Haunted Savannah: America's Most Spectral City
Author: James Caskey
Date: 2013-07-27 16:32:13+00:00
Keywords: Historical; Monsters; Travel; Paranormal; Ghost Stories; History; Non Fiction
Description: Why is Savannah, Georgia the most haunted city in America? Historian and tour guide James Caskey answers this question and many more. This fully-revised and updated book details over forty of Savannah's most infamous ghost stories, resulting in a paranormal compilation unlike any other. Discover the truth about Savannah's haunted history as you explore spine-chilling tales about the Hostess City's shadowy "Other Side," as told by a master storyteller. This volume combines exhaustive searches of historical archives, detailed analysis, and engaging first-hand accounts of spectral activity as exp
Publisher: Manta Ray Books LLC

HAUNTED SAVANNAH

AMERICA’S MOST SPECTRAL CITY

By James Caskey

Copyright © 2005 James Caskey

Copyright © 2013 James Caskey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system--except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web--without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, please contact Subtext Publishing LLC, 510 East 64th Street, Savannah, GA 31405.

Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any slights of people, places, or organizations are unintentional.

Subtext Publishing Edition

First Printing 2013

ISBN 13: 978-0-9882529-6-7

Printing History:

Originally published by Bonaventure Books 2005

Subtext Publishing Edition 2013

All photos courtesy of James Caskey, and:

Library of Congress, pages 257 and 259

Cover Design by Liz Wiglesworth

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgements

I have far too many people to thank for their time, patience and technical expertise to list in this volume. I’ve interviewed historians, authors, tour guides, and many people who work at the establishments mentioned within these pages. Without their help, this book would not have been possible. Any inaccuracies, errors of fact, or omissions contained within this volume are my own.

Unfortunately I can’t acknowledge everyone by name, but a short list is possible. Local historian and folklore expert Rebecca Clark gave her time and provided a substantial amount of great material. The staff at the Georgia Historical Society provided an incredible amount of support. Tour guide and amateur historian Missy Brandt provided several anecdotes, but fortunately she allowed me to pay her off with sushi. Murray Silver and Cristina Piva, owners of Bonaventure Books, have my endless thanks for publishing the first seven editions of this book. Liz Wiglesworth has my gratitude for helping this extremely stubborn author edit his work for this new, improved edition. Additional editing credit goes to Sheila Lynne Bolda and Kristine K. Stevens. I’d also like to thank Subtext Publishing for showing great patience while indulging my seemingly endless revisions.

Two very special thank you’s are in order to my immediate family: the first to my mother, who has always been an inspiration to me because of her strength. The second is to my older brother Brian, who as a child would tell me horrible stories once the bedroom lights were out, which probably explains why I now write stories about what could be lurking in the dark, just beyond perception.

1. Hampton Lillibridge House

2. Olde Pink House

3. Little Gracie

4. Moon River Brewing Company

5. Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace

6. Cotton Exchange Restaurant

7. Pour Larry’s

8. 441 Barnard Street

9. Willink House

10. Davenport House

11. Kehoe House

12. 17Hundred90 Inn and Restaurant

13. Owens-Thomas House

14. 12 West Oglethorpe

15. Marshall House

16. Alice Riley

17. Colonial Park Cemetery

18. Conrad Aiken

19. Lucas Theatre

20. River Street Inn

21. B. Matthews Eatery

22. Savannah Harley-Davidson

23. Scarbrough House

24. Foley House Inn

25. Savannah Theatre

26. McDonough’s Restaurant and Lounge

27. Pirate’s House Restaurant

28. Andrew Low House

29. Hamilton-Turner Inn

30. 215 East Charlton Street

31. 432 Abercorn Street

32. Mulberry Inn

33. First African Baptist Church

34. Sorrel-Weed House

Preface

For the revised and updated edition

There is no present or future; only the past, happening over and over again, now.

-Eugene O’Neill

I was asked a great question recently, one that really got me thinking. The question was: Why did you decide to write Haunted Savannah, in 2005? I must admit that it wasn’t a formal plan, at least not in the beginning. The origins of the book began very shortly after I started Cobblestone Tours, my walking tour in Savannah, back in 2001. As I trained tour guides, I began noticing some inconsistencies creeping into their stories. Certain names, events, and dates in their respective tour narratives got streamlined and shaped by their personalities and storytelling style. These guides’ deviations from the stories increased as time went by, meaning the tales gradually got further and further from their original incarnation. This is not leveled as criticism, but a reflection of the reality that people’s memories are flawed, mine included. So in order to help with this problem, I began writing the stories down for my tour guides and distributing them for reference, so they would get the names and the dates right.

At the time (pre-2005), there was just one book on the subject on the market: Savannah Spectres, by Margaret DeBolt, and that was originally published in 1984. In all that time Ms. DeBolt never updated the work, and very little new research had been done since. You should understand that most ghost tours in Savannah during the period I’m referencing either told their recycled variation of the ‘Spectres’ stories, or made up their tales entirely (and I’m talking total fabrication-- one company which was based in Charleston, SC moved their city’s stories to Savannah, just changing the names of the houses). I was a history enthusiast, so I began to see that in a few years the ghost tour market would be flooded with a bunch of outlandish fictional stories, which was a real shame in a place with some authentically bizarre history like Savannah. A few tour owners were already constructing their entire storytelling experience around made up ‘monster stories’ like Rene Rondolia, a fictional giant psychopath who lived in a lair under Colonial Park Cemetery in 1820’s-era Savannah. I felt (and continue to feel) quite strongly that this fabrication of our history was wrong on a number of levels.

I found myself digging through the archives at the Georgia Historical Society, looking for something better to tell on tour. Doing real research for a ghost tour back then was seen as more than a little strange, but I loved doing it. What I found at the GHS was a treasure trove of information that was relevant to the topic. Not only was this twisted history more interesting than the stories being made up by unprincipled guides, it had the benefit of being absolutely true. Very little of this information had been used for tour material, or had ever been published. I wrote it down and incorporated it into my repertoire, and people really responded to it, because it was all authentic and new. And in the midst of all this research, I had been waiting for years for someone to write a worthy follow-up to Savannah Spectres. I hadn’t considered myself a candidate to do it, because I wasn’t a ‘real’ historian, and had never written anything longer than a five page term paper in my life. Besides, I was running Cobblestone Tours full-time. But three years passed, and I gradually amassed a huge folder of tour stories and historical tidbits, way more than I could ever use on tour. If something caught my interest, I would write it down.

The ‘Savannah tour stories’ folder grew to well over 30,000 words. It suddenly hit me one day that I had been busy writing the very book I was hoping would be written by somebody else, so I’d better get serious about it. I began rewriting all of the stories in a more professional tone, and submitted the result to a few local publishers. It was sort of a perfect sequence of happy accidents that quickly led me to Murray Silver and Cristina Piva, my first publishers at Bonaventure Books. They shepherded the project into the work it became, a weighty 74,000 words. They have been more than mentors, and more than friends. I cannot compliment them enough, because without those two, that book would simply not exist. It published in 2005 and sales have been steady ever since.

So my response to the question Why did I write Haunted Savannah? would have to be a two-part answer: it was an attempt to correct a lot of false information that was being spread by many of this city’s tour guides, but it was also an effort to protect and preserve Savannah’s history and heritage through the art of oral storytelling. The book was (and is) intended to be a resource for Savannah tour guides, regardless of which company they work for, and is an honest attempt to raise the level of conversation about the subject of the paranormal in Savannah. I hope I’ve succeeded.

Statue in Bonaventure Cemetery, located 4 miles from Savannah’s Historic District.

Revisiting the Past

Let’s pick this story up eight years later. I can say without any false modesty that the version of the book I published in 2005 was a very consistent seller, both locally and online. When I was initially approached about ‘freshening up’ this edition of Haunted Savannah, I was immediately wary. Experiences which are a true pleasure to revisit are a rarity. Once the husk of ‘the new’ is discarded, what we are left with is an experience that is somehow exponentially diminished. Even many positive events, those which make our lives worth living, are filled with the potential of us easily ruining our memories by trying to revise or ‘perfect’ them (see ‘Lucas, George’ for examples). I very nearly demurred for that reason, preferring the past to stay the past, as I had other projects pending on an already-full schedule. In fact, I nearly jokingly renamed the folder Haunted Savannah: The Chinese Democracy Special Edition, after former ‘Guns n’ Roses’ frontman Axl Rose’s seemingly unending solo vanity project. I feared a variation of his hubristic descent into an obsessive-compulsive tinkering might happen to me. But then I opened the file folders and viewed the text, and promptly changed my mind. The book needed an update, because a lot of the information contained within had changed in the eight years since first publishing. Plus, I knew a lot of new stories, as well as compelling updates to existing tales. I was sucked in. I promise that most of my changes will be seamless, if you’re familiar with the original version of Haunted Savannah. There will be not suddenly be giant computer-generated aliens inserted anywhere in these pages. Only a few chapters are seeing major revisions, and that is because a lot of new information has come to light.

More to the point, though, my main reason for revisiting some of these stories is that I absolutely love the subject matter. And there is no shortage of entertaining stories-- this town is delightfully weird, in both a ‘haunted’ and a ‘non-haunted’ way. My scariest stories have nothing to do with ghosts. For instance, late one midsummer evening, on my way home from a tour, I encountered a guy wearing a Robin outfit (a near-exact replica Burt Ward’s costume from the old Batman and Robin TV show). He was just standing there, alone, in an alley. And I mean the guy had on a mask, the cape, the short-shorts, and the little curly boots-- this was no dimestore Halloween costume, it looked like the real deal, and we were nowhere near Halloween. My initial assumption was that he was in costume for a student film—Savannah is home to several thousand art students from Savannah College of Art & Design, including Hollywood-hopeful film majors. But there were no photographers or video crews anywhere in sight. ‘Robin’ was just standing there in the lane, posing heroically; hands-on-hips, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I was about to ask him what the heck he was doing, but then realized I was wearing my tour outfit: a sword, a black-powder revolver, a sash, heavy black leather cavalry boots, grey Confederate wool from head-to-toe, and carrying a lit candle lantern. Who was I to judge? We looked at each other, nodded in that ‘what’s up’ way, and then he ran off, presumably to fight crime.

I hope that my ongoing love-affair with Savannah, more than anything else, is what comes across in my writing. This town is very near and dear to my heart, and I try to do a good job of representing her eccentricities faithfully. There are simply just too many stories, ghost or otherwise, worth sharing about this most Southern Gothic of towns. I hope you enjoy reading this new edition as much as I did writing it.

The Independent Presbyterian Church on Bull Street.

Savannah- Why So Haunted?

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

—William Faulkner

Act I, Scene III, Requiem for a Nun

Savannah, Georgia: you can’t walk down the streets at twilight without getting the impression that there is a layer of deeper meaning. The old, beautiful homes practically emanate an aura of history and pedigree, implying tales of lost loves, lives cut short, and other tragic circumstances. Simply by passing over the Savannah River on the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, descending the ramp off of Highway 17 and submerging into the mystery that is Savannah’s shadowy Historic District, you can’t help but feel transported to another time. Gas lamps flicker over rain-slicked cobblestone streets. Fog-shrouded vignettes, seemingly ripped from the pages of history books, appear live and in color. And adding even more eerie ambiance than the storied architecture is Savannah’s famous Spanish moss-draped live oaks. This wonderful city is the scene of intrigue and mystery.

Savannah is so beautiful that the dead never truly depart. One just has to walk into a shop, hotel or restaurant in Savannah and strike up a conversation with the staff, and the talk will turn inevitably to the supernatural. Any old tavern worth its salt has a resident ghost. It is in these haunted stories we find common elements: tragedy, lost youth, and occasionally, redemption. Can you find a better backdrop for a ghost story than the Olde Pink House Restaurant, or the Kehoe House Bed and Breakfast? Savannah’s Historic District sets the scene like no other city.

Why would Savannah be considered by many experts to be so haunted? For over a decade now, I’ve had some stock answers ready for all who asked. Very recently I’ve begun to change my mind, or at the very least add to some of those theories.

Formerly, heading the list of possible reasons why Georgia’s First City was considered the be America’s Most Haunted had to do with energy. There is speculation amongst many (myself included) that houses can possibly store a ‘dry charge’ of the energy expended in the structure, much like a battery stores electrical power. This energy could be bound to the property by moments of extreme emotional distress, such as death or great sadness. And Savannah has experienced an immeasurable amount of tragedy over the years. There is also the possibility that an action repeated over and over again can also have this dry charge effect, which would explain why hearing footsteps is one of the most common forms of a structure being haunted. From time to time, when conditions are right, that stored power is unleashed. Think of sound waves: energy is released in audible form, and when conditions allow, such as an object bouncing the sound waves back toward the point of origin, the energy returns in the form of an echo. If energy can return in this way several seconds after the actual event, why can’t psychic energy return at a later time as well, sometimes years, decades or even centuries after the fact? It is possible that the act of renovating a structure could release this energy, and the fact that Savannah’s old buildings are constantly being refurbished might help explain the city’s haunted reputation, as well. So the phenomena we label ‘ghostly activity’ may be an explainable occurrence in this way.

There is, I used to point out, another factor to consider: many old port cities have a reputation for being haunted. Seaports (particularly in the American Deep South) like Charleston, Savannah, Wilmington, and New Orleans have garnered the reputation of having many supernatural occurrences. Perhaps it is tied in with the close proximity to the water—if ghosts are life-force energy that has not faded away, then maybe the tidal ebb and flow has somehow polarized the entire area, preserving the remaining energy and capturing it for a time when conditions are right.

Savannah is a city built on its dead.

History is the Key

These are all decent theories, but they don’t really answer the question: Why here? Our history is really not that different from other places, and yet specific locations like the cities I mentioned previously have a paranormal reputation which borders on the infamous. Many people, upon visiting Savannah for the first time, have described to me the feeling that there is a much deeper story waiting to be unearthed, an elusive layer of meaning. And they are right.

What my theory has evolved into is this: in order to understand why Savannah is so haunted, we need to examine her history on a deeper level than is achieved by most paranormal books on the subject and by local ghost tours. Simply pointing out that Savannah has endured several great fires, numerous yellow fever epidemics, and has been involved in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars does nothing to explain why this particular seaport has such a tie to the paranormal. Lots of tragedy happened here in Savannah, but that is true of nearly every location on the planet at one time or another. So what gives? Why is Savannah really so haunted?

I have spent the last decade-plus examining why Georgia’s First City is forever associated with the supernatural. This study has forced me to go beyond the normal discussions of the tragic circumstances of yellow fever, bad medical care, and the violence implied with any Colonial seaport city. Don’t get me wrong: Savannah’s history is full of some truly tragic happenings, but I’d like to look a little deeper into the backstory of the American Deep South as a whole, going back to a time long before Savannah was even established as a grubby border outpost in 1733 (this theory expounds on one I first postulated in my second book, The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter. I have borrowed some thoughts from that book for this revised section, in the interests of full-disclosure).

Much further into the past, there were Native American tribes occupying present-day Georgia. These tribes, whose exact numbers we can only guess at today (but perhaps numbered in the hundreds of thousands), were almost completely eradicated by their contact with the Spanish, specifically the conquistador Hernando De Soto. This Spanish leader and his men, on their swing through the South from 1539 to 1541, first introduced to the Native American populace (in addition to horses, firearms, and pigs) a variety of lethal diseases. De Soto’s small band of conquerors inadvertently exposed the Native Americans to smallpox, chicken pox, measles and other maladies for which the natives had little or no immunity. The effect was as startling as it was horrific. According to Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, up to 70% of the Native Americans who contracted these diseases died. Those epidemics, combined with the all-out war that the conquistadors waged on the native population, led to the fall of those Native American societies. The fracture of those Native American tribes into a plethora of almost disconnected sub-groups, such as the Creek Indians, ultimately made it possible for the later-arriving English to place colonies in Charleston and Beaufort, and eventually Savannah. And this was a story that was repeated, with very little variation, all over the American continent, but particularly in the Deep South. So the very existence of these Spanish, French and English seaports in the Deep South is due to the fact that almost a full two hundred years before their founding there was an epidemic of disease which eradicated an entire way of life. History works this way much of the time: if those Native Americans had just a little more resistance to smallpox, seaports like the present-day city of Savannah would likely not exist, since taking the American continent away from the hostile natives would have been difficult (if not impossible).

If it is true that one murder can forever psychically stain a particular location, then what is the result of eradicating an entire society and culture? If the dust of the soil could speak, then what would this particular patch of Lowcountry ground have to say about the ethnic genocide of the post-De Soto years in the American South? How can there be no repercussions for such a horrific tragedy, one which played out on an unthinkable scale? Well, perhaps there are consequences. If we’re still using the soil metaphor, imagine a loamy earth that starts with genocide, then adds a mix of further disease, wars, hurricanes, murder, great fires, dueling, insurrection and slavery, just to name a few of the many instances of tragedy. What dark seed would take root in such a disturbed and twisted soil? It is possible that this land, which has been soaked in innocent blood, has indeed borne some strange fruit.

So my answer to the question Why is Savannah so haunted? is more complicated than most people in my business care to get into. The city of Savannah is so haunted because we have dual forces at work in our history, both the post-De Soto epidemics which caused the genocide I referenced above, and then the post-1733-founding violence associated (and inherent) with being an English colonial seaport caught in the crossfire of nearly every armed conflict this continent has ever known. Primed in innocent blood before we were ever even conceived, we inherited land which was already cursed by forces we cannot, even now, begin to understand. The Deep South is reaping what has been sown, and Savannah has experienced a particularly dark harvest.

Tragedy is Savannah’s calling-card; and as you can now see, it was with us before the city’s beginning, and now haunts us after the end. Both the historical and even prehistorical record of Georgia’s First City are full of violent death tempered with an ironic spin. Savannah has a dark and twisted nature, and she certainly has a sense of humor. We look so hard at our post-founding history, searching for the reasons we’re so haunted, when the answer predates us by at least two hundred years.

The Forsyth Park fountain.

A Personal History

My first introduction to what I would deem the paranormal occurred when I was a young child. My family was at a restaurant in my hometown of DeLand, Florida, and my mother was sitting with a very odd expression on her face. She couldn’t seem to stop staring at a man across the room at another table. When asked if she was all right, she commented that she was fine but she had a very funny feeling about the man, who in all respects appeared normal. She even described a dark veil descending around him. I remember that my mother endured some good-natured teasing about blatantly staring at this poor diner in the restaurant. But the teasing abruptly stopped when halfway through the meal, the man suddenly flopped out of his chair. He had dropped dead of a heart attack, literally mid-bite. Needless to say, this left a deep impression on me at that early age.

Even so, when I moved to Savannah I would have still classified myself as a skeptic when it came to ghosts. I have had that attitude challenged over and over again, as first seen in the chapter ‘Tybee Island Bed and Breakfast Inn’ (formerly Fort Screven Inn, in previous editions). When people learn of my interest in the paranormal, they are often quickly telling their own ghost tale. It feels at times like a Catholic confession. Their stories usually start the same way: “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but...” These same people usually seem comforted when I confirm that they are not alone—in fact it is my belief that people, as a general rule, experience at least one unexplainable (if not paranormal) incident in the course of their life.

So what are ghosts? And am I trying to prove their existence in these pages? I don’t know how to answer the first question without writing a novel-length treatise. But the short answer is: I don’t know for certain. Anyone who claims that they know definitively what ghosts are is trying to sell you some expensive piece of hardware you don’t really need (no, my book is not an expensive piece of hardware). There are a million different theories as to what spurs a haunting in a particular spot. But as far as evidence goes, I prefer to keep these matters more in the realm of faith. You, the reader, either already believe in ghosts, or disbelieve. So my answer to the second question is that it isn’t my job to convince you, and that’s not really what this book is about. I personally don’t need an EMF detector or an ‘orb photograph’ to tell me that ghosts exist, because I have experienced them first-hand. I have seen objects moving on their own with my own eyes, and have even once witnessed the shadowy form of a person which I knew was not there, and yet I saw a silhouette step across a doorway. Recorded in this volume are encounters with the paranormal that I personally have had, occurrences which I cannot easily explain away. But let’s be clear: we’re talking about belief, not proof. Regardless of my assurances that I have accurately recorded these instances in this volume, belief is up to you. You as a reader may find fault with my assessment of history (it has happened), you may disagree with my conclusions (which is common for this genre), but I hope that I faithfully convey the pains I have taken to make sure that my book is honest on the subject of ghosts.

I consider myself a history buff who also happens to have a strong interest in the paranormal. And I usually find that the real history of these famous locations is usually much more interesting and relevant than the usually made-up nonsense folklore I read in a lot of other publications. So I’m here to set the record straight in a lot of cases, and I’m here to tell a good story. Does that sound like a plan? Then come into the dark with me, if you’re not scared. I’ve got some stories to tell, and there’s someone you need to meet. Her name is Savannah…

Hampton Lillibridge House

507 East St. Julian Street

The Hampton Lillibridge House is a beautiful light blue three-story structure tucked close to the river in one of the oldest parts of the Historic District. But its beautiful exterior belies the strange, and even malevolent spirits within. It has what is referred to as a ‘widow’s walk’ along the roof, and the roof itself is a gambrel-style more commonly found in the seacoast towns of New England. This wonderful example of 18th century architecture was built in 1799 by Hampton Lillibridge, and was originally constructed about three blocks away from its present location on St. Julian Street. Over the years it has been the private residence of the Lillibridge family, a boarding house, and spent the 20th century as a tenement before being bought by Jim Williams, of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil fame, who moved it in 1963 to the present location. The house, which had deteriorated greatly during the 20th century, was moved to save it from the wrecking ball.

“... he found himself walking very much against his will towards the hole for the shaft in the floor.”

“We’re Leaving!”

