history.
Catherine's relationship to Washington, her late husband's royal lineage, and her own Florida activism gave her a high public profile in 19th-century Tallahassee; Explore Southern History notes that she also helped raise funds to restore Mount Vernon. After her death in 1867, the house and farm passed through subsequent owners.
The building remained at its original Jackson Bluff Road site until the 20th century, when it was moved to the Tallahassee Museum to be preserved as a historic exhibit. Today Bellevue is a focal point of the museum's Old Florida area, alongside other relocated historic Florida structures.
The Tallahassee Museum, formerly known as the Tallahassee Junior Museum, is a 52-acre outdoor history and nature museum opened in 1957. It is one of the most-visited family destinations in Tallahassee and is open year-round.
Sources
According to Visit Tallahassee's 'Spooky Tallahassee' and 'Tallahassee Haunted History' features, the most common paranormal reports tied to the Bellevue house concern the apparition of Catherine Willis Murat herself, glimpsed by visitors most frequently in the parlor and bedroom — the rooms most associated with her life and death in the building. Catherine lived in the house from 1854 until 1867, and the lore is rooted in her long association with the residence.
The Tallahassee Museum does not market the house as a paranormal destination, and the published witness pool is limited to tourism-source reports rather than first-person investigation logs. We frame these as 'according to Visit Tallahassee' attributions. The house's history of slavery — and the lives of the twenty-five people Catherine enslaved at Bellevue — is the primary historical context, and we do not romanticize an antebellum or royal framing of the ghost story.
Independent corroboration: Explore Southern History's profile of Bellevue notes that 'the apparition of the Princess has been glimpsed by more than one visitor in the house where she lived for years and where she died,' echoing the Visit Tallahassee tourism reports from a separate regional-history source (exploresouthernhistory.com/bellevue.html).
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Self-guided exploration of the Tallahassee Museum's 'Old Florida' area, with interpretation of the c. 1840 Bellevue plantation house, the life of Catherine Willis Murat, and the property's antebellum-Florida context including enslaved labor.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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