HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Coastal Georgia's last surviving rice plantation, where a boy dead since 1887 has been seen on the porch steps
5556 US-17, Brunswick, GA 31523
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Standard Georgia State Parks admission; Ghosts and Legends tours $15 per person, held select evenings
Access
Limited Access
Flat grounds with some unpaved paths; main house partially accessible; Ghosts and Legends tour is a walking tour on plantation grounds
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1807 · Coastal Georgia's last surviving rice plantation · National Register of Historic Places (ref. 76000635) · Donated to Georgia by Ophelia Troup Dent in 1973 · Intact antebellum outbuilding complex
The Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation occupies a stretch of tidal marshland along the Altamaha River south of Brunswick in Glynn County. William Brailsford established the rice-growing operation in the early nineteenth century on land suited to the tidal irrigation methods that characterized Lowcountry rice cultivation. The rice economy required extensive engineering of the marsh—embankments, floodgates, and canals—and depended entirely on the forced labor of enslaved people, many of whom had skills in rice cultivation brought from West Africa.
The property passed through family succession into the Troup and Dent lines. Several members of the Troup family, including Georgia Governor George Michael Troup, were connected to the plantation. By the late nineteenth century, rice cultivation had declined steeply following emancipation and the economic disruptions of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The Dent family continued to occupy the property, and the house and grounds preserved the material character of the antebellum period through simple continuation rather than active restoration.
Ophelia Troup Dent, who lived at the plantation until late in her life, donated the property to the state of Georgia in 1973. The gift included the house essentially as she had kept it: family furniture, Cantonese china, and documents spanning two centuries. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources operates it as a State Historic Site. The plantation is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (reference number 76000635).
The site includes a visitor center, the main house, and a collection of outbuildings—dairy, commissary, laundry, and service structures—that together give a relatively complete picture of a working Lowcountry plantation's physical layout. Georgia State Parks has offered interpretive programming since the 1970s, including, more recently, evening ghost and legends tours.
Sources
The paranormal tradition at Hofwyl-Broadfield involves two distinct figures whose identities are grounded in the property's documented history rather than anonymous folklore.
The first is associated with Ophelia Troup Dent (1827–1905), a member of the Troup family who spent much of her life at the plantation. Rangers at the site have reported seeing a woman in a white dress moving beneath the canopy of live oaks on the grounds, most often in the vicinity of the main house. The apparition does not interact with observers; it moves and then disappears. Park staff have connected the figure to Dent based on the white dress, which matches period accounts and portraits.
The second figure is a child—a boy born in 1882 who died of croup at age four and a half in 1887. The accounts of this apparition are more varied than the woman-in-white reports. Visitors and staff describe seeing a boy sitting on the porch steps of the main house, standing in the yard, or—in one well-circulated account—appearing at the foot of a bed in one of the plantation structures used for overnight accommodation. A young man reportedly spoke to the boy before realizing the child was not physically present.
Georgia State Parks has incorporated these accounts into official programming through the 'Ghosts and Legends of Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation' lantern tours, which run on select weekend evenings and include both the historical context of the plantation and the documented encounters. The tours have been running in some form for decades.
Notable Entities
Guided tour of the plantation house as Ophelia Dent kept it at the time of her donation to the state in 1973. The tour covers five generations of plantation ownership, the rice cultivation economy that the property represents, and the lives of the enslaved people and African American workers who made the plantation operational.
Evening lantern tour of the plantation grounds, outbuildings, and house. Guides cover five generations of the Troup-Dent family history alongside accounts of paranormal encounters—including the boy seen on the porch steps and ranger sightings near the live oaks. Tour starts at 6:30 p.m. on select weekend evenings; $15 per person.
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