Once the house was moved, the brick masons began to complain that they could hear the sounds of people walking around or even running on the upper floors of the house. This was impossible, since the upper floors didn’t even have stairs. Jim Williams lived across the street at the time, and he was confronted by a group of these workers one night. They had been frightened by the strange noises coming from the house, and they explained to him, “Mr. Williams, there are some people in your house over yonder and those people do not work for you! We’re leaving.” Williams himself described that the sounds were not simply the noises of an old house settling—instead sounding like doors being slammed, furniture broken, and unseen people were laughing, stomping and yelling.

One night when Williams was out of town, the masons once again threw down their tools and refused to work because of all the strange noises. Three of Williams’ friends were out on the street when this occurred, and one of the friends, who was a non-believer, went inside to prove that the masons were simply being ridiculous. After a couple of minutes, the two friends outside the house heard a scream which came from the top floor, so they ran inside. There they found their friend on the top floor, lying on his back near an open chimney shaft. He claimed that an unseen force had surrounded him on the top floor, feeling like he had walked into a pool of cold water, and he found himself walking very much against his will towards the hole for the shaft in the floor. The only way he could escape this urge to pitch himself headfirst down the shaft was to fall instead to the floor.

While the three of them knelt there on the floor, one of the men said, “The only thing I know that Jim Williams could do is to have the house exorcised,” and at that moment the men heard a woman’s scream—and the scream came from in between them! One of them jumped to his feet and asked, “What on earth was that?!” and the scream was heard once again. The three men ran for their lives. Once out on the street, they saw the figure of a man standing at the top middle window, reportedly wearing a white suit and a silk cravat. He glared at them for a moment, and then he vanished.

Amazingly, Williams wasn’t told this story until after he had moved into the Lillibridge House some weeks later. He complained to friends that he was often awakened by the sound of footsteps in an empty house, and once had a dark figure appear in the doorway, which then approached his bed. Williams was about to cry out in terror, when suddenly the figure vanished a few feet from him.

Protection From Ghosts?

Williams took steps to protect himself: he began keeping a loaded Luger pistol within easy reach on his bedside table, presumably to shoot the ghost if it ever came back. He also brought in an Episcopalian bishop to perform the rite of exorcism. The bishop performed both a blessing ceremony and an exorcism on the house, but it apparently didn’t work. Within ten days, the phenomena were back. In one instance, Williams was awakened by strange noises. He then chased his spectral intruder from room to room until finally a door slammed directly in his path, which then locked itself, ending the chase.

One night Williams was at an auction. He came home to find the maid standing in the carport, afraid to go back inside despite the fact that it was raining. She reported feeling a “masculine presence” that made her uneasy; she had also heard the sound of rattling, grinding chains coming from somewhere in the house. On many occasions, neighbors reported the sight of strange lights in the windows, and the sounds of parties heard out on the street below. These were seen on nights that the house was empty, and Williams was out of town. He eventually sold the house, and purchased the Mercer House on Monterey Square.

The subsequent owners have reported strange sounds, and have a hard time keeping maids or babysitters for any length of time. A downstairs door was found pried open—from the inside. One couple living in the house became so curious about the strange activity in the house that they called in a team from Duke University, who studied the house at length. It was the determination of the team from Duke that this was the most haunted house they had ever encountered.

The couple that currently lives in the house doesn’t talk of ghosts, and the reason is because they value their privacy. This is a popular spot for ghost tours, and they simply want to be left alone. A plaque on the side of the house announces that this is a private residence, a clear indication that the current residents find ghosts less disturbing than being interrupted by curiosity seekers.

Underneath the front porch, there is a light shade of blue. This is called ‘Haint Blue’ by the Geechee people, which is our Island culture in the area. It is a culture that is, even today, involved in Voodoo and the occult. This term ‘haint’ translates into ‘ghost’. This color symbolizes water, which in the same superstitions an evil spirit will not cross. Outside of the supernatural benefit to this color, there is a practical one, as well. Any shade of sky blue underneath a front porch overhang will keep wasps away. Wasps, according to Southern tradition, are fooled into believing that anything painted a sky-blue color is actually the sky.

Around the property is a brick wall, and lining the wall is a row of broken glass. This is something done since Colonial days to discourage intruders, and it has the added benefit of being a little more attractive than barbed wire. But a close look at the wall will reveal something surprising: one corner of the wall is directly touching another house adjacent to the property. Why would broken glass be needed to keep intruders from jumping a wall that they would have no way of crossing? It makes no sense until you consider that another belief of that superstitious Island culture is that a row of broken glass will keep all intruders away—earthly or otherwise. Broken glass lining walls to keep spirits away is something you’ll find in Cuba, New Orleans, and up and down the Lowcountry area.

507 E. St. Julian St. is a private residence. The owners do no open their house to tours. Please respect their privacy.

The Hampton Lillibridge House by day.

Olde Pink House

23 Abercorn Street

On Reynolds Square, the Olde Pink House restaurant sits as both a standard for Southern cuisine and 18th century Georgian architecture. It was originally the home of James Habersham Junior. To tell James Jr.’s story is to tell the tale of so many Savannah families in the late 18th century: families divided, caught between Old World allegiances and emerging New World nations.

James Jr. was one of the three sons of James Habersham Senior, who was a colonial planter and merchant, as well as one of the wealthiest men in the colony. The senior Habersham was the first one to send bales of cotton from Georgia to England. He was the headmaster of the school at Bethesda Orphanage, the first orphanage in America. He was also a fierce British Loyalist. He was nearing the end of his life as colonists began to talk of revolution against English rule. Habersham Sr. was dismayed to find that all three of his sons were sympathetic to the Colonial cause, and were involved with the Sons of Liberty. It broke his heart that his boys would rebel against the Crown he had spent his life serving, and they would find themselves arrayed “father against son, and son against father.”

While eldest brother James Jr. supported the American cause, it was the middle Habersham brother, Joseph, who would achieve lasting fame. On January 18th, 1776, in what could be the boldest act of the Revolution, Joseph and a small group of men literally walked into the Governor’s residence on Telfair Square and arrested him. Joseph, aged twenty-four years, put his hand upon the shoulder of Sir James Wright, the most powerful man in Georgia, and said, “Sir James, you are my prisoner.”

James Habersham Jr. for his part, is much harder to get a handle on than his more flamboyant brothers, historically-speaking. He did not join the military like Joseph and his youngest brother John, preferring to use his considerable commercial ties as a merchant to finance the war. Although it is much easier for a storyteller like me to construct a gripping narrative for those who actually did the fighting, it is incredibly important to remember that if men like James Habersham had not funded the Revolutionary War effort, then the conflict would have been assuredly lost. After the war, he served as Speaker of the General Assembly of Georgia in 1782 and in 1784. University of Georgia fans should take note that he served on the board of Trustees created in 1785 which established that prestigious school.

The house itself was begun in 1771, and completed in 1789. The completion of the house was held up by the British occupation of Savannah for the majority of the Revolutionary War. It was constructed out of red brick and then covered with white stucco, and it is said that the restaurant got its name when the red brick bled through the stucco and turned it pink. Habersham apparently didn’t want to be known as the man living in the big pink house on Reynolds Square, because he had it painted white. The white paint never did do an adequate job of covering the pink color up, as the bricks kept bleeding through the stucco and turning it pink yet again. This cycle continued until the 1920’s, when a woman who ran the home as a tea room finally decided to paint it pink. Sometimes it does take a woman to think of something as sensible as painting the Olde Pink House a shade of pink.

“...she was dressed in servant’s clothing from what appeared to be the early 19th century.”

One of America’s Most Haunted

The Travel Channel program America’s Most Haunted Places- Savannah featured the Olde Pink House, showcasing both the upstairs and the lower tavern. One former waiter that was interviewed described a strange light appearing in the ‘Purple Room’ on the upper floor. He said that it appeared as a floating orb, raced around the room, and then vanished.

I have spent considerable time at this restaurant, and not because of the ghosts which inhabit the old structure: the food is delicious, making it one of my favorite eateries in Savannah. During my time spent there I have encountered many staff members who have stories of their own brushes with the supernatural. One longtime female server had a strange instance involving candles in one of the dining rooms. She blew out the tea lights in the center of each table, and then stepped out of then room for just a few seconds. When she walked back in, she found that the tealights had been mysteriously re-lit. She thought for a moment that she had just made a mistake and had not extinguished them at all, but then she noticed that she could still see the smoke still hovering in the air from where she had blown them out the first time. When I asked her what she did then, she smiled and said, “I left them lit for a while. Who am I to argue?” Another server reported that she tried to pull a tablecloth off a table at the end of an evening, and something pulled right back! She got into a tug- of- war with something unseen on the other end, and lost. She then fled the room.

Another server reported seeing the apparition of a young woman in an upstairs dining room. She was dressed in servant’s clothing from what appeared to be the early 19th century. The apparition retreated deferentially into an adjacent upstairs dining room. The modern-day (and quite live!) server walked into the room to verify that there was someone in a costume in that room, and found nothing but empty tables. She described the woman as wearing a scarf on her head, and being “incredibly meek, and sad.”

Although there have been many instances of strange happenings on the upper floors, many believe the downstairs tavern is by far the most haunted area of the old structure. If all the stories are to be believed, there are powerful forces at work in the sublevel tavern, which is called Planter’s Tavern to commemorate James Habersham Jr.’s title of planter, meaning an agricultural producer and plantation owner.

One believer is musician Gail Thurmond, the talented and versatile piano player and vocalist who entertained diners for years in the Planters Tavern. But Gail was not just blessed with musical talent; she is one of the few people whom are gifted with special ‘sight’: the ability to see the spirit world. She claims to have seen a small African-American child in the tavern from time to time, or feel his presence. She even claims to have asked this small boy his name, and he replied “Magumbo.”

Erika’s Bottle Problem

Others have felt a presence downstairs, be it Magumbo or some other spirit. But by far the strangest story was told by Erika Williams, a longtime former bartender in the tavern. On occasion, according to Erika, the wine bottles will pop out of their cubbyhole in the wine rack by themselves. She has even been hit by a flying bottle or two in her time behind the bar—an event seen by eyewitnesses. And by ‘eyewitnesses’, I mean me personally. I was once sitting at the bar, holding a conversation with Erika in the tavern when I saw a bottle of red wine pop out of the wine rack by itself, and she caught it before it could fall and break. The most amazing thing about the incident is that Erika didn’t see it as anything unusual: she just kept working. The spirits have been known to flow pretty freely at the bar, but this would be considered taking that turn of phrase too literally when bartenders are being smacked by them. So in this case, Erika’s supernatural experience was caused by being hit by the bottle, instead of the other way around.

Erika also related hearing the distinctive sound of dice being thrown against the wall on several occasions, and claims that when she is in the vault, she will sometimes hear her name called when she knows she is alone. The ladies room located in the tavern, according to Erika, is another spot for hauntings. Apparently some women find their trip to the rest room anything but restful when they are mysteriously locked inside. The door was holding fast on its own, prompting the management to shave the edge of the door down, thinking that might alleviate the problem. But the dilemma of ladies being locked in the water closet continued, so the staff even went to the extreme measure of removing the lock on the door. This drastic step has still not fixed the predicament—the door, sans lock, will still inexplicably lock itself for short periods.

A Savannah man who was well-known to the staff went down to the tavern one evening for a beverage. He had just gotten his drink when he saw a man at the other end of the bar in full Colonial dress. Thinking that the restaurant had hired someone in costume, he smiled and raised his glass. The Colonial gentleman did the same, sharing a toast. The man turned to the bartender and mentioned what an authentic-looking outfit the gentleman had on, and the bartender asked him what he was talking about. When he turned and motioned towards the man, there was no one to be seen.

So on this occasion in the tavern, a local shared a toast—with a ghost. This is thought to be the spirit of James Habersham, Jr., who had a reputation for being a fine and cordial host. The staff feels that he will check in from time to time, just to make sure that his former home is still being hospitable.

One night in the tavern, most of the staff had left, except for the bartender and the manager. The manager said to the bartender, “The upstairs is all clear.” It was then that they could hear the sound of a woman sobbing, clearly emanating from the upstairs. The bartender turned to the manager and said, “Do you hear that?” The manager said, “No, I don’t hear a thing, and neither do you. We’re getting out of here!” They closed and left early, leaving dishes on tables, money in the register, and the safe unlocked.

In another instance, the sound of heavy coins being counted was heard coming from near the north fireplace in the tavern. A likely explanation is that gold was stored in this area at one time—a British transport ship named the HMS Expervier was transporting gold when it was captured by the Peacock, a U.S. warship, during the War of 1812.

What ultimately became of the Habershams, the family separated by an ocean of divided loyalty? Only in death did they resolve their bitter family conflict: they are buried together in Colonial Park Cemetery, father with sons, sons with father.

Some Erroneous Folklore

One fanciful story told about the Pink House which has no historical merit is that James Habersham hanged himself in the basement which is now the tavern. The erroneous story is that he learned of his wife’s affair with the architect of the building and committed suicide.

The truth is less theatrical, yet much more uplifting: the junior Habersham was a Revolutionary War financier, successful businessman, loving husband, and beloved father. His is the story of American triumph over adversity. Habersham died in 1799, and the cause of death is listed as ‘declining health.’ Burial of someone who had committed suicide was not permitted in consecrated ground, so the fact that James Habersham Jr. is buried with his father and brothers in Colonial Park Cemetery is yet another indicator that the story of his self-hanging is false.

Little Gracie

15 Bull Street

At the corner of Bryan and Bull Streets, a 1950’s era structure sits on a very historic corner. The original tything lot (Oglethorpe’s plan called for a series of residential plots built around the squares, which were known as tything lots) was where James Habersham, Sr. made his home in Savannah. Habersham was a planter, and also the headmaster of Bethesda Orphanage. More importantly, the site also formerly housed the old Pulaski Hotel.

There is debate even in the archives as to what year the Pulaski Hotel was built, with some evidence that the hotel could have been built as far back as 1795. Others place it at a much more conservative 1835, but whatever the date of construction, the Pulaski Hotel was one of the finest hotels of the period. In the 1880’s, it came under new management: the Watson family, W. J. and Frances, originally from Boston. The Watsons found themselves excluded and ostracized from Savannah society. Frances Watson wanted to fit in, and she was a very intelligent woman, so she used the hotel at her disposal. It’s amazing how many new friends the Watsons suddenly made when they started giving away free food and drink, especially in a setting as fine as the Pulaski Hotel. Mrs. Watson only invited the Savannah elite, so in no time at all she was considered a member of the Savannah elite as well.

Her daughter, little Gracie Watson, was born in 1883, and was also included in these parties. She was entertaining the guests by the age of three, and by the age of six was playing the role of hostess. She was much loved by the Savannah elite. Gracie liked all the attention, and also liked helping her mother. Gracie, being a child at a party for adults, would become bored. She would often slip away, and could be found playing underneath the back stairwell of the old Pulaski Hotel. In fact, it became a joke amongst the partygoers: when Gracie would disappear, they had overstayed their welcome. Someone would ask the question, “Where’s Gracie? If Gracie has disappeared, it must be time for us to go as well.” Gracie (or lack thereof) was a better indicator of the lateness of the hour than the clock on the old Exchange Building.

Gracie passed away two days before Easter in 1889 at the age of six, from pneumonia. After her death, Gracie’s mother claimed to be able to still hear little Gracie laughing and playing underneath that stairwell. Many people thought that perhaps the strain of losing Gracie was proving to be too much for Mrs. Watson. It was especially upsetting for Mr. Watson. He decided to move them both to the newly-opened DeSoto Hotel, to get her away from so many memories at the Pulaski. The family erected a life-sized statue of little Gracie in Bonaventure Cemetery.

Over the years many staff members would claim to hear the sounds of a little girl laughing and playing when they got near that stairwell, but no little girl could ever be found. Other staff members refused to go into the basement of the old hotel because of the low moans heard occasionally, and the sound of clanking iron. The downstairs had, at one time, been used to store slaves who had been transported to the Americas from Africa— as was common with many buildings with basements near Bay Street. The Pulaski Hotel was eventually torn down in 1957, and replaced with a cafeteria, which remained open under various ownerships until the fall of 2001. The structure, now fully renovated, is being used as a bank.

Many thought that the sights and sounds of Gracie would disappear when the old Pulaski Hotel was demolished, but this has not proven to be the case. Where the back stairwell of the old Pulaski Hotel used to be located is now the ladies room. The sounds of Little Gracie can still be heard, laughing and playing at this spot. People have reported seeing a small girl run past them in period dress, and when they turn to see where she is headed in such a big hurry, no little girl can be seen. This ghost was even seen by fellow tour guide Reagan Howard, who glimpsed a little girl through the windows of the then-abandoned structure. So little Gracie, to this day, is still avoiding the party of the Savannah elite, slipping away and laughing and playing near that stairwell.

Often, there are questions about why Gracie would come back to this location. After all, her parents are gone, and so is the original structure of the Pulaski Hotel. One possible answer is that the site was originally James Habersham Sr.’s downtown home in the mid 1700’s—as headmaster and teacher of orphans, it would stand to reason he might have quite a bit of experience guiding lost children. Perhaps Gracie has found comfort with this mentor presence.

“The sounds of Little Gracie can still be heard, laughing and playing...”

A Friendly Spirit

This ghost story also has some personal significance. One night in early 2001, right as my tour was beginning, I had two women join up. One of them asked, “What can you tell me about the Piccadilly Cafeteria?” The question was so odd that I asked if she had had an experience there. She said yes, she had. I asked her if her experience had happened in the ladies room—and all the color drained from the woman’s face. She grew increasingly pale as I told her the story of little Gracie. She then told me that right before the tour, she and her friend had eaten at the Piccadilly, and (how to phrase this delicately?) had both drank a bit too much sweet tea. They went to the rest room, and when they were sitting down in their stalls, something unseen in the restroom pulled both of their pocketbooks out from under the stall door. In her words, she couldn’t think of a better place to be sitting when something like that occurred! They both sprang up, thinking they were being robbed, but they found their purses lying in the center of the bathroom floor. Nothing was missing. Things had been pulled out, but not money. Lipstick, makeup and candy had been pulled out of both purses—items which would draw the interest of a little girl.

It is safe to say that little Gracie still laughs and plays in that area, and sometimes she invites a friend or two to play.

This building resides where the Pulaski Hotel once stood. The ghost of Little Gracie has been seen frequently at this location.

A Strange Tour Occurrence

Former Cobblestone tour guide Naomi Starr had a strange experience involving the story of Gracie in the spring of 2002. She led her group to a convenient area across the street and was beginning her story, when she suddenly noticed that she could see a four-story building reflected in the window of the bank she was facing instead of the two-story former cafeteria. She turned around and faced the then-abandoned structure, and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but the reflection of a building she did not recognize remained in view for the entirety of her story. When she related the story to me, I pulled out an archival photograph of the four-story Pulaski Hotel and showed it to her. Naomi went deathly pale, and after taking a moment to recover, she informed me that I was holding a picture of the building which she had seen reflected.

Erroneous Folklore

I have heard some tour guides falsely transfer the story of Gracie in its entirety to a building located on Pulaski Square. These same tour guides are confusing the now-demolished Pulaski Hotel with Pulaski House, a dorm for the Savannah College of Art and Design, located at 328 Barnard Street. Despite the similarity of their names, Pulaski House wasn’t erected until 1914, so the idea that Gracie haunts a building that wouldn’t be built until twenty-five years after her death is preposterous.

Moon River Brewing Company

21 West Bay Street

On West Bay Street, at the intersection with Whitaker Street, there is a wonderful example of early 19th century architecture, built in 1821. Today the building contains the Moon River Brewing Company, purveyors of fine food and the most delicious and award-winning beer you’ll ever have the pleasure of sampling. You might already be familiar with Moon River Brewing, since its haunted reputation has garnered national media attention. It has been featured on such television shows as the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures and America’s Most Haunted Places, PBS’ Southern Haunts, A CNN Halloween segment, and Syfy’s Ghost Hunters, among others. It has also been featured in more books, magazines, and newspaper articles than I can list here.

Lurking beneath its largely unrestored beauty, this building bears a dark, wickedly violent reputation. Originally built as the City Hotel, it is a structure which literally had its beginnings in terror, flames, and death nearly two hundred years ago. This edifice’s very existence relates to tragedy in a surprising way, since it owes its beginning directly to the largest conflagration Savannah has ever known. The Great Fire of 1820 began in a nearby livery stable around 1 a.m. on January 11th. Aided by strong winds and some poorly-placed gunpowder in the market building on the adjacent Ellis Square, the flames destroyed nearly every major building in the downtown (in a masterful stroke of understatement, the Georgia Historical Quarterly article detailing this disaster says that it was these explosions “which demoralized fire-fighters”). Well over four hundred structures were reduced to ash and rubble, a number which equated to nearly two-thirds of Savannah.

Included in the buildings which burned that fateful January night in 1820 was an unassuming wooden storage building on Bay Street. Out of its ashes, a beautiful hotel was commissioned by Jane and Eleazer Early. Designed as a Regency Style hotel, many believe that the structure was designed by noted English architect William Jay. It is worth speculating, given its later reputation, that a structure borne of such abject anguish could very well be tainted with the turmoil which surrounded Savannah during that difficult time period.

The former City Hotel.

The Hotel

Once completed, the City Hotel became the nerve-center of the recovering city in many respects. At one time, the downstairs was leased to both the Bank of the United States and the Postal Service. The hotel was visited by War of 1812 hero General Winfield Scott, Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, and naturalist/ornithologist John James Audubon, who ended up staying almost six months after his boat was damaged in a storm. A famous painting, Cerveau’s 1837 View of Savannah, depicts the City Hotel as if it were practically center stage in the downtown, and rightly so. Located on what was then the busiest street in Savannah, the bar and wine cellar quickly gained a good reputation amongst cultivated businessmen. In the painting, Cerveau shows us how the hotel looked during that time period, with a now-missing double cast-iron porch (probably scavenged for scrap during World War II), and several gentlemen lounging casually around the entrance. Again, Cerveau’s inclusion of these figures was no accident. These young men depicted in his painting were almost certainly his attempt to portray the so-called ‘Sporting Crowd’, a group of wealthy gentlemen who gambled in the early part of the 19th century. The elegant hotel was full of men who wagered on sports, drank liquor, and packed guns. Often times the haze of alcohol, coupled with the rising monetary losses would result in duels, which during that period were called ‘affairs of honor.’ Any insult, however slight, might lead to an unwary fellow facing down an armed opponent, a contest which could prove deadly to one or both. So the City Hotel was connected to the social, commercial, political and moral condition of Savannah at that time.

Pistols for Two, Coffee for One

Southerners in general and Savannahians in particular were downright civilized about how they went about killing each other in duels. The time-honored principles of behavior, called the Code Duello, or Duelist’s Code, were strictly-adhered to in the Deep South. Many of these guidelines were written down in a wonderful book called Savannah Duels and Duellists: 1733-1877, by Thomas Gamble. For instance, you wouldn’t just shoot your antagonist out on the street. To do that would be dishonorable, and would be considered the actions of an assassin. If a man felt his reputation was being assailed, he would issue a challenge to the offender in writing; a letter calling his potential adversary such things as a scoundrel, a lying rascal or a scallywag. Essentially he would list his grievance. This letter would be not only delivered to the challenged man, but could be nailed up around town for all to see, or even printed in the local newspaper, a custom known as ‘posting.’ The recipient of this letter demanding satisfaction would then have two options: either apologize or accept the challenge. In the latter case the challenged could pick the time of the duel and the weapons. This complicated back-and-forth in writing was conducted by the best friends of the two antagonizing parties, who served as assistants known as ‘Seconds.’ These friends were important, because if the duelist was unable to fight the duel for whatever reason, the Second could be called on to fight the duel in his place. And you thought notes were just for schoolyard crushes! This elaborate ritual was often referred to as “pistols for two, and coffee for one,” meaning that it was entirely possible that one of the prospective combatants would not be around to enjoy a post-duel beverage.

The Seconds also took charge of the weapons, usually dueling pistols, which were generally kept in a velvet-lined case. Further, the Seconds had to agree upon a set of conditions and rules during the duel, such as when the affair of honor had been concluded—meaning that they would determine in advance whether this would be a fight to the first spillage of blood, or a bitter contest to the death. The duels often originated at the City Hotel bar, but paradoxically often ended across the river on the South Carolina shore because, paradoxically, duels were illegal in Savannah.

One such affair of honor did originate at the City Hotel but never took place. A man with poor eyesight was challenged to a duel at the bar, and accepted. Under the Code, he was able to pick the location of the duel, so he announced that the duel would be fought at an unusual spot: the nearest convenient table next to the bar at the hotel. When the challenger questioned the choice of location, the man with poor eyesight pointed out that he was at a distinct disadvantage at ten or twenty paces since he was so nearsighted, and was simply making sure they had an equal footing. The challenger, seeing that the duel would kill them both, quickly apologized, and the planned duel was abruptly cancelled. The man with defective eyesight had won some hard-earned respect.

“...Stark appeared at the top of the stairs...”

Bad Blood

Reconciliation was not the case in 1832, however. This particular case was unusual in that the affair of honor both began and ended at the City Hotel. A prominent and well-liked local doctor, Philip Minis (pronounced minus), had a deep disagreement with a man named James Stark. Yet as white-hot as their anger towards each other blazed, it is largely unknown what spurred the difficulties between the pair. The somewhat hazy description existing in the City Records is: “Prior to this there had been antagonism existing between the two men, which only needed intensifying to furnish the climax of a challenge.” According to historian Colin Young, the two had been in a local military unit together, an organization known as the Republican Blues, but the nature of their trouble, if it stretches back that far, is not readily apparent. Even though this is an oft-recounted tale, there is so much we don’t know. It is not an easy story to tell for this and other reasons. Like most historical events, it is told from a certain point of view which is clearly biased. The chief witness and voice in this story is Dr. Richard Arnold, an old friend of the Minis family (as well as three-time Savannah mayor).

The ‘intensifying’ so obliquely referred to consisted of Stark accusing Dr. Minis of cheating at Quoits, a horseshoes-like game involving tossing a ring or disc onto a peg. This took place in the Spring of 1832. Stark also took some verbal potshots against Minis, saying that he was “not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill him.” Stark went on to call the good doctor several unprintable insults, all relating to Dr. Minis’ Jewish ancestry.

Stark repeated all of these slurs at Luddington’s bar room, and heaped on even more vitriol. Someone found Minis and told him that his antagonist was saying some very disparaging things, and so Minis entered Luddington’s and sat near Stark and waited for a reaction. However, the abuse stopped immediately once the doctor entered within earshot. It was suggested by some that Stark had offered an apology some time later, but Stark claimed it never happened. Dr. Minis, as per the complex social code which existed at the time, had no other choice but to send Stark a letter demanding either an explanation or “that satisfaction [dueling] which one gentleman should afford one another,” a thinly veiled reference to bloodshed. Stark’s reply in writing was chillingly blunt, and implied that Minis should demand a duel, because Stark refused to apologize.

Prelude on the 9th

The confrontation was badly bungled from the start. In his reply to Minis’ challenge, James Stark demanded to fight at five o’clock that same afternoon, which would have been a violation of the Code Duello (one night must transpire between the challenge and the actual duel to give the Seconds a chance to negotiate, or for cooler heads to prevail). Stark also wanted to fight with rifles, which would be an extremely unusual weapon for a duel. Minis claimed that his rifle was at the gunsmiths. However, Dr. Minis offered to fight at a later date—whether this meant with rifles is open to conjecture. One must remember that the two were very familiar with each other’s weapon preference because they had been in the same military unit, so that may have some bearing on this particular point. Minis’ Second, a man named Spalding, delivered this news to Stark and his respective Second, Mr. Wayne. Stark said that Minis’ objections carried no weight, and the duel would go off as planned at 5 p.m. on August 9th with or without Minis.

Imagine the scene: James Jones Stark and his friend Mr. Wayne then took a boat over to the South Carolina dueling ground. There they proceeded to have their promised duel against Dr. Minis—the fact that Minis wasn’t there to oppose Stark did not dissuade them in the slightest. Stark and Wayne simply fired their rifles into the air with a flourish, returned to downtown Savannah, and claimed victory! The two men then ran into one another near Bay Street later that day, with Stark using abusive language and Minis standing his ground. Somehow the two men managed to restrain from violence on the 9th of August. The 10th, however, was a new day.

Day of Destiny

The morning of August 10th brought unwarranted and unexpected indignities for Dr. Minis. The good doctor, although he had showed nothing but restraint and a respect for the Code Duello (for a duel’s conditions to be binding, the two Seconds must agree, which did not occur in this instance), was being openly laughed at as a coward by many Savannahians. Minis and his Second, Spalding, knew where to find Stark. They walked together to the City Hotel and adjourned to the bar, and sent word to Stark and Wayne that they were there and wished to have a drink with them and discuss the matter.

One must ponder that mercurial moment and what it meant for Phillip Minis. I have thought about it many times while on tour, and tried to put myself in his place. I imagine him sitting nervously at the bar, a pistol concealed in his waistcoat. He was locked into a collision course with destiny, and an outcome which could only be bloody. But would that blood be his own? Trembling hands would be wrapped tightly around his drink. The crowd, who knew full well the trouble between the two men, would have probably grown silent as Stark appeared at the top of the stairs. As Stark descended, eyes blazing, Minis probably stood to meet him. The good doctor knew this would be the only opportunity to salvage his unfairly tarnished honor.

Minis raised his glass and in a loud voice called out: “I proclaim James Jones Stark a coward!” Stark said nothing; instead pushed a hand into his waistcoat’s vest pocket, and advanced quickly down the stairs. Minis, assuming that Stark was reaching for a pistol, produced his own firearm and fired. His aim was deadly accurate: the bullet struck Stark in the chest, then passed through the body and lodged in a door to the kitchen. Stark slumped to the floor at the foot of the stairs, dead. Pandemonium broke out at the City Hotel.

Dr. Richard Arnold, a short distance away, heard the shot and knew immediately what had transpired: either Stark or Minis was lying stricken at the City Hotel, the victim of a gunshot. He rushed to the scene at a dead run and found absolute bedlam; Stark’s body was prone on the floor, and the crowd was attempting to disarm Minis, who threatened to fire into the mass of people in the hotel bar. It was Arnold, among others, who persuaded him to give up his pistol and accompany him to his office to await the authorities. Stark’s body held no weapon: the good doctor had unknowingly shot an unarmed man. Was this a case of self-defense, or just a good old-fashioned murder?

The case went to trial, and the jury took only two hours to make their decision: Dr. Phillip Minis was acquitted of all charges. The now-deceased James Stark’s egregious actions certainly influenced the outcome of the case, since any reasonable man would assume that he meant to do violence by reaching into his coat.

Though the accepted view of Stark was one of a raging anti-Semitic, it has been pointed out to me that it is commonplace within ethnicities to call one another abusive ethnic slurs. For instance, you might hear ‘cracker’ or ‘redneck’ affectionately tossed around at my own family reunion. And the Republican Blues military unit to which the two men had both previously belonged was considered to have a predominantly Jewish composition (according to Colin Young, somewhat affectionately nicknamed The Republican Jews by its members). No records of Stark’s lineage have yet come to light. So while this assumption of anti-Semitism might be an easy explanation for the trouble between these men, Stark may simply be guilty of offending polite conversation, and not the violent anti-Jewish slant that these words seem to imply. Again, this is not an easy story to tell correctly and fairly. Besides, wouldn’t this story take on a whole new context if Minis had actually been cheating at Quoits?

A Bloody Reputation

The duel between Stark and Minis was just one occurrence involving violence at the City Hotel. Brutal circumstances seem to be drawn to the building. But one instance in the compilation of abuses stands out, from a New York Times column which ran in November 29th, 1860. The story is reproduced below:

Recent Lynchings of New-York Men.

Narrative of the sufferers.

Among the passengers by the steamer Alabama from Savannah was Mr. James Sinclair, a native and lifetime resident of this City. The account which he gives of his reception and treatment by the hospitable citizens of Savannah is interesting, as showing the fraternal feeling evinced from them towards all people who have the misfortune of hailing from New-York.

The statement of Mr. Sinclair is as follows:

My name is James Sinclair, and I was born in this City. Having a brother in Augusta, Ga., and being out of employment, I went to Savannah on the 8th of November, intending to go on to Augusta in hopes of obtaining work in my regular line of carpentry. I took up my temporary lodging at the City Hotel in Savannah. While there, numerous inquiries were made concerning me and my business, which not being satisfactorily answered, eventuated in an order from the Vigilance Committee commanding my immediate departure from the city. This order did not commend itself to my idea of propriety, and I declined obeying. A few hours subsequently a man came into the hotel and desired a few moments private conversation with me. Confidingly I followed him, and upon my stepping to the sidewalk, his treachery became apparent. About thirty men surrounded me—each man drew a revolver and each man drew a bowie knife—each man vehemently demanded my company, and each man made it his duty to see that I complied with the [illegible] demand. Powerless and indignant, I was dragged along the street. On the way to the place of torture, I was constantly assailed by the most blasphemous and obscene epithets, the mob dwelling particularly on the fact that I was a New-York Yankee. Quids of tobacco were thrown in my eyes, blinding my sight and causing intense pain. My efforts to relieve my eyes brought blows from the butt of a pistol and threats of instant death.

They took me though the city streets, on and on, until we reached the City Park. There they ordered me to undress, and as I did not deem it desirable to obey their indelicate suggestion, they one and severally forcibly removed my coat, my pants, and even my underclothing. In vain did I appeal to the Police, both mounted and on foot; they dared not interfere, and indeed, just prior to our arrival at the Park, one of them told me, he would not do it for his right arm. I then appealed, again and again, to the leaders of the gang, who were, to all external appearance, gentlemen, to know why they were thus dealing with me, and the only and unvarying replies would be that I had tampered with slaves—a charge utterly unfounded and incapable of proof. Having torn my clothes from my body, they compelled me first to kneel, and then forced me to lie upon the ground—my face being turned downwards—whereupon they lashed me with exceeding severity with a cat-o’-nine-tails—bruising the skin, lacerating the flesh, and causing sensations such as I had never before experienced. This treatment was varied by an occasional kick in the face by a heavy boot, or a rap on the head with the butt-end of a pistol. After they had finished the castigation they permitted me to put on my torn and tattered garments, and then told me to run for my life, that they would give me ten yards start, after which they should fire upon me. I started—I ran—they pointed their revolvers and shouted—I jumped a fence—and they yelled with rage. Frantic with pain, with head half-turned and body sore, I returned by sidepaths to the hotel, the proprietor of which told me it would not be safe for me to remain, or well for him to retain me.

The unfortunate Mr. Sinclair then went to Captain Schenck of the Alabama, and asked permission to pay his fare early so he could be safe from the marauding mob aboard the ship. But the captain declined, stating that the rabble might “tear his ship to pieces.” It is understating the facts to say that even from that point Sinclair had difficulty getting back to New York City. This was clearly not an example of Southern Hospitality at its finest.

The article then goes on to detail other outrageous abuses of Northerners, all of whom had something in common: they suffered these abuses while staying at the City Hotel in Savannah. One must wonder at this point, given the repetition of location, whether the setting for all of these stories is significant.

While you ponder this, consider that several Savannah businessmen (led by Charles Lamar) decided to violate the Federal ban on importing slaves from Africa in 1858, a highly illegal act (this story is told in the chapter entitled ‘Pour Larry’s in City Market’). The conspirators were eventually caught, perhaps not coincidentally at the City Hotel. Can this all be a casual happenstance, or perhaps is something much, much darker at work? Is the former City Hotel a magnet for violence?

Fall... and Rise Again

You could almost use the building located at 21 West Bay Street as an allegory for Savannah’s post Civil War fortunes. Union General William T. Sherman occupied Savannah in December 1864, and the hotel closed its doors for good. The postwar Reconstruction period saw the building used as coal and lumber storage, and she spent most of the 20th century as storage space and an office supply store. But the building, like much of the downtown, slid into decay and neglect. The roof was damaged extensively by Hurricane David in 1979, forcing the office supply store to close up shop. From that point, the building sat vacant for nearly twenty years. Few Savannahians understood the significance to the old timeworn eyesore on Bay Street. Her windows were boarded up, and went unnoticed by all, other than a few architectural enthusiasts.

But the 1990’s brought change, both to the Historic District and the former hotel. A new company bought the mostly-ruined edifice, and renovations were begun to turn the space into a bar, restaurant and brewery (originally to be called ‘Oglethorpe Brewing Company’) which opened in December of 1996. The initial concept was that the bar was going to be on the first floor, and the upstairs was going to be a restaurant. However, the building itself seems as though it had other ideas. The crew that tried to renovate the second floor reputedly ran into constant and unexplainable difficulty.

A Bad Reputation Returns

The City Hotel initially did not appear to welcome renovation, seemingly dishing out quite a bit of aggression towards the unfortunate work crew. Some of these men even complained of experiencing a sensation of being pushed, pinched, or tugged on their clothing. Several people saw apparitions: usually of a woman standing in view on the third floor landing, but also occasionally of a man wearing a waistcoat in various places on the property.

The apparition the workmen kept seeing on the third floor landing has a special place in Moon River lore, because during the renovation the foreman of the job even began to jokingly call the strange female spirit by a name: ‘Mrs. Johnson.’ He made up an elaborate back-story for Mrs. Johnson: she was a slave who was a cook at the former hotel. She died a violent death, he said, but had dabbled in voodoo so she still harassed the living from time to time. This was supposedly a joke to scare some of the workers, whom he viewed with good-natured amusement because of their fear of the paranormal happenings. However, what started out as jest ended in violence shortly thereafter—no surprise, given the building’s seeming predilection for hostility and aggression. The jokes about Mrs. Johnson ended when she (or someone or something) decided to attack the foreman’s wife! It seems the wife had come by the site to deliver his lunch, and on her way down the stairs leading to the first floor, she felt a sharp push in the back, and no one had been on the stairs behind her. This wife of the foreman took a nasty spill down the stairs. The foreman is said to have tendered his resignation on the spot and left the property.

The work was abruptly called to a close on the upstairs, even though the restoration had not yet been completed. Too many experienced workers were quitting, many of whom cited the strange occurrences as the reasons for leaving, so the owners simply gave up their renovation plans due to the difficulty of keeping a construction crew on site. The second floor today is still unrenovated, and is used as a storage area. The first level, which was successfully restored, serves as the bar and restaurant. The three floors above what became Moon River Brewing Company (it was re-christened and opened in 1999) remain largely untouched, with the majority of the beautiful early 19th century architecture intact, yet crumbling. Immense pocket doors, since removed from their wall slots can still be viewed on the second floor, as well as a curved door—giving clues to the opulence of the old hotel.

The unrenovated upper floors of Moon River.

A Worker’s Story

While leading a tour one night, I had the good fortune to actually meet one member of the former construction crew (at his request I have changed his name). Roger told me several stories of paranormal problems he himself experienced at Moon River Brewing Company. He related that while working, he often heard footsteps coming from areas which he knew were completely vacant, at least of the living. He complained to co-workers and superiors alike about a sensation of being watched, a sentiment that many of his friends on the work crew echoed. He also experienced cold spots on numerous occasions on the second floor, which was extremely odd since they were working in a space that was not air-conditioned in the middle of summer.

However, one incident stood out to Roger, a strange happening which actually made him leave the job site for good. He was running an electric sander, and flipped the power switch to the ‘off’ position. The sander kept running at full power. Thinking he had a short circuit in his equipment, he walked to the electrical outlet and unplugged the cord. The sander kept running anyway, though it was completely separated from any power source, including batteries. An unplugged sander was somehow running all by itself! He decided he had had enough, so he held the sander and unplugged cord up to his supervisor and yelled, “I quit!” Roger then left the property. Ten years after the fact he still preferred to sit outside, smoking nervously, when the tour went into the building. He refused to set foot inside the property.

Tour Occurrences: Trouble ‘Brewing’

The strange reputation of the building persists. Several haunted pub tours, including my own offering from Cobblestone Tours, go into the unrenovated area. Tourgoers and tour guides alike have claimed to have had some strange experiences. I have had unexplainable occurrences on more than one occasion. If I were to list everything that I or other guides have encountered, this book would be Faulkner-esque, so it has been difficult to pare this chapter down to the essentials. Here then are the best of the best:

On one cold evening, a man on the tour expressed to me his disbelief in all things supernatural. He even complained that his wife had cajoled him into taking a ghost tour, and he chose this particular tour because he could at least have a beer while his wife listened to the stories. After the story I tell in the upstairs of Moon River Brewing had concluded, we were walking back down the stairs to the first level. This gentleman was right in front of me as we descended, and suddenly he slapped his hand to the side of his neck and whirled around, looking at me suspiciously. He later admitted to me the reason for this bizarre behavior: he claimed to have felt a hand on his neck, which grabbed his scarf. He thought at first that it was me, reaching down and grabbing him, and that I was either playing a joke on him or perhaps even picking on him for publicly stating that he didn’t believe in ghosts. But when he turned around behind me he suddenly realized that I had my hands full, and was eight feet behind him. Yet another nonbeliever became fodder for the tour.

And yet nonbelievers suddenly getting ‘converted’ on tour is not an uncommon occurrence. One night a man joked that his wife was on tour for the spirits, and he was “just here for the beer.” Once we ascended to the second floor of Moon River, however, he began twisting and gyrating like he had walked into a spider web, and quickly left the tour group to head back downstairs. I assumed he was simply in need of another drink. After walking outside, his wife found him on the sidewalk in front of the pub next door, silently weeping. After much prodding by his wife to tell us what happened to him, he finally admitted that something unseen had grabbed him by the head, neck and shoulders and would not let go. He had to physically leave the space to escape whatever had been assaulting him. “I thought these stories were just made up,” he said to me. “You need to warn people.”

On another evening, I was upstairs telling part of the tale to a group of about twenty people and a young woman on tour was staring intently. She was seriously spooked, if you’ll pardon the pun. I noticed as we moved further back into the second floor of the old crumbling edifice that she looked noticeably jumpy, and I couldn’t understand why. All became clear a little while later in the tour when she and I were standing together at the first floor bar. That same young lady approached me and said, “I liked your stories upstairs, but I didn’t understand part of it.” I told her I’d be happy to clear up any part of the tale that was confusing, and she said, “Oh, no, not the story part—I’m talking about the woman in period costume walking around in the hallway right behind you.” She went on to say that the woman we had hired to jump out and scare people on the tour had missed her cue, because she had disappeared into one of the rooms and had never reappeared. Her mouth fell open in surprise when I told her that A) we don’t employ cheap theatrics, and B) no one else was asking about a period-costumed woman—she was the only one who saw her. She had had an authentic paranormal experience at Moon River Brewing, and hadn’t even realized it at the time. Was this yet another sighting of the spirit dubbed ‘Mrs. Johnson’?

Tour guide Karl Kessler has also had some strange instances. He has experienced a choking sensation while telling his tale on the second level, and also claimed to have once felt a sensation “like someone pouring ice-cold water down my back” as he was relating a story. In yet another happening, he was leaving the upper area with his group one evening and heard someone’s footsteps walking in the central hallway behind him. Thinking that he had missed a member of his tour group, he went back to find them. The footsteps were indeed walking in the hallway, but no one was there. “It sounded like they walked right past me, and I felt a chill. I got the heck out of there.”

My Nominee for Mother of the Year

Another Mrs. Johnson episode: one night a mother and her (adult) daughter showed up, very much interested in visiting the unrenovated second floor of Moon River Brewing Company. They had seen the space featured on the Travel Channel’s America’s Most Haunted Places (a show also featuring yours truly), and had planned their trip to Savannah around visiting the deserted second floor. The mother, who did not drink alcohol, told me she was willing to take a pub tour just for the stories, and did not plan on drinking. For her, the locations would be enough. Once the group got upstairs at Moon River, however, the mother had second thoughts. She grew noticeably pale and informed me she needed to go back downstairs—which I thought was odd considering her previous excitement at seeing the second floor firsthand. She left me, her daughter and the rest of the tourgoers, and returned to the first level. When we finished that portion of the tour, the group descended to the first floor and we prepared to head to our next location. It was then that the daughter gasped in surprise, because her teetotalling mother was drinking heavily at the bar. When I asked the mother what was going on, she replied that she had been initially very excited, but everything changed once she got to the second floor. She suddenly realized that there was a woman wearing an all-black period costume weaving throughout the tourgoers, and she was the only one in the group who saw this strange woman! She described the spectre as being very angry and aggressive. She didn’t know how to point this out without appearing crazy, so she retreated downstairs and began to drink to calm her nerves. For me, the only real surprise was NOT that she had seen an apparition while on the tour… it was that she had left her daughter up there in harm’s way with Mrs. Johnson while she chased spirits of a different kind at the bar.

Not Even Grandmothers Are Safe

One night a close personal friend named Lindsay approached me as I began my tour at Moon River. Her elderly grandmother wanted to take my tour, but the entire tour was too much walking for her (even at less than a mile traversed in two hours) due to slight disability. Lindsay’s grandma just loved ghost stories, and very much wanted to hear a tale or two. Would it be okay if grandmother was around just for one story? Naturally I agreed. I took her sweet-natured grandmother by the arm and led her along with my tour group up to the second floor.

Near the end of the story, I moved the group to the center hallway to show off a bit of architecture, and that’s when it happened: Lindsay’s grandmother flinched so hard I thought both her feet were going to come off the ground! She immediately reached down and began rubbing her right forearm. Concerned for her well-being, I asked if she was okay. She nodded, but continued to rub her arm as the tour continued.

As soon as I got the group back downstairs, Lindsay conferred with her grandma and walked over. “Grandma says someone slapped her on the arm while listening to your story. She says there was no one around her when it happened, but that’s impossible. Did you see who did it?” I told my friend that there was no possible way that anyone could have slapped her, since I was looking right at her grandma for the entire story. I confirmed that I saw her practically jump out of her skin while I was talking, but absolutely no one was around her when it happened. Upon examination, the elderly woman did indeed have a red mark on her right forearm resembling a slap-mark. Her grandma continued to insist that she hadn’t hit her arm on anything—someone had slapped her.

The next day I got a phone call from Lindsay. She noticed that morning that her Grandma had a deep bruise on her arm—and it was extremely odd because the mark was on her right arm, and the bruise was in the shape of a right handprint. There was no way that her grandmother could have done this to herself. “I’m officially scared to go back to Moon River,” Lindsay said. I have to admit that I was a little frightened, myself. I mean, what sort of mean-spirited ghost picks on Grandma?

“...a shadowy spirit in the cellar which apparently still wanted to devour her, even after a century and a half.”

Psychics: or a Lion, a Witch and my Wardrobe

I have a good friend (who I will call ‘R’) who is gifted with psychic ability. This is someone who will suddenly receive information in a flash—info that she could not have any knowledge of, and yet somehow she does know it. For instance, once while I was dining with R she suddenly began to speak in great detail about my childhood, even including specific events and street names. There is no way that she could have possibly known this information about me, since we met in 1997, and I had never discussed my early life with her. It was strange, but she seemed to know all my secrets. This same friend asked me in the Spring of 2003 to take her somewhere that I believed was truly haunted, to see if she could have an authentic experience. I unhesitatingly took her to Moon River Brewing.

After gaining permission from management, we ascended the stairs. My friend R grew incredibly cold to the touch, and even the quality of the air surrounding her changed. Being a native Floridian, the only comparison I can make is being at the location of an imminent lightning strike, a close-call I have had happen many times. I felt a new charge to the atmosphere, a sudden change in air pressure, and all the hairs rose on my body. And remember, this was just from me standing near her. I cannot imagine what she went through personally. She appeared to step around something unseen in her path in the ruins of the former hotel, and when I asked why she did so, she replied, “I’m sorry, I just thought it would be terribly rude to step right through them...” She could see someone in our path whom I could not, although it seemed that I could feel their presence. She later likened her experience in the upstairs of Moon River Brewing to being an open radio receiver, tuned to all the channels simultaneously.

R began to speak in clipped tones about one of the many presences she could sense in the building, one in particular that eerily matched what the former foreman had supposedly said about the place. She described an extremely angry black female, pre-Civil War, who was full of fury over her being mistreated in her past life and was using her knowledge of dark arts to gain some revenge on this plane of existence. At one point my friend told me that the spirit is extremely territorial and explained: “Well, it clears up why she seems to hate you so much. You are constantly invading her space by bringing groups up here.” This was certainly not welcome news, seeing as how I was spending at least three nights a week in Moon River Brewing on tour. She went on to suggest that me wearing Confederate grey around the spirit of a former slave might also be a bit of a sticking point, to put it mildly.

There is a carefully measured disclaimer here: I never managed to interview the foreman. I have only second- and third-hand accounts of what happened to him, mostly in the form of stories from that former worker and one of the current owners of Moon River Brewing. But I find it extremely interesting that my good friend would tell a nearly identical tale, her having never met the foreman or any other sources of the story. One must give at least a little credence to the story since it is coming from several unconnected sources.

I then took my friend downstairs into the basement (formerly the wine and brandy cellar for the upstairs hotel barroom) and had yet another surprise: she refused to go near the center of the room, and explained that there was some kind of inhuman presence down there. One of R’s exact phrases resonated with the history of the space, unbeknownst to her at the time: “I know this is going to sound weird, Jamie, but I feel like I’m being hunted.” My friend had no knowledge of this fact, but in the 1840’s, the owner of the City Hotel wanted to announce the structure’s preeminence as a luxury accommodation. He therefore installed two live lions in the lobby (thought to be the main dining room of Moon River) that he had acquired while in Africa. One must wonder what these two large cats thought of being transported from an African savannah to Lowcountry Savannah, or even what the four-legged predators in the cage thought of the two-legged, gambling predators at the bar. Or vice versa.

These same lions were kept in the wine cellar in the evenings, the very same space my friend experienced a creeping sensation of an inhuman presence which was still on the hunt; a shadowy spirit in the cellar which apparently still wanted to devour her, even after a century and a half.

Anyway, it was the assertion of R that Moon River Brewing was the most haunted place she had ever encountered. She was literally overcome by whatever spirits were inside, and was pale and trembling when she left; she had to rest on the sidewalk after her ordeal. This is one case where the overwhelming spirits at Moon River Brewing didn’t come by the pint.

The Staff’s Experiences

There are a number of employees who have had run-ins with unexplainable phenomena. It seems the property has a way of making most people, even many staff members, at least a little more open-minded about the possibility of the existence of spirits. And that rather lengthy list starts, naturally, with management.

Gene Beeco, co-owner and general manager of Moon River Brewing, was an absolute disbeliever in ghosts when he began working at the restaurant/brewery, and is still seemingly a little uncomfortable with the fact that his place of business has unexplainable happenings. Gene is analytical and businesslike in nearly all respects. In the words of one associate, “Gene is the sort of guy to swear up and down to you that there’s no such thing as ghosts, but if you prod him, eventually he’ll tell you his own personal ghost story.” This is precisely how it happened with me: I asked Gene one day if he had any personal experiences that he could share, fully expecting a negative answer. I suppose I was asking merely as a formality. But I was incredibly surprised when he hesitated, and then answered in the affirmative:

“I had only been working here for a few weeks. I went upstairs on a very busy evening to grab some supplies. As I walked past the hallway I saw a little girl running around.” When I asked if he was surprised by the apparition, Gene smiled: “I didn’t think it was one, at the time. I thought some parent had let their child wander up here to the second floor unattended. I only realized it was something else entirely as I began to search for her and walked the direction she ran, only to find an empty room.”

When I asked him if the encounter scared him, Gene laughed and shook his head. He said his reaction was, “Awww, I don’t have time for this ghost stuff tonight!”

A former bartender, named Amanda, claims that as she went upstairs she felt a hand on her neck as she entered a main hallway. She whirled to confront what she assumed was a co-worker pulling a prank, but there was no one: she was all alone. Amanda also had a strange occurrence in the basement, when one night she went down the stairs alone. She saw a man out of the corner of her eye, and blinked, thinking that she was seeing things. The apparition did not vanish, however, and for several moments she and this spectre regarded each other before she finally slowly backed out of the area. She claims that he was wearing 19th century attire.

Another former employee, a waiter named Sam, claims to have heard strange pounding and knocking sounds in the basement, near a large archway. The sound, he says, was distinctly that of someone knocking on a wooden door—but the downstairs archway’s large wooden door had been removed years ago. When he was still employed at Moon River Brewing, Sam refused to go into the basement alone, a claim verified and echoed by several members of the wait staff.

It’s hard to find a member of the staff at Moon River Brewing who hasn’t had some sort of paranormal run-in. Kelly, a former server, has had several supernatural experiences. I sat down with her one quiet afternoon for an interview at one of the tables located directly south of the bar.

I asked Kelly what sort of things had happened to her while working at Moon River Brewing. She paused, and looked at the center of the table as she spoke: “From my experiences I have found that there are several distinct entities at Moon River, they range from your apathetic ghosts, where they don’t really register or care about the living, the interested ghosts, they make themselves known but it is not necessarily in a positive or negative way. And then there are the poltergeists, and usually they are involved and interested in the goings on and will make their presence known, mostly in a negative or mean spirited way. No pun intended.”

When I pressed her for specifics, Kelly seemed to consider this for a moment, as if trying to decide how much of her happenings she was willing to divulge. Finally she spoke in a calm, measured voice. “I have had experiences with some of the entities at Moon River. I have seen a vague figure down in the basement, and it came towards me. The feeling of fear that went along with the experience was almost irrational. I have had one or two experiences where I was pushed, I actually felt something shove me on the back, and I fell down the stairs, luckily without injury. I have heard someone walking upstairs when no one else was in the building and when I went to investigate there was no one there. Also, sometimes when giving a tour to customers upstairs, anytime that renovations were mentioned it would sound like someone was stomping around the upper level and then it would sound like they were running towards the stairs. Down in the basement one morning, I went down and found all of the extra glassware smashed, as if someone had thrown it to the floor in a rage.” It was hard for me to imagine anyone wishing harm on Kelly. The quiet, unassuming twenty-something just seemed to radiate calm and positive emotions. She seemed to be almost embarrassed by the attention her ghostly experiences had garnered.

When I asked if she ever felt personally threatened, and if she thought the activity centered on the location, or certain people, or a combination of the two, Kelly replied: “Personally threatened? Not really. The only time there has ever seemed to be a threat was when renovations were mentioned or started, especially to the upper levels. There is a definite sense of anger when renovations are mentioned.” Her describing the flash of anger when renovations are spoken about gave me a chill on a warm afternoon, since I spend a major portion of my tour story telling tour groups about the failed renovations!

Kelly also related an incident she once had very early in the day. One morning she was opening the restaurant, so she was there by herself. She kept hearing heavy footsteps upstairs, however, so she went up the staircase to investigate a supposedly deserted upper level. The footsteps started out on the second floor, she said, but once she got up there she could then hear them walking around on the third floor, which also proved to be deserted. When I remarked that she was braver than I for checking it out, she smiled and told me, “Well, I took an icepick just in case it wasn’t a spirit.”

The litany of paranormal experiences experienced by employees is far too long to list here. But here are a few: longtime employee Kristine has attested to hearing her name being called—from an empty room. She has also witnessed unexplainable shadows under the bathroom door, even though the bathrooms were unoccupied at the time. A cook in the kitchen also swears that the ovens have mysteriously switched off by themselves. In another instance, a female server who was taking a cigarette break at the westernmost second-floor window suddenly had her long ponytail pulled from behind with frightening force. She whirled to confront her attacker, and found only a deserted room. A former manager once had a bottle of vodka fling itself off of a nearby shelf, crashing perilously close to his head. When I asked him about the frightening incident, he laughed and said, “At least it was the cheap stuff.”

A ‘Haunted Savannah’ Haunting

We hosted the premiere for the first edition of this book, Haunted Savannah, in the Beer Cellar of Moon River Brewing on June 6th, 2005. Although the setting was chosen for its connection to the book, never in our wildest dreams did we expect anything supernatural to occur at the premiere. Needless to say, we should have anticipated the unexpected in a building as haunted as Moon River Brewing.

After three hours, the party was winding down. The media left, the guests began to ebb towards the exit, and the staff began to break down the food trays and chafing dishes, which were being carried up the stairs (I, meanwhile, was nursing a case of writer’s cramp after signing and personalizing close to a hundred copies of the book). Between the logjam of exiting food trays and people, the stairwell leading back up to the first floor was momentarily blocked.

My former publisher and good friend Cristina Piva knew of a back exit, the second service stairwell which was back by the pool tables that were in the area at the time, so she headed for that door. Her urgency had something to do with the herbal tea she had been sipping all night. Cristina threaded her way through the dwindling crowd, and walked past the first pool table. She reached the low wall in the very back room, nearly at the exit door, and ran headfirst into a mass of energy. This unseen energy field knocked her backward, almost sweeping her off of her feet. Somehow she maintained her balance, and staggered back to the crowd. Her husband, Murray, leapt to his feet to see what was the matter. We asked what had happened, but Cristina seemed momentarily be out of breath, and was pale and shaking. All she could do was point back to the area where she had her strange encounter. She later described her experience as almost feeling like she had been submerged in cold water.

The moment this occurred, I simultaneously thought of three things: first, Cristina looked like she had experienced exactly the same thing that my psychic friend had encountered, since they were both pale and shaking; second, this was precisely where my friend Amanda (former bartender) had had her encounter; and thirdly and most importantly, the former City Hotel is still perhaps the most active hotspot for supernatural happenings in the city of Savannah.

Ghost Folklore vs. An Actual Haunting

One of the most frequent questions I get is this: “So who haunts Moon River Brewing?” That is an incredibly hard question to answer, much harder for me than it might first appear. If I wanted to make things easy on myself, I would just say that it is the spirit of James Stark, or Mrs. Johnson, and be done with it. But to me the idea of the ‘famous ghost’ is more an element of a folklore story. If the idea of the ‘famous ghost’ is correct, then the spirits of Edgar Allen Poe, Blackbeard, Jean Laffite, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee and the like must get absolutely no rest whatsoever in the spirit world, because these ghosts are spotted a lot, and in various locales all across the country. I reject the majority of these types of stories unless they are packaged as fiction.

Instead, I much prefer the more complicated and sometimes messy idea of the ‘anonymous ghost,’ or more accurately, a location that brings out hauntings. I believe that Moon River Brewing is just such a place: one possessed by the past. Nearly every historical account involving 21 West Bay Street also includes murder, dueling, violence, human bondage, or other forms of heartbreak. That sort of lineage certainly has an effect on what sort of paranormal experiences people have there today. How can it not? A building with such a violent pedigree is definitely not going to manifest as haunted tales of puppies and rainbows. You know for certain that you are due for a dark tale when someone starts telling you what happened to them at the brewery.

What I see in my mind’s eye when I think of Moon River Brewing Company is not a single spectre, or a couple of lonely spirits which ramble through the deserted upper floors. I see a location which is constantly charged with negative energy, a place that crackles with a brutal aura. I do not see the spirits as being separate from the building at all; they are not the aberration, they are a direct result of the location’s history. The odd and frightening events which tourists, locals, staff members and tour guides continue to encounter in that building on Bay Street are a build-up of nearly two centuries worth of bad mojo. For me, the proper question is not who inhabits the space. The proper question is: why? What makes the nature of the location itself so incredibly angry? I find that simply gaining an understanding the complex and dark nature of 21 West Bay’s history, which so often is a means of finding comfort in these types of paranormal hotspots, offers no solace in this particular instance. The spirits are unhappy, and no one, even me—a guy who has spent a decade studying the building—has the slightest idea of what to do about it.

My advice to readers who want to experience Moon River Brewing for themselves is the same that I gave off-camera to Zak Bagins of Ghost Adventures (sadly ignored): “Enjoy the beer, but try not to anger the ghosts.”

Juliette Gordon Low’s Birthplace

10 East Oglethorpe Avenue

Many houses in Savannah have a great amount of history, but perhaps none so much as the imposing mansion located at the corner of Bull Street and Oglethorpe Avenue, the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low. Many Savannah residents simply call it ‘The Birthplace’ instead of its proper title, the Wayne-Gordon House. The Regency style house, completed in 1821, is thought to be a William Jay design, the same architect who designed the Owens-Thomas House. However, it is possible that the structure was built by a protégé of Jay’s, perhaps the same unknown architect who designed the old City Hotel.

Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts. The house today is used as the National Center of Girl Scouts, and is visited by approximately eighty thousand Girl Scouts every year. But beyond the story of Juliette, one of the most liberated women of the past 150 years, we find the tender love story of her parents.

Juliette’s father, William Washington Gordon II, was also born in the house, and it is here that he brought his new bride, Nellie Kinzie, in 1858. It is one of the family’s favorite stories that Willie fell in love with Nellie in 1853, when she slid down the main staircase of the Yale Library at New Haven and crushed his brand new hat. She maintained that high-spirited habit of sliding down banisters all her life.

“... her face took on the radiance of a bride.”

Clashing Feminine Personalities

When Nellie moved into the house with her new husband, they moved in with Willie’s parents, William I and Sarah Gordon. The house could barely contain the two strong female personalities of Sarah and Nellie. The two experienced friction from nearly the very beginning, including Nellie’s objection to her husband being required to sign over half of his paycheck to his parents.

Three children were born to Willie and Nellie before the country went to war. In what Nellie called ‘The Confederate War,’ Willie served the Confederacy in the Georgia Hussars, and was wounded in the Battle of Atlanta. Nellie never lost that spark that had attracted Willie: her brother and uncle were fighting for the Union, and so a woman remarked to her, “I hope that the first shot fired will kill [your brother] dead.” Nellie later ran into the same woman, and said, “I hear that your brother has been shot in the back. Mine is doing quite well, thank you.” So deep and abiding was her love for Willie that Nellie found the need to track him down not once, but twice—once enlisting the aid of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and the other with the help of Union General William T. Sherman.

When General Sherman occupied Savannah, he and his officers came to pay their respects to Eleanor Kinzie Gordon. Accompanying Sherman was Brigadier General O. O. Howard, who was notable because he had lost an arm during the Battle of Seven Pines. Eleanor’s daughter, Daisy (whom we know today as Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts) noticed that Howard was missing an arm. She, with the charming tactlessness of a child, asked how he lost his arm. Howard replied that a Confederate soldier had shot his arm off. Daisy then wondered aloud, “I wonder if my Papa didn’t do it? He has shot lots of Yankees!” No one laughed harder than William T. Sherman.

After the war, Willie and Nellie were reunited, and three more children were born into the Gordon household.

When Nellie visited her daughter Juliette in England, Rudyard Kipling put her in a story as “a little old lady with snapping black eyes, who used very bad language.” Nellie thanked him for the honor.

When Willie passed away in 1912, Nellie was devastated. She wrote to a cousin: “My strict observance of the 5th Commandment has resulted in my ‘living long in the land’… unless it is because the Lord doesn’t want me, and the Devil doesn’t either. At any rate, here I remain, very much against my will, for there is nothing I so sincerely desire in this world as to get out of it.”

Nellie was ill in the fall of 1916, and a doctor ordered her confined to her to bed on the third floor. She was to avoid stairs at all costs. The family met to discuss the dividing up of the estate, but did so in secret on the second floor, as to not upset Nellie. Suddenly Nellie appeared in the doorway, and admonished them all for treating her as if she was already in the grave. When the family began to chastise her for disobeying the doctor, Nellie smiled and told them that she hadn’t—she had given her word that she wouldn’t use the stairs, so she slid down the banister!

She passed away in 1917, but before she did, she was adamant about no one ‘wearing mourning’. She would be with Willie again in the afterlife, so everyone should celebrate.

Nellie died in her bedroom on Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1917. Her daughter-in-law, Margaret, reported that she was surprised to see her father-in-law, who had died five years ago, coming out of Nellie’s bedroom. He was wearing his grey officer’s uniform, and his face was one of extreme joy. He walked down the front stairs and out of sight. It was then that another family member walked out of the same doorway to Nellie’s bedroom and told her that Nellie had just passed away. Margaret told of seeing Willie Gordon, but her claims were dismissed… that is, until they walked to the foyer. The old family butler was standing at the foot of the stairs, tears streaming down his cheeks. Before they could speak, he told them that he had just seen Willie in his General’s uniform, walking down the stairs, looking ever so happy. The man went on to say that the General must have come back to fetch Nellie himself.

Her children said that when Nellie died, her face took on the radiance of a bride.

Place of History, Place of Hauntings

The house has been turned into a museum, and restored to reflect the 1880’s. Among the collection of art and antiques is artwork created by Daisy herself. Members of the staff that work at the museum claim that Willie and Nellie are still happy and together in the house. The piano in the south parlor is heard playing from time to time—which is amazing considering that it has been broken since the 1940’s. Both Nellie and her mother-in-law, Sarah Gordon, were accomplished musicians.

The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace was featured on the Travel Channel program America’s Most Haunted Places- Savannah. In the segment, several people gave firsthand accounts of seeing strange sights at the house. Tour guides claim that the presence of Sarah, and not Willie or Nellie, is the foremost spectre in the house. It stands to reason that a woman so dominant in life would also be somewhat prominent in the household even after her passing. In the upstairs office, the adding machine would be found by a senior member of the staff in the morning to have jumbles of numbers on the paper scrolling out of the machine. Exasperated, she finally unplugged the device before leaving for the night. When she returned in the morning, the machine was once again found to be used—with the paper scrolled out onto the floor once again, but the power cord was still disconnected from the wall. Later, she actually saw the machine while it was tabulating on its own, with the cord unplugged from the wall and no fingers actually pressing the keys.

Sarah’s Overbearing Presence

Guides also report that as soon as the elevator was installed, Sarah began to make appearances from time to time. According to them, she is upset because the elevator essentially took up the closet space in her bedroom. A special code must be entered in order to access the third floor, but on Missy Brandt’s first day working at the Birthplace, it took her unerringly to the third floor, which opens next to Sarah’s old room, without her touching any buttons. Sarah is seen by tour guides and tourists alike at times, reportedly wearing a dark brown dress, in various rooms of the old house.

Sometimes, working at such a haunted location means you have to take certain things in stride. A guide in the house smiled broadly when I asked her about Sarah’s ghost. “Well, I had a couple of Girl Scouts come back from the bathroom and comment that it was ‘pretty neat’ that we had installed those motion-activated sinks in the bathroom, because the water turned on as soon as the Scouts got near them—and it was surprising that the water was so hot. I’d say it’s surprising: we don’t have motion-activated sinks, and the water isn’t hot in the bathroom! But I pretended as if nothing was amiss because I didn’t want to create a stampede of girls towards the bathroom.”

One night, a special evening time tour was to take place. The guides arrived to open the Birthplace and found the lights in the house blazing, when they had been shut off earlier that day. On another occasion, a ghost tour guide telling the story outside reported something strange seen through one of the windows. A woman in period costume was seen by both the guide and the entire tour walking through one of the southern parlors, carrying a candle. Inquiries the next day at the Birthplace revealed that no events had taken place the previous night.

A former tour guide related that once while walking up the stairs to the third floor carrying a heavy package, suddenly lost her footing and was about to take a fall that could have possibly been fatal. She felt a firm hand plant itself squarely in her back and push her back to her feet. She turned around to thank whoever had possibly saved her life—and found no one on the stairs behind her. The ghosts in this house apparently lend a helping hand from time to time.

Today, the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace operates as a house museum, and is available for touring.

The Cotton Exchange Seafood Grill & Tavern

201 East River Street

At the center of River Street near the Abercorn ramp, a seemingly quiet bar contains a tumultuous collection of spirits. The restaurant, bar, and kitchen of the Cotton Exchange Tavern have all been scenes of supernatural occurrences. According to those who work at the Exchange, there is more than one entity in the tavern; and if the stories are to be believed, there is at least one presence that is clearly unfriendly.

Before we go getting into the haunted stories at this bastion of River Street, first we must explore the question for the uninitiated: what is River Street, exactly? Well, the bayfront area which is now River Street is where Savannah began. The forty foot high sandy bluff where our founder, James Edward Oglethorpe, established our city provided a wonderfully defensible position from the Spanish in Florida. Unfortunately, this same bluff made unloading cargo and passengers difficult. The early settlers initially built a series of steps for passengers and wooden ramps and a rudimentary crane for cargo, but as the shipping port grew they also needed warehouses for storage and eventually offices for shipping companies. The earliest construction was undoubtedly wood, but something more permanent was needed. Those involved in the development of River Street decided to use the ballast stones, weights added for the stability of ocean-going vessels, that were being offloaded from the tall-masted ships in the harbor. As heavy cargo was loaded on, ballast stones were moved off the vessel to keep weight evenly distributed.

The Cotton Exchange Tavern opened in the early 1970’s.

Much of the current buildings in the area, including River Street itself, are built of ballast stone, non-indigenous rocks imported as described above by incoming ships. Thus these stones were readily available, fairly easy with which to build, and had an important quality lacking in the wooden buildings: they were fireproof. Much of the early exports—lumber, rosin, cotton and rice—were all flammable. Fire-resistant construction was an absolute necessity, as illustrated by Savannah’s numerous “Great Fires”.

Those with an even rudimentary eye for architecture will notice that the majority these buildings were built in two stages: the bottom floors of most of River Street were built out of ballast stone (starting on or around 1820), but the upper floors were not added until there was a need for office space in the 1850’s and 60’s. The backsides of these warehouses, facing Bay Street away from the river, have a series of bridges running above the back lane separating the buildings and Bay Street. These bridges (which were originally wood, but now are steel and concrete) were where bidders on cotton, commonly called ‘Factors’, would observe the cotton and grade it. Thus it became known as Factor’s Walk.

The immense warehouse which currently houses the Cotton Exchange Tavern (along with several other businesses) is a typical example of the two-stage construction. Although the building has a single date of 1823, it is likely not accurate, which is common with this area of the city—the dates are a ‘ballpark’ estimation of when the building was expanded into something we would recognize today. The date quoted is probably the time the brick was added, making the building multi-level. The ballast stone construction on the lowest level was likely adapted from a previous building: remember, construction has been nearly continuous at this location since 1733 so finding the ‘correct’ date is more a matter of opinion than objective fact. But we will use the date quoted for the purpose of our historical sketch of the property.

The building was built by Archibald Smith, who was a local plantation owner. It was common knowledge that he rarely visited his plantation, which was quite a regular occurrence amongst the local planter aristocracy; but was equally noteworthy because he left a slave overseer in charge while he was away, which was a rare arrangement. Smith eventually left Savannah in 1838 due to religious reasons (he was a devout Presbyterian and was encouraged by fellow planter Roswell King to move inland) and settled just north of Atlanta, Georgia. He established a plantation home in that area, which is present-day Roswell, Georgia. Incidentally the Archibald Smith Plantation House, circa 1845, shares something else in common with Savannah: both the house and the City of Savannah escaped destruction by William T. Sherman’s troops during the Civil War. So the house Smith built in Roswell and the building he constructed and left behind in Savannah both managed to escape the Union Army’s torch during their fiery six-week March to the Sea in 1864.

The popular Savannah building reflects our history as seen through our commerce: cotton and other goods gave way to shipping finished materials. Eventually, tourism entered the picture by way of restaurants, shops and antique stores. Presently, the riverfront is packed with family-friendly restaurants and attractions, but when the Exchange Tavern opened for business in the early 1970’s it was something of an anomaly. Up to that point, River Street had been populated with bars that catered primarily to sailors, making it a very different place than it is today (NOT family friendly!). The Exchange was the charter member among true restaurants on the riverfront, first opening its doors in 1971.

Mean Jean

The Exchange has a constant presence, and we’re not just talking about ghosts. Bartender ‘Mean Jean’, as she is known with much affection by management and fellow staff alike, has called the Exchange Tavern a home-away-from-home for a quarter century, working at the tavern since 1981. If you want the inside scoop on anything from the ins-and-outs of city government to how to make the perfect cocktail, turn to Jean for all the info. Mean Jean is also the amalgamator of, in my opinion, the finest Bloody Mary available anywhere—a drink I don’t normally like to consume, but I’ll make an exception and order (and enjoy) one if it has been prepared by her experienced hand. Jean also has numerous ghost stories about the old building, and has had several experiences herself involving the supernatural over the years. One of her first encounters was with a spectral tremor from the past involving the father of the original owner of the Exchange Restaurant, which she related one hot and muggy August over perspiring beverages.

Oompah’s Brew

“The father’s name was John, but everyone, me included, called him ‘Oompah’,” Jean related with a smile. “He was a clock collector, and had a collection of over a hundred clocks at the time in the restaurant. He’d show up every morning and wind up those clocks, and then he’d sit down at the bar at a certain spot and have a cup of coffee—the old-style kind of mug with the plastic insert.

“Well, Oompah passed away, and one morning not soon after I went in for work. The first thing I noticed when I passed Oompah’s usual seat was the strong smell of coffee, like it had been fresh brewed. Well, I figured the night staff had left a coffeepot on all night, so I went around and checked, and they were all clean and the burners were all cool. None had been brewed at all, so I was smelling Oompah’s morning cup of coffee. Just like he was there in the morning and brewed himself a cup. I figure he was just dropping by to see how we were doing.” It stands to reason that a man so obsessed with timepieces would be on time to enjoy his coffee, even in the spirit world. Even ghosts apparently need a coffee break.

Ghostly Trajectory

Jean reveals that the hauntings of the Exchange Tavern have gotten worse, not better, since a fire occurred on July 4th several years ago. “For whatever reason, since the renovation after the fire, things have picked up steam,” she says. As I explored briefly in the Introduction, there is a theory that paranormal activity can increase exponentially when old buildings are renovated, as if all that pent-up psychic energy is stirred up—and it seems to hold true in this case. The servers have since reported hearing footsteps when no one can be seen, as well as the sounds of babies crying. But there is a more aggressive energy to the space, as well.

In one incident, a staff member was smacked by a loaf of bread in the kitchen. It flew off of a prep table into the air and pegged him with unerring accuracy. No word, though, on whether he was ‘loafing’ on the job. “Yeah, I don’t think the ghost liked him,” says Jean with typical understatement. And Jean herself is not immune to the apparently frustrated energy: she was almost impacted one day, literally. A metal ice scoop flew across the restaurant, narrowly missing her. “If it wanted my attention, all it needed to do was ask,” Jean says with a wry smile, and the unspoken implication is either that the ghost likes her better than her co-worker (he of the bread loaf), or perhaps that the ghost’s aim is deteriorating over time? She also recounted that the spirit in the Exchange liked to hurl other objects, too: things are either falling or being tossed from shelves near the bar on a regular basis.

Jean also says that the radio in the tavern will sometimes have the volume turned up or down. In one humorous instance, a server noticed that a certain song got a lot louder. She stood with her head cocked to one side, listening to the rising volume for a moment, and then asked the empty air: “Like that song, do ya?” This got a laugh from the rest of the staff—some things are funny because they’re true, apparently. The ghost has traditional tastes, if the volume is any indication of preference, leaning towards bluegrass or country, and has a dislike for rap and hard rock.

Apparitions

One former server reported seeing something strange on the staircase leading to the second floor: she saw a white and indistinct form walk down the stairs while she was upstairs. “It wasn’t glowing or anything, but it looked like gauze—sort of wispy,” she says. Thinking she had caught a glimpse of the manager, who was the only other person in the Exchange, she went to go see what she wanted. She found the manager in her office, and was surprised to learn that she had been in the office doing paperwork the entire time. This particular server is sick of ghosts: “I’ve worked at the Pirate’s House, Garibaldi’s, the Cotton Exchange, and now I have a job at the Marshall House! The entire downtown seems as though it is infested with ghosts. Can’t I find a job in a building that isn’t haunted?” Which, I hated to inform the poor server in question, is not such an easy feat sometimes in Savannah’s Historic District.

The spirit in the Exchange Tavern has eluded identification thus far, unless it is indeed Oompah, like Mean Jean has surmised. The list of potential suspects runs back through every bit of Savannah’s nearly three centuries of history, so even a guess at the identity of our ghost would be just that: a guess. Without more clues coming to light as to who or what this spectre (or spectres) might be, the tale of the Exchange Tavern will have to remain open-ended, for now. One thing is certain, however: I absolutely do not fear any ghosts or phantoms, but the lethality of Mean Jean’s cocktails gives me reason to pause. Sometimes you have to respect the spirits which can really put a hurting on you.

Pour Larry’s in City Market

206 West St. Julian Street

“…if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche

Running a haunted pub crawl can be difficult, and I’m not talking about just handling the occasional drunk. What I mean that it can be very hard to find the right balance, storywise, between the tragic (sometimes heartrending) history and the humor used for entertainment purposes. There is usually a time and place for both elements in all the stories we tell, because while all ghost stories involve some horrific events by their very nature, a good storyteller can usually make light of some of the more absurd elements of the historical circumstances. Tragedy can be very funny, if you have the proper timing.

Then there are those tales where one unexpectedly comes into contact with absolute, faith-shaking evil, and no amount of humor can cover up the awful things that humans can do. There are those kinds of yarns, and yes, you’re reading one of those now, which can test your faith in humanity. How do you weave soul-sucking bleakness into a narrative? That’s how I found myself sitting in a darkened room with a glass of liquor, pondering the career choices that led me inexorably to that particular moment. To this day, I associate the taste of a certain brand of Irish whiskey with a man who most closely embodies the word ‘evil’ I have ever encountered in my research. The tinkling of my ice in the glass became… well, I’m getting ahead of myself, and a good storyteller paces his tales appropriately. But I can tell you that it’s a day at the archives I’ll never forget: the day that I met John Montmollin. Over one hundred and fifty years separated us, and he was still way too close for comfort.

A Strange Call

I didn’t go looking for this story. In fact, it literally came looking for me, in the form of a phone call. A friend had opened up a bar in a downstairs area of City Market, a shopping mecca in a historic setting during daylight hours which transforms into a dining and bar-centric zone in the evening. My buddy John had opened his pub in the aforementioned space in February of 2008. His call came in early summer of that same year. He asked if I could come down to his bar, and it was early enough in the day that I assumed that he was asking me to bring him some of my tour’s brochures: John helpfully handed them out to tourists because they had maps of the city inside. So when I asked if he needed brochures, he hesitated, and finally said yes, which in retrospect was probably just an easier answer for John than the truth. The strangeness of his voice over the phone got me wondering what was up. Maybe he was lonely. After all, he had just gone through a messy divorce, and there had been the usual uncomfortable ‘dividing of the friends’ in the aftermath of the breakup, of which I had managed to steer clear. Maybe, I remember musing, he just needed a drinking buddy. But even though John poured me a drink the second I walked down the stairs, I could not have been more wrong. His phone call was strictly professional, not social.

“Look,” he said, his awkward body language confirming his discomfort, “you know I don’t believe in ghosts, right?” He started rubbing down an already immaculate bartop, somewhat nervously, as if trying to give his hands something to do. I nodded. “Well, even though I don’t believe in this stuff, there’s something… down here. I mean, maybe even more than one thing. It’s not just me that feels this, I’ve got a couple of employees ready to quit over the weird stuff that’s happening. I had to promise them that I’d call you in to help with this thing.” I told him to slow down, and start at the beginning.

The entrance to Pour Larry’s.

A Stinking Ghost?

John related that from the moment he signed his lease on the space, he had begun to feel like something was amiss. He reported feeling two separate presences in the downstairs. The first was a shadowy figure, he said, full of rage. “This feels like bad vibes times a thousand,” he described. “And another thing, and this is the craziest part: this thing, whatever it is—“ John’s face at that moment had a ‘please don’t think I’m crazy look’ I’m all too familiar with, “—it smells awful, like burned meat and sulphur. It’s not just me that experiences this. Please talk to my bartender. She’ll explain it better.”

I quickly found myself in a conversation with John’s lead bartender, a very attractive young woman I’ll call Christine, at her request. Christine had moved to Savannah in the previous year, essentially escaping what she described as a bad situation in Augusta, Georgia, a city about two hours northwest of Savannah. She had married very young, and entered the medical field, but found both her marriage and her career as a nurse at a prestigious Augusta burn treatment center very unsatisfactory. “So after my divorce I had no reason to stay there,” she said, “and plus, I got to the point where I couldn’t stand the smell anymore. I liked helping people, but coming home smelling like charbroiled human just wasn’t the life for me. It made me sick.

“So I gave my notice, and moved here to Savannah, and got this bartending gig pretty fast. I like it a lot, except for, you know, what John was telling you about. The creepy vibes and the smell? There’s something you need to know about the burned smell that John describes. There’s really nothing else like it in the entire world, and trust me, honey, I’m in a position to know. I’ll never forget that smell as long as I live. It’s not an overcooked hamburger, or burned wings from across the way [there was a restaurant across the courtyard which specialized in chicken wings]. That is a very specific odor, and that is burnt human flesh. There’s no question about it. Every time I smell it down here, I lose my lunch.” I paused from my note-taking and looked at my arms. They had broken out in goosebumps.

Another staff member related an uncomfortable feeling they associated with the presence that they described as “walking into a room where an argument has just occurred.” Glassware on the bartop had smashed seemingly on its own, and a half-full bottle of bleach in the bathroom had flown across the room like it had been kicked. But by far the worst part of the sinister presence, many of the staff described, was the distinct creepy feeling of being watched by a pair of unseen malevolent eyes.

Many staff members describe a distinctly unpleasant presence and the feeling of being watched.

Shiny Happy People

Fortunately, there was another presence (or presences) in that same downstairs space that seemed to exude a playful, happy feeling. Several staff members described similar experiences of feeling happy and hearing a strange chanting in an unintelligible language. They also described a sort of jingling sound. The energy, they explained, is extremely well-meaning and seems to enjoy horseplay. The only time the ‘happy spirits’ shifted into something remotely tense was when one employee playfully pushed another into a void space in the center ‘island’ which had been built behind the bar, joking that the other employee would have to spend some time “in the box,” alluding to solitary confinement in prison. The air seemed to crystallize around them, as if many unseen someones held their breath in sudden fear. That game, needless to say, was suddenly over.

So I set to work finding out the history of the old building, very disturbed yet intrigued by the staff’s stories. I recall thinking I was probably on a wild goose chase, and that the history of the building would be a benign one. I was drastically wrong on both counts.

A Sinister History

I went to the archives at the Georgia Historical Society, unsure of what I would find. I learned that the building in question was built in 1855, oddly enough for another man named ‘John’, this one with the surname Montmollin. John Montmollin owned several plantations in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, marking him as an incredibly wealthy man. What was his business? Montmollin made his fortune off the brutal capture, transport, and sale of other human beings. John Montmollin was a slave dealer. My blood chilled as I slowly realized that Montmollin’s office was on the ground floor of that very building, and he kept his slaves in the basement level, the precise space that my friend had recently converted to use for his bar.

It is here I interrupt the narrative to explain that importing slaves from Africa to Georgia in the 19th century was illegal, a fact that surprises many people. There is this idea that slave ships were running back and forth across the Atlantic during this time period, transporting more and more human chattel in chains from Africa to the Americas, but that is a misconception. Less than 5% of African slaves were bound for North America. Most were transported instead to the Caribbean Islands, or to Central or South America. Also, a 1798 Georgia law and 1808 Federal law banned the importation of slaves into this country. So during the time period we’re discussing, slaves were legal to own, buy and sell, but it was highly illegal to import them. John Montmollin’s job as slave dealer, therefore, meant that he bought and resold slaves within the United States. It was a despicable practice by any measure. But he was not content to simply make his fortune off of other people’s misery, he looked to increase his profit margins even more by circumventing state and federal law by importing slaves directly from Africa and funneling them through his pre-existing slavery business.

That is, until Mr. Montmollin got caught up in some truly nefarious dealings. He became involved with Charles Lamar, a person almost certainly on anyone’s short list for the title of ‘most reviled man in Savannah’s history.’ Reading the dry, somewhat sterile historical record of the dealings of Lamar and Montmollin is still a peek into the darkest of souls.

The Terrible Wanderer

A little about Charles Lamar: in 1858, a group of men led by Savannah planter Lamar defied the U.S. government’s laws against importing slaves from Africa and set into motion one of the most controversial court cases in American history. Many believe that the fallout from the actions of that reckless and headstrong group may have hastened the country’s plunge into bloody Civil War. The two are inexorably linked in history: Lamar, and the slave ship Wanderer. Just as culpable in this nefarious deed was John Montmollin.

Lamar was already considered the wealthiest man in Savannah, but he became obsessed with restarting the slave trade, in spite of the laws against it. Lamar’s own family got wind of his plans and attempted to talk him out of the scheme. In a letter to his father he arrogantly wondered: what the difference was between going to Virginia or Africa to buy a slave? His father wrote back: “An expedition to the moon would have been equally sensible, and no more contrary to the laws of Providence. May God forgive you for all your attempts to violate his will and his laws.” Lamar, though, was undeterred.

Charles, along with John Montmollin and two other businessmen, finally bought the Wanderer, a sleek and swift sailing vessel designed for racing. The craft was built in Long Island, and it very shortly left port, bound for the shores of Africa. Upon arriving in the Congo, the crew reached a deal to buy between 600 and 750 men between the ages of thirteen and eighteen at a cost of between one and three dollars a head. These men had been captured by rival tribes—kidnapped for the very purpose of being sold into slavery. The ship by this time had been outfitted with special cargo holds to hold human captives. On her return voyage, the speedy craft eluded both the English and American navies, and slipped past the U.S. fortification guarding the approach to Brunswick. Lamar distracted the officers of the fort by throwing a lavish party.

The slaves were held for a short time at Jekyll Island, Georgia, and then shipped up the Savannah River and offloaded at Montmollin’s plantation in South Carolina. On the open market these same slaves which had sold in the Congo for three dollars each now fetched a price of between five and seven hundred dollars, an obscene profit for Montmollin, Lamar and the others involved. But the whole scheme went awry. Almost immediately the rumors began to circulate about the Wanderer’s illicit run to the Congo. The federal government began looking for evidence, including the contraband human cargo. Even President James Buchanan was concerned—he was petitioned by the U.S. Senate to investigate the shady dealings of the Wanderer and all those involved in the plot. The ship was impounded by U.S. Marshals. The Georgia man who had piloted the craft to Jekyll Island for an outrageous fee decided to turn down an equally obscene bribe and testify in the mounting case against the Wanderer investors. The developments drew worldwide attention, and several Northern papers wrote scathing editorials condemning the whole affair. But the case quickly resembled a farce.

Lamar and Montmollin scrambled to hide the evidence, including the new slaves. Prosecutors found that Lamar and his band of investors had been very clever in covering their tracks, and whatever evidence once linked them to the ship no longer existed. Even the slaves had disappeared. The case against Lamar was largely circumstantial. The sentence handed down by Judge Moore Wayne seems equally farcical: a five hundred dollar fine, and thirty days in jail, which Lamar and his associates were allowed to serve in Lamar’s apartments located above his office.

As for the Wanderer? The ship was seized by the Federal government, who ironically enough used the ship as part of the Union blockade against Southern ports during the Civil War. The Wanderer was eventually sold at auction after the war, and became a commercial vessel. She foundered off the coast of Cuba, running aground. The hulk was visible on the beach for many years until time and tide reduced her to nothingness.

Co-conspirator Charles Lamar did not outlive the ship which will forever be associated with his name. He joined the Confederacy and died on Easter Sunday, 1865, defending Columbus, Georgia. He is buried today in Laurel Grove Cemetery. But what happened to John Montmollin? The archives spell out Montmollin’s spectacular date with destiny.

The basement at Pour Larry’s, where a former owner described feeling “bad vibes, times a thousand.”

Karma Charges Interest

Montmollin was not convicted of a crime, but it wasn’t because he worked out a deal with investigators. Why? Because you cannot convict a dead man. He managed to avoid retribution for his dealings in a legal sense, but was forced to pay up anyway: karma occasionally collects from the morally bankrupt with swift and terrifying interest. Such was the case with our slave dealer: roughly seven months after the Wanderer was seized by the government, he stepped onto the deck of the steamship John G. Lawton, which was travelling up the Savannah River. The steamship shortly exploded in a horrific fashion, killing most of the passengers aboard, including John Montmollin.

The Savannah Morning News article from June 9th, 1859 recounts the tragedy:

DREADFUL CALAMITY!

Explosion of the Steamer J. G. Lawton- Several Lives Lost.

It is our painful duty to record the explosion of the steamer J. G. Lawton (which occurred about 8 o’clock last evening at a place called Gum Stump, about twenty miles up the Savannah River) and the loss of John S. Montmollin, Captain Keebler, the Pilot, a man named Gottie, and four deck hands.

Two days later, the paper had specific news about the fate of Montmollin:

THE LATE EXPLOSION.

Recovery of bodies.

Early on Saturday morning, the body of Mr. John S. Montmollin, a passenger on the ill-fated Lawton, was brought to this city. It was found about 150 yards from the spot where the explosion occurred, in the edge of the marsh, and almost entirely buried in mud. He was interred with Masonic honors, Saturday afternoon, from his late residence in this city.

This was certainly a closed-casket funeral. Boiler explosions were incredibly violent and messy accidents; the victims often literally scalded to death by the jets of pressurized hot steam. A hundred and fifty yards? That explosion launched him like a cannon. As I read the account, I couldn’t help but think of Christine telling me that the smell she encountered in the downstairs was the distinct odor of burned human flesh, and suddenly much of the story fell into place.

Fate had one final righteous twist in store for John Montmollin. When the Union Army occupied Savannah during the Civil War, the soldiers took control not just of the fortifications and commerce of the city, but of our news media as well. The Union found out about Montmollin’s involvement in the case of the Wanderer and decided that his death wasn’t punishment enough for his crime. Digging him up, however, was out of the question: instead they decided to make an example out of his former office in City Market. Again, please remember that it is this building which currently houses the bar in question.

From the (then Union-controlled) Savannah Morning Herald, dated March 15th, 1865:

THE BRYAN SCHOOL HOUSE- This large and commodious building [on the] corner of St. Julian and Barnard Streets, west of the market, at the present time used as a school house for the colored citizens of Savannah, has a very interesting history connected with its walls. It was built about fifteen years since by John S. Montmollin, a trader in slaves. His death occurred about seven years ago by the explosion of the boiler of the steamer John G. Lawton, his head and upper extremities lodging in the mud; in this condition he was found, and brought to this city and buried. His property then fell into the possession of Alexander Bryan, who until a few days prior to the occupation of Savannah by Federals used the premises as a jail and office for the barter and sale of slaves. The building, it is certain will never again be used for a slave trader’s office, but it should be kept for the purpose of educating the black race, and not to sell them.

A Troubling Story

I remember leaving the GHS in a bit of a daze. Finding a story like that had been a bit of a nasty shock. I sat in a darkened room in my house, drinking whiskey on the rocks (I seldom drink hard liquor, but certain occasions call for it). I thought about the revelations of the day, attempting to find a way to wrap my mind around such a bleak story.

Did Montmollin have a chance before his death to reflect on all the misery he had engaged in during his career as a slave trader? Did he have a brief glimmer of remorse for a life spent selling other human beings? There were slave owners who were kind to their chattel, to be sure-- not all slave owners were evil, and I don’t want to be accused of revisionist history by suggesting otherwise. But Montmollin’s involvement with the nefarious Charles Lamar points to him being unaccustomed to the light; a bottomfeeder of humanity and a person whose primary enterprise was making a profit off of other people’s pain. I doubt he felt much of anything at all.

Slavery was the heaviest topic possible in the Deep South. How could I tell this story on a tour? The ice rattled in my glass, making me think of slave chains, an association that upset me so much that I put the glass down. Tinkling sounds… in a flash, I had my possible answer. The story might just have a happy ending.

What Does This All Mean?

After ruminating for a few days, I finally told John and the rest of the staff what I had found in the archives. The one person I really wanted to talk to, Christine, had quit right after talking to me, however. I remember John gave an involuntary shudder when I produced the photocopied documents proving true what I had uncovered about the building. He was even a little shaken by the fact that he shared a first name with the evil man.

As happens so often in a tourist town, John’s bar was not long-lived: it only lasted about a year. Another bar quickly took its place, a joint called Pour Larry’s Bar, complete with new staff and owners. When I dropped by to talk to them about the space they now occupied, one of the bartenders turned very pale as I spoke. After I was done relating the history of the bar, she said in a weak voice, “Is that what that burned smell is? No joke: I’ve been smelling it from the very first day I picked up my application.” Other members of the bar staff quickly related their own experiences, including things smashing on their own and a ‘bad vibes’ sensation.

It is easy to see why there would be spirits in turmoil associated with the property. This unrest springs almost certainly from one of the most divisive issues to ever face our country: the legality (or not) of one man to own another. It took a conflict spanning over four years and over three-quarters of a million deaths to resolve it, in the form of the Civil War. It is also easy, with this historical backdrop, to ascertain the identities of our resident ghosts in the downstairs bar. The first spectre is almost certainly John Montmollin, he of the burned smell and the frightening aura. Those sensitive to such things can still feel his rage at his property, which was built for the express purpose of enslaving the black race, being used instead to enrich and educate the former slaves.

What of the other, playful ghosts? Almost without any doubt, these are African American. The only question remains: are they the children who were educated in this property, perhaps completely unaware of the past use of the building? Or are they the former slaves, now set free? Could that tinkling sound be the moment that they were freed from their manacles?

In a story fraught with irony, the final balancing twist is this: the dark presence still felt today is the light-skinned man. We are catching echoes of his nature and not his color, and he had the very darkest of hearts. The bright shiny presences are the dark-skinned ones from history, yet they are innocent as the pure driven snow. It was here that they experienced not the rings of slavery, but the ringing of a school bell announcing their freedom.

And what of my own balance, the one between grim history and humor? It is with considerable zeal that I now stop my pub crawl outside of Pour Larry’s Bar and tell the story of John Montmollin: Savannah’s original stick in the mud.

Presence at 441 Barnard Street

In a lovely three story 1860 stucco-over-brick townhouse located on Barnard Street, several odd supernatural occurrences have been noted. The structure’s calm exterior and happy current residents belie a deeply troubling melancholy which permeates the home. A presence has been felt by several people, including both a current owner, as well as myself, in 1998.

I was recently out of art school, and was making a decent living as a decorative and portrait painter. I was referred to my new clients at 441 Barnard Street by an interior decorator. Right away, I hit it off with my prospective clients—my ideas seemed to mesh exactly with what the couple envisioned for their home. One small project suddenly became many, including a few large-scale decorative works. I painted a floor to look like marble, and did some faux finishes—including woodgraining and faux brickwork. The clients seemed very happy with my work, and began to treat me like a member of the family, albeit a well-paid one. I often listened to music as I worked, and the couple and I found that even our musical tastes coincided, so I began at their request to unplug the headphones and let the music play. We all seemed to enjoy the old greats, like Nina Simone, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, and even more modern favorites like Eric Clapton and the Foo Fighters.

A Lyrical Haunting

Several of the projects were large-scale enough that I needed to stay late, and the couple became accustomed to leaving me in their house while they attended parties and dinners, always just telling me to lock up behind myself and drop the key through the mail slot when I left. One night, leaving to attend a society function, my patrons left me behind in their living room working high up on a ladder. My CD player had been switched off while they had been talking on the phone earlier in the evening, and I remember quite vividly taking the CD out of the player and placing it back in the jewel case. As the shadows grew darker, and I grew closer and closer to finishing, I had an experience that I will never forget—and to this day just the thought of it gives me chills: I began to hear slow, sad music beneath me. The CD player had turned on by itself. At first I thought I was imagining it. And yet, Nina Simone’s sultry voice issued forth, incredibly singing from the mix CD I had removed from the player, and it wasn’t the first song in the queue she sang; but the third. There was no way not to take it personally—I felt that this song had been selected because of its specific lyrics.

I put a spell on you
‘Cause you’re mine

I ran from that house about as fast as I’ve ever run before, and I’m a former college baseball player. I fled as a man chased by bees must run, grabbing the key as I ran past the table by the front door, locking up and throwing the key through the mail slot below before running again to my car. Only then did I stop, panting, and then and only then did I wonder if there was any logical explanation to what had transpired. Could the couple be putting me on somehow? Was it a joke? Or had I just had a strange encounter with something I couldn’t explain? I didn’t let that thought linger, as I put the car into drive, and jammed my foot on the gas pedal.

With some trepidation, I went to work the next morning. The lady of the house was fixing coffee as I entered timidly. Everything was as I had left it the night before, including one of my prized brushes, which I had left loaded with paint, and so the bristles had dried in an ugly glob. I opened my CD player and saw what I had suspected—the player was indeed empty. The CD was snug in the jewel case. I asked her if she or her husband had been listening to any music, and she said, “No, we like our mornings pretty quiet... no music or TV before ten or so.”

She went on: “I thought you were getting close to being finished with that project last night... did you get tired?” I told her that I hadn’t felt very inspired the previous night, and left pretty quickly—in fact that was the truth. Nothing could uninspire me quite like what may have been a message from a ghost. I watched her carefully to see if she or her husband appeared to be having fun at my expense, but saw no guile in their expressions.

As casually as I could manage, I asked, “Is this place haunted?” She didn’t even pause in her pouring of the coffee: “Oh, yes. I feel the presence sometimes in the late evenings. My husband doesn’t agree—,” he ruffled his morning paper right on cue—“but I often feel like there’s a black girl... a cook, maybe... in here from a long time ago. I’ve even seen her a few times,” she said earnestly, “or at least I see a quick flash out of the corner of my eye and then she’s gone.”

She went on to explain that she sometimes got the impression of a deep, silent sadness as the shadows lengthened into gloom. Nothing ever overt, just a impression of someone who had a bitter place in her heart.

I never explained to my clients what had happened the previous night, but I am pretty sure they could tell that something had transpired. I suppose I was afraid of losing them as clients—at the time I did not research ghosts and tell ghost stories for a living. I still considered people who believed in ghosts to be slightly off, and was worried that they might assume the same. I never had the opportunity to work late into the evening in the upstairs ever again, as my project moved me into a different area of the house, complete with different hours. But the question has always lingered since that strange happening: what could have caused that CD player to turn on by itself and play music with no CD inside? A check of the townhouse’s history reveals no likely suspects in the search for the mystery woman seen and sensed by the lady of the house.

If it was indeed a message from beyond, what did it mean? Nina Simone’s song is about a woman at the end of her rope: she’s torn up inside by a man who cheats, yet she still loves him. Was this spirit relating to the lyrics? Perhaps the message expressed in Nina Simone’s old song could be truly universal.

The Downstairs Presence

After my work in the upstairs was completed, I was asked to work in the downstairs apartment. The floors, my patron couple explained, were concrete, and they planned on using area rugs throughout that level in the house. Wouldn’t faux marble look wonderful in between the rugs? At twenty-four dollars an hour I couldn’t have agreed more.

Unfortunately, the only part of my plan I hadn’t considered was that the only time a floor painter can work is when his surface is dry to the touch, and the paint had a drying time of six hours, which meant I’d be working all sorts of strange times. Working alone at all hours of the night is never comfortable, but in Savannah the ‘witching hour’ can often take on a whole new meaning. I began to hear things— I often heard disembodied footsteps as I labored on the floor. Understand that I knew I was all alone in the area, but nevertheless I could hear and feel someone near. In one notable instance, I heard the distinct heavy tread of someone come down the outside stairs from the townhouse above, pause on the sidewalk, and then walk towards the open door of the downstairs in which I was working. I raised my eyes to ask a question to either of my two employers, and the question died on my lips. I was completely alone.

On another occasion, a slithery scratching sound worked its way down the back door. Thinking one of my upstairs patrons needed something, I opened the back door, and no one was there.

I mentioned the strange noises once to a plumber who had come to work on the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. He not so politely told me that perhaps I should open a window or two, because the paint fumes were obviously getting to me. But I was not the only one to hear them. A contractor who came in to do some electrical work turned to me and said, “I don’t know how you can stay here all hours of the night. I hear people who aren’t there walking around all the time down here.”

I began to wonder who exactly would be renting this haunted space—and wondering if the new tenants would stay for long. One afternoon I got my answer: the lady of the house came down to check my progress, and mentioned that the space was going to be a short-term rental space only. Specifically the downstairs would be rented to doctors, who come from out of town for short stays at a local hospital from one to four weeks.

I remember musing to myself at the time that the doctors had better be cardiologists.

The Willink House

426 E. St. Julian Street

The small house located on the northwest corner of Price and St. Julian Streets, built in 1845, is unusual because it is so well-traveled. It was originally built for Henry F. Willink, but it stood just south of Oglethorpe Avenue, at the corner of Price and Perry Streets. It was moved later to its present location. The structure is indicative of a type of building that was popular from the late 18th to mid 19th century in Savannah: small, simple, and mobile if need be.

Henry Willink was a shipbuilder, and lived in the house for roughly ten years. He is an important figure in Savannah’s history because he served as one of the chief contractors in Savannah whose services provided ships for the fledgling Confederate Navy. When the C.S. Navy was formed, the Secessionists had not one single ship. But Willink helped change all that, and quickly helped build the Confederates a fighting force with his shipyards. He built two of the three ironclad vessels produced in Savannah. Unfortunately, the technology of building ironclad warships was so new, that while the armored ships were impressive to view, the seaworthiness and effectiveness were less than satisfactory.

The first ironclad produced in the Willink shipyard, the C.S.S. Georgia, was so heavily armored and underpowered that she could scarcely move. She had to be towed into position, and was much more effective as a floating battery than as a fighting ship. But Willink should not shoulder the blame for the vessel’s shortcomings; this was an experimental technology, and was called “The Ladies Gunboat”, not because of any perceived shortcomings to the craft, but because she was paid for by $115,000 raised by the Ladies’ Gunboat Association. The problems with Willink’s vessels were common amongst the new ironclads, be they produced by the North or South.

The second (and last) ironclad produced by Willink’s shipyards was a monster called the C.S.S. Savannah. While fearsome in her armament, she was also brutal on her crew. One sailor wrote of the conditions aboard another ironclad, which is indicative of the experiences of all Confederate sailors forced to live aboard such ships: “There is no ventilation at all. I would defy anyone in the world to tell when it is day or when night if he is confined below without any way of marking time... I would venture to say that if a person were blindfolded and carried below and turned loose he would imagine himself in a swamp, for the water is trickling in all the time and everything is so damp.” This would be a sign of of the conditions of the seagoing iron monsters produced by Willink, as well. The Savannah was destroyed by Rebel seamen to avoid her capture by Union forces in late 1864.

The occupying Union forces charged Willink with aiding the enemy. Mr. Willink freely admitted to that charge, which so impressed the authorities that they let him go.

“...she took a misstep and plunged into the swift Savannah current.”

Tragedy in the Shipyards

While Willink had a successful career making ships for the Confederate Navy, one area of his life still pained him: his wife’s death in a visit to the shipyards years before. While visiting him aboard ship, she took a misstep and plunged into the swift Savannah current. Unable to swim, she drowned. Her death was a tragic and senseless accident.

Henry was devastated. He absorbed himself in his work, often times pacing the floor of his little cottage. He sometimes left for work at odd hours, slamming the door to his house and trudging down to the river to work out his frustrations in the middle of the night.

It has been previously reported that the small cottage would sometimes be the scene of this nocturnal ritual of Mr. Willink’s: from time to time the phantom sound of the door slamming shut has been heard, by neighbors and passersby, when no one can be seen leaving the dwelling. This occurred before the house was moved to its present location in 1964—perhaps the change in scenery has calmed the nervous energy, or perhaps Mr. Willink has finally found the peace that eluded him so many years before. Or is it possible that the two lovers are rejoined?

A Place of Learning

However, it is from the time period after Willink owned the house that some residual energy still lingers. In the years before the Emancipation Proclamation, it was considered illegal to teach slaves to read or write. It has been said that the house became an illicit school for African-American children in the years spanning from 1855 to just before the outbreak of the Civil War. A white female teacher began teaching the slaves to read and basic math skills, even though this was prohibited by law at the time. She taught the slave children to calculate by using sweets, which if added properly became that child’s reward for solving the problem correctly.

She was eventually found out, and was given an option by the authorities: she could face arrest and a fine, or she could leave town. Either way, her school was gone forever. The teacher reluctantly agreed to leave the city, and she bade farewell to her students and departed Savannah, never to return. This sad chapter of American history faded into the past.

Or did it? Subsequent owners have reported finding sweets moved from their kitchen into other areas of the house such as the living room. Those same bits of candy have been found arranged into what appear to be rows of simple mathematical problems. Could the essence of these children be revisiting the house they knew as a school so many years before? Could they be engaging in that familiar activity, perhaps hoping to receive those same remembered rewards?

This house has known tragedy in the form of Henry Willink’s ill-fated wife, but the greater tragedy is those children, denied a proper education because of ignorance and racism. Maybe those young ones make an appearance from time to time to let us know that they have not forgotten their lessons, or their teacher’s kindness. It seems the education they received taught them math and writing skills, but the lesson they had taken to heart was their teacher’s compassion.

Rene Rondolia

Foley’s Alley (near East Broad)

The often-told story of Rene Rondolia (some add the surname ‘Asch’), the seven-foot killer who is said to have terrorized Savannah in the early days of the 1800’s, is a tale that has become a Savannah tradition. Many different versions have been told throughout the years. Some have likened the story to a real-life monster, elaborating on the central theme of Mary Shelley’s misunderstood (and fictitious) killer in her seminal book Frankenstein. Others have compared him to Lenny, from Steinbeck’s classic book Of Mice and Men. But exactly how much truth does this story contain? And does it really have ties to classic literature?

The Legend

If you were to take a ghost tour in Savannah, you’d likely hear a variation of the following story:

On the far eastern side of Savannah in the early 1800’s, there was an area that used to be known as Foley’s Alley, existing near East Broad Street around Warren and Washington Squares. It was the blue-collar district, where the tradesmen (carpenters, shipbuilders, iron workers, brick masons, etc.) lived. The terror began there, because in September 1804 a doctor was summoned in the middle of the night to Foley’s Alley to deliver a child. Now in those days, doctors did not deliver children; that was a job for midwives. But this woman, Marie, was in agony. She had been in labor for 3 days, and she began begging for the doctor.

The doctor arrived, and had no idea what to do for this woman. He had to perform a very crude form of surgery on Marie that night. He had to break that poor woman’s pelvis in order to deliver her child. A lot of whiskey was doubtlessly involved-- both for her, and for the doctor. The reason he had to break her pelvis is because her child weighed in at nearly sixteen pounds. Rene Rondolia came into the world under strange circumstances that evening.

Rene was a big baby. He grew into an even bigger boy. At the age of 15, he stood at over seven feet tall, and weighed over three hundred pounds. Simple-minded, he spoke no English. He knew a few French phrases he learned from his mother, who was descended from a French Huguenot. Rene roamed the back lanes and streets of Foley’s Alley at night. He didn’t understand right from wrong, or concepts such as ‘dead’ and ‘alive’. He would catch animals-- cats, small dogs, or squirrels, anything he could get his hands on-- and play with them. Because he didn’t know his own strength, he would break their necks.

The people of Foley’s Alley tolerated Rene Rondolia. But this changed when the body of a young child was found on Warren Square, the western edge of Foley’s Alley. Her neck was broken. General consensus was that Rene had caught this young girl and murdered her. The people of Foley’s Alley, already angry over the great fire that had devastated Savannah in 1820, dragged him to Warren Square, where they hanged him from a live oak on the southwest corner. The tree that they used still stands today. It took several men to haul Rene off of the ground, and it took a long time for Rene to strangle on the rope. His neck did not break.

Imagine the shock and horror of those people responsible for the execution of Rene when those child killings continued into 1821. Was it Rene? Could he have come back from the grave and continued to kill? Or did they put an innocent person to death?

Many people, including several prominent Savannah citizens, have reported seeing someone walking out at night in Foley’s Alley. This person is reported to be over seven feet tall, and when he reaches Warren Square, he will look to the tree on the southwest corner of the square and then fade from sight. Others have reported seeing just a hulking shadow moving across the grass.

So How Much Of This Is True?

How much of this terrifying story is true? Did a real-life golem once lurk the streets of Savannah, murdering animals and small children?

In short: no, Rene was not a real person. I hate to be harsh, but the story is entirely made up. A thorough search of the historical record supports none of the wild tales told about this supposed murderer of kiddies and kittens. Every historian I asked about this particular ghost story had the same thing to say, namely: “It never happened.” One history professor in particular asked that it not be included in this volume, and when pressed for a reason, she explained that the last name ‘Asch’ was the name of a prominent Jewish family in Savannah, and to tack their name on the end was disrespectful, or worse. But I am confident that it is more instructive to discredit the story, instead of simply omitting or ignoring it. I have found in the past that to leave out stories that I know to be false simply encourages unscrupulous guides to fictionalize.

As I referenced before, some storytellers have credited the story of Rene Rondolia as being an influence on Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. The story goes that Shelley met Joseph Bevan, Savannah socialite and historian, through his friend and her father, William Godwin, and Bevan recounted the tale of Rene to Shelley. The problem is, there is no historical evidence to support this theory. In fact, Bevan visited Godwin during a time when Shelley and Godwin were estranged, so a meeting between the author and Bevan is unlikely. Shelley, oddly enough, dedicated the book to her father, and it shows his influence. Shelley never mentioned a Savannah connection to the book, not even in her journal. Since no serious scholar has ever made a connection between a bit of Savannah folklore and Mary Shelley’s work, one must, in the absence of other evidence, believe the experts: Shelley was influenced by her father, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. So even a claim that the fictional story of ‘Rene’ inspired some fiction is, itself, utter hogwash.

This tale is exactly that: a tale. Amongst Savannah folklore, this particular campfire tale is about as famous as the ‘bloody hook on the car door’. It was more than likely used to frighten children and warn them against the dangers of staying out too late. Credit the story of the ponderous and deadly Rene with inspiring more sleepless nights on camping trips than any other story in Savannah.

Isaiah Davenport House

324 East State Street

On the northwest corner of Columbia Square sits the Isaiah Davenport House, a beautiful brick example of Federal-Style architecture. Built on or around 1820, the Davenport House was originally constructed as a private residence, but serves the community today as a house museum. However, according to members of the staff, some of the previous occupants, both two and four-legged, are still quite comfortable in the house.

The Davenport House stands as not only a jewel of period architecture, it is also a testament to the determination of several prominent Savannahian ladies, who saved the house from demolition in 1955. Their efforts to save the house from the wrecking ball formed the nucleus of the Historic Savannah Foundation, an organization largely responsible for the preservation and conservation of Savannah’s Historic District.

A spectral feline is seen from time to time in this house museum.

Historic Buildings, and Historic Foundations

Isaiah Davenport was born in Little Compton, Rhode Island in 1784. Little is known about Davenport’s early years, though he likely served as a carpenter’s apprentice under his father. The Great Fire of 1796 and shipping boom related to the invention of the cotton gin caused a need in Savannah for experienced carpenters, so when he was twenty-three, Davenport moved to the growing seaport where he began constructing houses as early as 1808. He met Sarah Rosamund Clark shortly thereafter and the two married, with the first of their ten children born in 1810.

Davenport’s buildings appealed to conservative Savannahians, and he soon found himself at the head of a successful business. He took on carpenters to help him with various building projects, including fencing around the squares, and constructing numerous homes throughout the city. Davenport bought and sold several lots in the city and grew wealthy enough to own ten slaves.

In 1827, at the age of forty-three, Isaiah Davenport contracted yellow fever and died. He only lived in his beautiful home for seven years. His wife Sarah was a widow at age thirty-nine. She ran the home as a boarding house for a number of years. The house served as a private residence and was then sectioned off in the 1890’s into apartments, which quickly grew into a tenement house. The condition of the building declined, as did much of the downtown area of Savannah. At one point there were thirteen families living inside the structure.

In 1955, plans were made to raze the Davenport House to make way for a parking lot. A group of seven women fought to save the house from destruction, and succeeded mere hours before it was scheduled for demolition. It was renovated and finally opened to the public in 1963, quickly becoming one of Savannah’s most popular house museums. And as for the Historic Savannah Foundation, what originally began as a women’s club with only seven members managed to become one of the most important preservation organizations in the United States.

Ghost Kitties and Ghost Kiddies

There have been stories circulating about a previous occupant who appears unwilling to leave the former home, but this former resident is of the feline variety. A spectral orange and white tabby cat (some refer to it as being yellow) has been seen either entering or living within the house, both when this house was a tenement and later as a museum. The museum has a strict no-pet policy, but apparently the rules do not apply to the ghost cat at the Davenport House. The museum has embraced their special four-legged haunting, as there is now a plush ghost cat doll available in the downstairs gift shop. The furtive feline has been seen in several rooms by different members of the staff, often times darting from room to room, and seems to have a special connection to the very young. Children have been known to call a cat that no one else can see, and one child was seen stroking the air, as if petting an unseen kitty cat.

On a different note, a misty gray vapor has been seen in the gift shop, a shape decidedly human rather than catlike. Disembodied footsteps have been both heard and felt in the downstairs, as well.

There have also been reports of a little girl in period dress who has been seen playing with a ball on the top floor. She was seen by a tourist, who promptly asked her guide whether the historical reenactors were part of the tour. The tour guide, puzzled, asked her group if anyone else had seen a little girl, and several people on the tour raised their hands. A search for the girl turned up nothing but empty rooms. This same girl has been reportedly seen by tours on the outside of the house—including Savannah Haunted History Tour guide Rhett Coleman in the fall of 2002. “I had just led my tour up to the house, and was about to begin the story of the Davenport House when a woman on my tour pointed to the upper windows. She asked, ‘Who is that little girl in the upstairs of the house?’. I turned my head to see, and I did catch a glimpse of white in the window before it, or she, disappeared.”

The Davenport House stands as a testament to the preservation and conservation of the city by forward-thinking and concerned citizens. Is it really so farfetched to think that the house, tied so intimately to the fabric of downtown’s character, could have done some preserving of its own? Perhaps the spirits of those who have passed on have come back to show their approval of Savannah’s love of their former home.

Today, the Davenport House operates as a house museum, and is available for touring.

Kehoe House

123 Habersham Street

On one edge of Columbia Square sits the massive Kehoe House, built in 1892 for William Kehoe. The Queen Anne style mansion was built as the Kehoe residence, and it showcased what William was known for in Savannah: iron. What else would the owner of an ironworks foundry use to adorn his house but cast iron railings, Corinthian columns, porches, balconies, and window moldings? The house was built for the sum of $25,000.

William Kehoe is fondly remembered by his granddaughter, Anne C. Rizert, in a November, 1969 issue of the Savannah News Press Magazine. She remembered him as “a small person but he stood tall because he had that intangible presence of a man who recognizes his own worth, knowing it was God’s graceful gift.” She goes on to say that “he was very young when he became involved in the Civil War... he had the misfortune to be poor and on the losing side but this was irrelevant to him. Irishmen always seemed to fight well for lost causes.”

Perhaps his poor Irish upbringing explains why he was so fair with his workers. One amusing story involves a worker named Woodrow, who was a ‘jack of all trades’ for the Kehoe family for many years. Woodrow had a weakness for strong drink which often landed him at the Brown Farm, a now-defunct work farm for misdemeanor offenders. Mr. Kehoe went looking for Woodrow one day at the Brown, and no one was sentenced there by that name. There was, however, someone named ‘Kehoe’, which of course Woodrow had used as a pseudonym. Rather than being insulted, Kehoe was touched that Woodrow would think enough of him to adopt him.

The Kehoe family was very large—ten children in all. This number may not include stillborn babies, or children who died while very young.

For a while it was a private residence, but it spent the majority of the 20th century as a funeral home. Today, it is a bed and breakfast.

“...suddenly the door unlocked and opened by itself.”

Tragic End for Twins?

A persistent story, perhaps legend and perhaps not, told about the Kehoe family is that twins were born into the Kehoe family, and that they supposedly died while playing in a chimney in one of the rooms. The fireplaces have all been blocked up, and decorated with angels—perhaps symbolizing the lost children. A series of hauntings have been attributed to these children. Guests on the second floor have often heard children’s laughter and small footsteps running down the hall. Some guests have even complained the next morning to the front desk, not realizing that children are strongly discouraged from staying in such a prestigious inn. Even if the rumors of the twins dying in the fireplace are not true, it would not be unusual for the sounds of children’s feet running down the halls at the Kehoe House, given the size of the Kehoe clan.

Many of the stories in the house center on rooms 201 and 203. A guest of room 201 said she awoke in the middle of the night after feeling someone softly stroking her hair and cheek. Thinking that it was her husband, she opened her eyes to find a young child caressing her face—a child who then vanished. No word on whether or not her screams woke her husband. In room 203, two sisters had an odd occurrence. One awoke feeling as if someone was sitting next to her. When she opened her eyes, she saw that her sister was sound asleep on the other side of the room, but there was an impression of someone unseen sitting right next to her on the bed!

Even the staff has had some strange incidents. A member of the front desk staff claims that the doorbell rang one day, even though she could clearly see that no one was there through the beautiful cut-glass door. She ignored this, thinking perhaps that it was a wiring problem. The doorbell rang a second and then a third time. She was about to call for maintenance when suddenly the door unlocked and opened by itself. She found that not only had that happened with the front door, but it had happened to all the outside doors in the house. Apparently she was dealing with a ghost that did not like to be kept waiting.

William Kehoe had a weakness for cupolas, the peaked top to buildings which can serve as lookouts. His granddaughter Anne theorized that it was perhaps his way of “being the lord of all he surveyed. His cottage at Tybee, his foundry, [and] his home all had one and it was his private preserve for meditation and escape.” This may explain why the cupola’s window light in the Kehoe House is frequently burning long after dusk. The staff professes no desire to go up into the drafty rafters of the old house, so perhaps it is William, once again feeling like the lord of all creation.

One night a tour guide was passing by the northern side of the Kehoe House with her tour group, and she heard the voice of a little boy, who said, “Play... come play with me.” She simply assumed that she was imagining things, until a member of her tour cried out, “Oh my God, did you just hear that?” The guide simply turned back towards her tour and smiled—it was not the first time strange things had happened on one of her tours. All of the tourgoers had heard the disembodied voice of the small boy.

Perhaps the scariest story involving the Kehoe House has nothing to do with ghosts. The house was bought in 1980 by Joe Namath, former New York Jets quarterback (and celebrated pitchman for pantyhose). The persistent rumor is that ‘Broadway Joe’, as he was called, planned on turning the Kehoe House into nightclub and disco. The residents around Columbia Square voiced an outcry, and the planned nighttime hotspot never materialized. The conservative families around Columbia Square apparently did not have Boogie Fever, and there is a chance they would have turned Joe Namath’s nightclub into a Disco Inferno. However, as an investment for Namath, the house did very well: bought in 1980 for $80,000, the house sold in 1989 for $530,000.

One other chilling point about the Kehoe House: they’ve kept a tradition from when it was a funeral home. The room where breakfast is served each and every morning is still to this day called the Viewing Room.

17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant

307 East President Street

Every tour guide in Savannah has their own version of the tale of ghostly Anna at the 17Hundred90 Inn and Restaurant. I could write an entire book just transcribing the varied (and remarkably different) story offerings of perhaps this city’s most famous ghost story. This is a ballad of lost love, and either suicide or murder, depending on the version. But regardless of the variations, Steele White’s bride Anna always winds up dead after exiting a window the hard way, plummeting to her death from the third floor. The story, as told in books and on tours for as long as anyone can remember, goes something like this:

Steele White was a wealthy older merchant who also owned an inn called 17Hundred90. He couldn’t find a wife, so he imported a child bride named Anna from Ireland. Anna was less than happy about the arrangement, however, and resisted his advances. Angry over this rejection, White locked her in room 204. He planned to keep her captive in the room until the wedding. Anna grew so despondent over this that she hurled herself out of the window, killing herself rather than being chattel to such a twisted man. Now the still-despondent ghostly Anna haunts the room, sobbing and weeping.

Other versions omit the marriage angle, and simply state that Anna (who in this account is just a servant) had a love affair with a sailor, and wound up killing herself when he never returned for her. The problem with all of these Anna stories is that there is nearly zero documented historical evidence to back up any of it, despite that it has become one of Savannah’s most popular ghost yarns. So how, as a lover of history, was I to tell a tale as fact when I strongly suspected that the underlying ‘history’ was fiction?

When telling the ‘Anna’ story, the uneasy compromise I had previously reached in terms of reconciling telling the above version as true was to tell the legends as exactly that: legends. After all, people love a good story, whether that tale is the Parson Weems’ concoction of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree or one such as Anna. And her yarn is one that is more about the time period, and less about the people purported to be involved.

The scarcity of evidence did not stop me from trying to learn the truth about 17Hundred90: I had been trying for years without measurable success to pierce the veil of history and find the real story of Anna and Steele White. So which of these versions are true? Which are fiction? The answer is not as easy as you might think. For a tale so often told, the facts seemed to be scant to none when the sometimes harsh light of historical research was turned upon it. And it is there, where the edge of that glare turns to shadow that I was most uncomfortable as a writer. The historian in me wants to puncture the old myths; the storyteller wants to embrace them. I began to doubt that I would ever know the truth of what transpired, or who those people really were. But all that changed one rainy August afternoon, when I was surprised by a dead man who had answers.

The site of the famous Savannah ghost, Anna.

Real People Can Be Ghosts, Too: Ask Any Researcher

Every aspect of this story, research-wise, is a literal nightmare: while sifting this data I suffered from bad dreams about the headache-inducing lack of historical info regarding this property. In these nightmares I was literally ensnarled and held fast by conflicting documents. Records for the Inn conflict or don’t exist; and, depending on the source, there are many dates attached to this structure’s alleged construction, all of which cannot be correct. I desperately sought the truth about the 17Hundred90 amid all the folklore.

I spent many hours sitting at the Georgia Historical Society, wanting to pound my head on the oak table (I found that this is frowned upon). The data I was getting seemed too jumbled for me to ever make any sense of it. But the confusion of official records is not unusual for this city. Savannah has burned almost completely several times (along with our records and ledgers), and we’re also famous for misplacing things—just ask General Nathanael Greene, Count Casmir Pulaski, or Declaration of Independence signer Button Gwinnett. We mislaid all of their bodies at one time or another, so if we can’t even keep track of our heroes you can understand how it would be easy to lose a file or two. I’ll do my best to sort the history of the building out here, but be prepared to be confused (as I still am).

The structure, which is actually several adjoining houses, is named after the year 1790. It’s a romantic notion of a quaint 18th century wooden little boarding house that is probably wrong. There was a building there that was likely built in that year, sure, but it succumbed to fire, an all-too-common fate of the time period, leaving behind only the slate floors and brick first level (how much is open to conjecture). A couple of sources list the basement as what survived the fire, which in Savannah is not the same as the first floor, so records here too are not very clear. The whole place could have been razed by the flames and rebuilt using some materials which survived the blaze.

I also need to point out that the structure is part of Columbia Ward, which was laid out along with its trust and tything lots in 1799. The house sits on a southwest tything lot aligned with the plan of the square, so did the house precede the square? And if so, why is it in the configuration of the square’s design? So the more correct name for the property might well be the 17Hundred90’s-ish Inn. Do you see why this is frustrating to a researcher?

Even the wooden upper floors of the house inspire confusion. One section fronts onto Lincoln Street, and the other on President Street, and these were obviously built at differing times. Some records indicate the original date (1790) for both structures, and other records say 1820, 1821- 1823, or even 1824. I finally turned to the book Historic Savannah, by Mary Morrison; the information contained within that volume is considered to be almost Biblical when it comes to finding dates and names associated with historic buildings in Savannah. Even here I was disappointed: the date listed for the section facing Lincoln Street is 1821-23, and the house fronting President Street is 1888!

The Elusive White, or ‘Steele’ Crazy After All These Years

Anyway, back to the year 1790, and what we can piece together. In a year marked by the election of our first mayor and city council, an edifice was built on that spot. It served as either a home or inn or some combination of the two, until it burned at an unknown date in the early part of the 19th century. The wooden structure was built atop the brick and slate foundation for Steele White, who was, as near as I can tell, originally from Virginia. But before we get into his personal history, let me first recount how he is painted in the various legends or versions of this story.

Many of the stories involving White begin with him as a wealthy planter. This might be true, to some degree, although all the records I found indicate he was involved in the family shipping business and was later a judge. The stories also describe him being an older man, which is definitely not true. He was born in 1784 and died in 1823. So Steele White actually died before the age of forty, which even in that time period was not considered to be advanced in years. In nearly all of the versions Anna enters the picture as an arranged bride, much younger than White. One (shall we say extremely fanciful?) retelling put the age of the bride at barely 14 years old. And these arranged or more precisely forced marriages did routinely take place (in fact, they are still legal in this country. Anyone 16 years of age and older can marry freely, and under that age requires a court order). But most of these stories put Steele White marrying Anna in the very early 1820’s. But seeing as how White was already married this would be difficult to say the least. He was married in 1810 to Ann Matthews Guerard. But she’s certainly not the ‘Anna’ from the ghost story any more than I’m James Brown, the Godfather of Soul—sharing a first name doesn’t make anyone the same person. And the extreme lack of similarity between Mr. Brown and I (my funkadelia notwithstanding) is the same extent that Ann M. White most certainly does not resemble the wretched servant girl ‘Anna’ so often spoken of in these ghost tales. Many guides describe Steele White as abusing the practically-enslaved Anna, and some even claim that he murdered her after noticing some flirtations with a sailor. But there is no truth whatsoever to White being Anna’s murderer. Why not? He died just as the house was completed, so him abusing and ultimately killing his ‘servant girl bride’ in the house is impossible. But more on his death later.

We’ve answered a lot of questions about who Steele White wasn’t, namely a murderer, abuser, or polygamist. But who was Steele White, really? As a researcher, he eluded me for a very long time. I managed to piece together that he was a leading businessman in Savannah, and was the representative for the family mercantile house in the city. He also was a vocal critic of the practice of dueling. This account comes from the 1819 Chatham County archives in which White served as foreman of the jury in a trial over a duel:

Regarding duels, even when death resulted, as “purely private affairs”, the Savannah newspapers refrained from noting them. But the frequency of their occurrence is once more made apparent by the action of the Grand Jury in January, 1819, of which Steele White was foreman. In its presentments it unveiled the situation locally: “The frequent violations of the law to prevent duelling have made the practice fashionable and almost meritorious among its chivalrous advocates. We will express it as our opinion that the law has been violated in repeated instances with impunity, when a knowledge of the cases were, or have been, known to its constituted guardians, and in the next instance the character of our city was wantonly disregarded, the laws of social order and of the state unblushingly set at defiance. Viewing the subject, as we do, of such magnitude, we deem it our duty to present the negligence and indifference of the officers whose duty it is to take cognizance of such matters as proper subjects of which to make examples.”

White was also recognized as a president of Savannah’s Union Society, a social organization which was also dedicated to helping the orphans at Bethesda orphanage. Judging from the other names on the list, this would have marked him as an extremely popular and wealthy man. Quite a different picture than the one painted of him by many of this city’s tour guides, wouldn’t you agree? Steele White’s historical record is one of helping the young and unfortunate, and today is ironically only remembered because of erroneous claims that he married and murdered a child.

Finally, A Steele Curtain Is Lifted

I was unsatisfied with this lack of information. I finally noticed an obscure reference while poking around for information online: The Colonial Dames at the Georgia Historical Society had compiled something called the Steele White Collection. Upon my request in writing to view the collection, a helpful staff member presented to me, without flourish, a box of papers in multiple separate files that had no writeup, preamble or description. All I knew is that they referenced White in some degree. I remember thinking that they would probably be a list of land holdings or transactions; at best I might find a ledger or a vague reference to the man in a letter. I could not have been more wrong.

I opened the file folder and saw a number of pale delicate yellowy-brown letters handwritten in a flowery, sensitive scrawl. I gingerly unfolded the one on top and found that I could not take a breath. I had found not just the personal papers of the dead man I had sought for so long, but the most intimate thing a person could possibly set to paper: I had stumbled across a bundle of love letters that Steele White had penned to his wife, Ann Matthews White. My seven year search was over.

Difficult to read, both in terms of ink soaking the pages and the florid language of the day, what struck me right off the bat was the intense immediacy of these letters. These are not measured and carefully formal notes, as these types of historical letters so frequently are; but instead it feels very much like a conversation. They always begin the same way: My darling wife. These letters are written over a span of nearly thirteen years (and numbering nearly twenty in all) and mailed from all over Georgia. White apparently traveled a great deal, whether for the family business or his work as a judge I cannot determine, and he also sent his wife and children away during a time of sickness (probably yellow fever) in Savannah’s dreadful late summer months.

I kept feeling the sensation that I was doing something wrong, that somehow this glimpse into the world of two lovers was ill-gained. I felt oddly guilty just looking through the communications between the Whites, no matter how long I had sought this firsthand account. He wrote of his longing to be with her, and how much he missed their children; but he wrote most often of how much he anticipated her letters in response to him, which sadly were not contained in the treasure trove of files. It is entirely possible that Ann’s letters did not survive.

“Time Hangs Heavy On Us Both…”

As I stated earlier, the tale of Steele White and ‘Anna’ is a famous Savannah story. This section that you’re about to read is admittedly pretty heavy on history, so if you are not interested in learning about the real people named Anna and Steele, go ahead and skip ahead to the section labeled: ‘The Differing Legends’. But I wanted to lay out the history I uncovered in an effort to right some historical wrongs. The Whites have had a historical backstory attached to their name which has been not just exaggerated, but completely fabricated. This is an attempt to correct that historical disservice. The more information that I bring to light regarding these two very real people, the less wiggle-room other authors and tour guides have to get this great story wrong.

The first record we have is dated from 1810, and is a legal document pertaining to the Whites’ marriage. This paper is a somewhat sad reminder that Steele White was a man of his time in all respects, meaning as a businessman in Savannah during that time period he would deal directly in slaves, both buying and selling. The document in question is an agreement that Ann White, upon entering into marriage with Steele, would retain possession of six slaves. The document goes on to list various conditions pertaining to ownership of these slaves depending on whether Steele or Ann survived their spouse. These types of documents were quite common, and being so quick on the heels of their marriage it indicates that these slaves were very likely a wedding gift to the new couple from Ann’s brother, Peter Guerard, and his business partner, Dr. William Parker (both are listed in the document). Steele White had extensive financial dealings with both men. This is a noteworthy document because it disproves the fanciful folklore regarding Ann being bartered off by her family to the supposedly much-richer White. This would be unlikely since Steele White was the recipient of a valuable gift (the slaves) upon marrying Ann: if he were the wealthier party, wouldn’t the gifts be going the other way? Ann clearly comes from money since she is the granddaughter of past Governors of South Carolina on both sides of her family (John Matthews and Benjamin Guerard).

This legal paper of 1810 is of special interest because it is the only time we have a direct connection to Ann M. White, literally firsthand. She signed her name right beneath her new husband’s.

Our next document is the first letter on record between the Whites, dated August 19th, 1813. The letter is authored by Steele White to Ann, who was in Augusta, Georgia with the children to escape what was probably an outbreak of yellow fever. To our modern sensibility, Augusta is roughly two hours distant or so by automobile from Savannah, but in those days it was a considerable journey. Steamships had not gained wide use at that time, and these two cities would not have steamer service between them until 1816. There was also no railway line between the two cities, and one would not exist until the mid 1800’s. To reach Augusta you would have to sail against the considerable current of the Savannah River, or attempt to make the journey via the stagecoach. So to Steele White, it may have felt as if his wife and small children were on the dark side of the moon instead of just a few counties away.

In his letter reproduced in part here, Steele records his feelings of loneliness and worry for his wife and children (illegible or unknown words struck out). It is a gripping moment:

My dear Wife,

I anxiously awaited the arrival of the stage yesterday to hear from you my love; and how disappointed was I when I found the offices shut, and I had to go home and indulge in a thousand different fears and feelings, until I got your letter this morning!

You can easily picture to yourself, my dear wife, what were my feelings on opening and seeing it was from you, by your own, under the same circumstances.

Your husband my love, will use every forecaution and care to keep well. I am now hearty, and what will contribute much to keep me so, as well as to reconcile me to our separation, is the knowledge of your and our dear children keeping well—that you not only keep well, my dear wife, but that you are entirely comfortable and more reconciled. Time hangs heavy on us both my precious wife; and only thou who know, and feel the happiness that we experience together, can form any notable idea of what real happiness consists; but as temporary privations heighten enjoyment, this partial separation will only tend, my dear wife, to endear us more to each other, and to our little children. The fears which prevail’d before you went up have nearly subsided, indeed I have very little express’d.

Several letters written from Steele to Ann during the War of 1812 reflect the growing apprehension of a possible invasion of coastal Georgia by the British. He is listed as a Colonel, although it is still unclear in which unit he served, and his knowledge of the coastal defenses seems to confirm his military rank. He mentions rumors of landings by British troops. It is unclear, really, which military operations Col. White was referring to in his letters to Ann—it could be in regards to the actual British occupation of Cumberland Island and St. Mary’s (approximately 100 miles to the south of Savannah) in late 1814, or it could be a mistaken report. Remember that this was a time before the internet, cell phones, land lines or even the telegraph; an erroneous report could be mistaken for fact for weeks if not months because information disseminated so slowly. The fog of war does not strictly refer to the battlefield, especially in those early days of this country’s troubled adolescence. It does bear pointing out that if White was indeed writing about the British forces in St. Mary’s, he had every reason to be worried: the English plan was yes, to target Savannah for occupation, and soon. The only thing that spared the city from invasion was the Treaty of Ghent, which effectively ended the War of 1812 before the attack could take place.

The file containing info on Steele White also contained another surprise: a stirringly patriotic speech which was to be read on July 4th. The speech was bound together, and handwritten by White. This discovery in the archives completes the indignity heaped on an innocent man: the supposed killer of a young girl was in fact a patriot who spent his spare time helping orphans. To call this man a murderer besmirches his military service and later legal career.

The final letter is the most powerful. Dated December 9th, 1822, just a few months before his death, he ends with the following paragraph (all of the punctuation is faithful to the original):

“Kiss my dear children for your husband; and make my respect to all my ----------- I was about to say friends; but this is altogether nominal; and I am disposed to believe that there is no such thing as friendship, in reality, existing, but with you, our children and your husband.”

This is the final surviving communication between the two; perhaps the last ever. This final letter in the file is stained with what appears to be water droplets, but I have to raise the possibility that could it be Ann’s tears.

Steele White’s death was reported in the local paper, the Georgian, sometime in the spring of 1823. The death records kept by the City of Savannah, recorded in an elegant longhand, list his death as resulting from a fall from a horse on March 30th, 1823, while in Virginia. He was thirty-eight years old.

Ann outlived her husband by almost forty years, contradicting the popular legend which has sprung up in recent years. After Steele White passed away, records become even more spotty for Ann. Several prominent properties would have passed to her when he died, but there is no indication as to what happened to the land or to the woman herself, other than a few glimpses. Ann almost certainly had several more children but there is no mention of her second husband’s name; there is a collection of names listed in connection with hers, but it is unclear how many of these are offspring or simply relatives. The sparse records add to rather than clear up the mystery.

There are a couple of letters from her lawyer which reference transactions where Ann sold some slaves or property to settle debts. No indication of her state of mind or happiness is offered or hinted, which is not surprising since these were largely legal discussions. Life for widows was hard in those days, and it is unclear whether she ran her own affairs, entrusted her considerable estate to a designee (her brother?) or lost a good portion of her assets for reasons unknown. Any speculation would be exactly that: simple speculation.

Ann M. White passed away in December of 1861. Her cause of death is officially listed as ‘softening of the brain’, which probably refers to a series of increasingly-debilitating strokes, or an abscess. She is buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery, located a few miles outside Savannah’s Historic District. There is no accompanying grave for Steele White beside her in Laurel Grove, meaning he was very likely buried in Colonial Park Cemetery, since Laurel Grove did not open until the 1850’s. His records have been lost over time (along with the tombstone). Regardless of her early widowhood, the real story is a far better end than the one conjured for her by many storytellers. Instead of being murdered young by a mostly fictionalized husband, she lived a long life, and had many offspring.

The Differing Legends

Now that we’ve laid the Steele White connection to rest, we move on to other variants. Just for consistency’s sake I will still call her ‘Anna,’ because it is entirely possible that the ghost at 1790 does indeed have the first name of Anna, despite me proving earlier that the ghost is not Ann M. White. It is a pretty common first name, after all, then and now.

All of these stories centering on boarding-house helper Anna share one common theme: the girl plunging to her death from one of the windows from her room (now Room 204) which overlooks a brick courtyard. One version I sketched out earlier (sans Steele White) has Anna falling hard, if the pun can be excused, for a married sailor, and committing suicide when he leaves the port city. Pardon me for being blunt, but if this account is true, doesn’t this portray her as a less than sympathetic character? At the very least it would point to Anna being mentally ill. And a slight twist on that tale (this one from the inn’s own website) has her involved with the married sailor (a local boy this time), and whose vengeful wife pushes Anna out of the upstairs window (I like their phrasing: Anna “was helped ad finestra by the seaman’s jealous bride.”)

Yet another account has the young servant girl committing suicide when she becomes pregnant by a visiting seaman (no jokes, please) and he abandons her. This version at least makes sense from the standpoint that a woman already barely scraping by who found herself suddenly with child and abandoned would feel overwhelmed. She might have nowhere else to turn, and it is plausible that she might be tempted to end it all in a fit of despair.

Are any of the stories accurate? Did Anna truly meet her tragic end plunging to her death? No accounts verifying or disconfirming any of these various versions has turned up. This may be an instance of the ghost’s legend arising after the inn began to have supernatural activity, a case of the haunting spurring a story to explain it. Anyway, it’s a good legend, and every single version is entertaining and easy to relate to.

And what of the surname ‘Powers’ attached so often to our ghostly presence? Well, it may surprise you to find in a story so scant on verifiable facts that Anna Powers was a real person. The inn, as I mentioned earlier, was built in two sections: the Lincoln Street side and the President Street side. Room 204 is on the President Street side, which was built for one Anna Powers, the original owner of that building. This structure was completed in 1888, so if ghostly Anna did plunge to her death, it had to be in a different, earlier set of windows. The building we point to that contains Anna’s room simply did not exist for 65 full years after Steele White’s death. Undoubtedly at some point the facts got confused between Anna Powers and the servant girl, who may or may not have also been named Anna. It’s simply a case of there being too many Anns and Annas.

Room 204: Every Amenity, Even Ghosts

Room 204 has become the center of much of the spectral activity occurring at the 17Hundred90. Management at one time had a waiver form that guests would have to sign in order to stay in the room. The waiver stated that guests who stayed in room 204 would not be issued a refund if they left the Inn abruptly in the middle of the night. The waiver form policy has been discontinued because of the room’s incredible popularity with guests, mostly thrill-seekers or amateur ghost hunters. It is quite possibly the most popular room in Savannah, so people wishing to reserve the room for a night’s stay are urged to make their reservations far in advance—particularly around Halloween.

Guests who rent the room have reported feeling a feminine presence in the room, and have also reported than Anna likes new technology. She apparently enjoys playing with light switches, even waking some guests out of a sound slumber with her mischievous habit of turning the switches on in the middle of the night. This has been confirmed by many guests who stay in the room, including a man who claimed that the bathroom light kept turning on multiple times—on consecutive nights. In yet another strange instance, a couple staying in the room next door to 204 in May of 2004 claim to have videotaped a mysterious fog in the hallway.

Tour guide Missy Brandt had a couple on tour that was staying in that particular room. They expressed their disbelief in ghosts, but when they got to the 17Hundred90, the woman turned pale. She said, “Before we left to come out on tour, I turned the lights off in the sitting room, bedroom and bathroom.” She then pointed towards the windows, which were all ablaze with light. A young man took a digital photograph of the window, and a strange fog is evident in the image, as well as what appears to be a silhouette of a woman looking out of the window.

Anna has also been known, as the story goes, to ransack ladies bags and remove certain intimate items of apparel. One must remember that if the tales about Anna and sailors are true, she certainly must look her best. Anna will keep the undergarments if she likes them, but if she decides that they are not up to her standards she will return the items.

A couple of ladies from Atlanta visiting close to Christmas-time a few years back hadn’t heard the stories of Anna’s penchant for taking women’s undergarments. They left room 204 for a Christmas dinner, and when they returned they found that Anna had removed a few items—and the ladies blamed the staff of the hotel! The staff, trying to calm the women down, offered them a free drink downstairs in the tavern while the misunderstanding was sorted out. The two agreed, but halfway down the stairs leading to the first floor, the woman in the lead let out a scream. From her vantage point on the stairs, she could see the Christmas tree. Anna apparently didn’t like these ladies one bit, because she had done a bit of decorating on that tree, using a few ‘ornaments’ pulled from the women’s bags.

Sean’s Experience

According to some of the stories, Anna liked to pick up young men, but in only one instance does this become literal. A waiter named Sean Dunbrook claims to have had a supernatural occurrence in the hallway near the room from which Anna is reputed to have taken her plunge. He was asked to collect the meal cards (which guests use to indicate their in-room breakfast preference) off of the doorknobs of the rooms. As he was doing this, he felt a strange sensation. He felt cold, and he also felt as if he were being watched. He went down the third-floor hallway, the feeling growing more and more intense. “Suddenly I felt a force lifting me by my elbows off of the ground,” Sean insists. “I looked down and realized that my feet were six inches off of the floor.” His next recollection was of running down the hallway, unsure if his feet were even touching the carpet! He says he ran all the way down to the bottom level, running with no regard to his own safety. “To get to the ground floor, I had to run down a small metal spiral staircase. I was running so hard, I nearly flipped over the railing.” Sean’s tale was certainly hair- (and feet-) raising!

When Sean was interviewed by the Travel Channel, he was asked to conduct the meeting with the film crew in room 204, a request to which he agreed. When he attempted to enter the room, however, he found the doorway to the space inexplicably blocked by an invisible barrier. He paused outside of the doorway, unable to continue forward. The film crew, thinking he was having second thoughts about being on-camera, tried to coax him into the room. Sean had to explain that he literally could not walk into the room because of an impenetrable unseen barrier blocking his path. The film crew had to change their plans, and filmed the segment involving Sean’s interview downstairs, instead.

A Celebrity ‘Sighting’

Pop sensation and actress Miley Cyrus, along with her mother, stayed at the 17Hundred90 Inn in 2009 while filming the movie The Last Song. Miley and her mother requested the famous ‘haunted room’, and management obliged them. Apparently, Anna obliged the starlet and her mother as well, if what Miley reported (and took photographic evidence of) is true. While the pair were out of the room, someone removed the teen idol’s cowboy boots from her bag and placed them on top of the suitcase, leaving a clearly visible wet handprint on the leather. Rather than being frightened, Miley posted the images to social media site Twitter along with the explanation: “Look what Ana [sic] did (ghost in room 204) My boots were put on top of my suitcase & left with a handprint while I was out.”

A Tour Guide’s Story

Longtime tour guide Karl Kessler had a very strange occurrence on June 3rd, 2005. It was a dark and stormy night (yes, sometimes real ghost stories start out that way!), and Karl wasn’t worried about ghostly encounters. He was instead concerning himself with not getting his group struck by lightning, and was hurrying his tour past Colonial Park Cemetery (and the wrought iron fence, which would be a perfect natural lightning rod) on his way to the 17Hundred90. Suddenly three of his group froze, staring into the cemetery, mouths open. One of them pointed through the bars of the fence, and said, “Hey, did you see that woman?” Karl looked but saw nothing, but did note that the cemetery looked a trifle odd, but it was nothing he could put his finger on. The three insisted that they had seen a woman with long dark hair wearing a white gown step out from behind a burial vault, and then walked behind another vault, where she apparently vanished. It is worth noting that two out of the three had not even been drinking that evening, and the other had nursed a drink or two during the evening and would still be considered legally sober. Karl chalked it up to yet another unexplainable tour occurrence and continued the tour, not really thinking that much about it (this is how you know you’re getting to be an experienced guide: when you have a supernatural occurrence on your tour, and it seems like no big deal).

Karl did not understand the significance of what occurred until much, much later. He was running the tour on the 24th of that same month when he had another strange happening which was connected to the first. He told his story about Anna there at the 17Hundred90 that particular evening, and later in the evening a man on the tour came up to Karl and asked him “if he had any questions for Anna.” This man was apparently in communication with the spectral presence at the 17Hundred90, or so he claimed. Karl, half convinced that the guy was a ‘few fries short of a Happy Meal,’ decided to test him. He asked if the man could speak to Anna at that moment, and he said yes, and that Anna liked Karl, “and felt a connection as she might a brother.” The man went on to say (in between frequent pauses, as if listening to Anna) that Karl’s energy was too high to register her lower energy, although she had tried to show herself several times. She had even joined his group for a bit as she had that evening, wearing a white gown. Karl asked: “At the 17Hundred90?” The man said yes. Karl knew he could nail the guy as a charlatan with his next question: “Has Anna only tried to show herself at the 17Hundred90, or has she ever ventured away?” The man cocked his head to one side as if listening intently. After a long pause he said, “Generally she tries at the 17Hundred90, but she tried most recently at Colonial Park Cemetery.” Karl’s blood ran cold. He tried to appear nonchalant as he asked the man, when was this? “Oh, it was June 3rd of this year.” The man had correctly identified what had occurred on a tour he did not witness, and even nailed the date it happened! The only one who would know that information, it seems, is Anna herself.

Karl was so freaked out that he called me and debated quitting. I slowly talked him out of it, pointing out that nothing negative or frightening had happened to him. Besides, it’s nice to have friends on tour, even if they are spectral in nature.

Anna did have an encore performance just three days later. Karl was telling the Anna story at the 17Hundred90 when a couple who was having a drink in the bar at the time shared that they were staying in room 204. They graciously invited Karl and the entire tour upstairs to their room for a look, and as Karl was filling the group in on more of the Anna story, the door chain abruptly began to sway—and several tourgoers noticed it right away. Nothing else in the room was vibrating or swaying, just the chain. One skeptic decided to slap his hand down on it to make it stop swaying, but as soon as he took his hand off of it, the chain began to swing once again. Karl tried himself, gingerly stopping the sway and then slowly taking his hand away. The chain immediately began to swing back and forth once again. Karl at this point simply looked upwards and thanked Anna for her contribution to his story.

My Own ‘Happening’

Our strange occurrences aren’t limited just to Karl. One night I myself had my own experience at the bar, and before you make a wisecrack about it you need to know that it wasn’t a blonde, brunette or redhead. And I wasn’t even drinking.

I was feeling a tad under the weather on tour so I wasn’t interested in alcohol in the slightest: I just wanted to go home and go to bed. But I had a job to do, and on a drinking tour, tourgoers will actually get mad at you if you don’t have a beverage. So at an earlier stop I had convinced a bartender to put a little ginger ale, a little stir straw and a cherry down in a clear plastic cup, and this is what I carried around, giving the appearance of a cocktail to my guests. My ‘booze’ that evening was just a prop. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits except me: I was a little tired and increasingly sick, and although it was a fun crowd there seemed to be a bit of horseplay amongst the couples.

By the time we got to the 17Hundred90 I began to feel a little better, and continued to sip my ‘cocktail’. I felt a little weak, though, so in a quiet moment I leaned heavily on the bar. I would have grabbed a seat, but if you’ve ever tried easing into a chair while wearing a Confederate cavalry sword, authentic blackpowder pistol and haversack, then you know that sitting down really is an art form; it looks easy but sometimes there is a real trick while wearing all those accoutrements. So I decided it would be easier if I leaned forward, basically collapsing against the hard surface of the antique bar. That’s when I felt someone slip their finger under the thick black leather swordbelt near my spine. Whoever this was gave a hard tug which literally pulled me up to a standing position. I turned around, already smiling, to see which of my prankster guests had done this, but all of my tour guests were on the other side of the bar, and I was completely alone on my side. There was absolutely no one behind me.

I opened my mouth to call everyone’s attention to it, but decided against it. My reasons are murky even to myself now, but one of the factors is certainly that this time it was a tug, but next time it might be a hard shove or worse. I got the idea that this was a playful thing, but also a message that by leaning on the bar in that manner I was disrespecting the tavern. Whoever it was decided to show me that even in my condition, slouching was not acceptable.

Pennies, But Not From Heaven

Owner Patrick Godley reports a new presence in the inn: the spirit of a young boy, presumably a slave. Rather than being scary or harmful, this ghost is helpful. He returns lost pennies in inexplicable ways, such as dropping them from great heights when there is no one else around. Patrick claims to have been startled several times by pennies clattering down, and theorizes that the boy returns the lost money because slaves were not allowed to handle money without their master’s permission, since it could be used to try to escape.

Another, More Sinister Presence

All is not fun and games at the 17Hundred90. Several swear that there is another more sinister presence, this one in the kitchen. A former owner, Diane Greenfield Smith, claims that when she was in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, she felt a hard push to her back and heard a jangle of bracelets. The kitchen and bar staff claims that it is a former cook, an African American woman who was involved in voodoo. Stories abound that she does not like women to invade her kitchen, and will defend it with sometimes terrifying effectiveness.

The maintenance manager was working late one evening, repainting a room. Often times, work can only be done at night, since between the lunch and dinner crowd in the restaurant, and the breakfasts being served for the ‘bed & breakfasters’ upstairs, the staff has only a small window of time to work in certain areas. So this is how the manager found himself at 3 a.m. at the 17Hundred90 with a paintbrush in his hand. He was all alone, and yet, he heard muffled sobbing coming from the kitchen. He went to investigate, and paused at the kitchen door. The crying was definitely coming from that room, and it was clearly someone not authorized to be in that area. Not having access to a phone, the maintenance manager decided to enter the kitchen. He actually drew a knife to defend himself against the intruder, and walked into an empty kitchen. No one was there, and nothing was amiss—but he did hear a jangle of metal. Perhaps this was the bracelets of the former cook? Deciding the repainting could wait until another time (and when someone else would be there with him), the maintenance man decided to leave as quickly as possible.

Patrick Godley claims that occasionally pots will be heard banging together when the kitchen is supposedly deserted, a phenomenon which has apparently been happening for many years. A bartender working alone claims that she stepped into the kitchen to investigate the sound of pots clanking, and suddenly she felt a sting on her ear, almost as if she had been flicked or slapped. Yet another bartender, Lindsay, claims that she has experienced some strange things in the kitchen, as well. Bartenders often have their meals provided by the kitchen. She put in an order for crab cakes one night, one of her favorites and a specialty of the restaurant. Later, she saw her meal waiting on a kitchen table, with the ticket she had written. So she took the meal back up behind the bar and began to eat. The kitchen staff was very angry, because those cakes were intended for a waiting patron of the restaurant. No one remembered seeing an order placed by her, and no ticket was ever found, but Lindsay insists she wrote out the order, and found that ticket right next to her meal. “I saw it with my own two eyes when I walked back there, sitting there next to the plate. This is not the first time this has ever happened, and not just to me. It only happens to the girls that work here, not the men. Whatever the presence is in the kitchen, it hates women.”

On another occasion, a bartender expressed her dislike of a certain regular customer. He often insulted her and rummaged with his bare fingers through the fruit trays, a very unsanitary habit. Jokingly, she claimed to put a voodoo hex on him. Less than an hour later, the customer was involved in an accident that seemed to be minor, but he wound up developing complications from the injury, spending considerable time in the hospital. When the bartender was informed that the regular customer was seriously injured, she went very pale and promised not to make light of voodoo at the 17Hundred90—ever. “Maybe the voodoo cook was sending a message,” she said through stiff lips.

One evening, a former bartender named Lisa went around to the restaurant side of the building at the end of the night, flipping the switches to turn out the lights. Lisa could not reach the last switch, and turned away to get a chair to stand on. The light switch behind her flipped off on its own. Lisa stood there for a moment in the dark, considering her next move. Should she run? Finally, she decided that whoever or whatever had turned the light off was trying to be helpful. “Um, thank you,” she said, and left the room.

In another instance, one of the servers was asked by a diner if the restaurant was haunted. When she confirmed that yes, it was, the patron said that he had seen a man listening to the piano player who had suddenly disappeared from sight. One moment the man had been leaning against the brick pillars, and the next he had vanished.

One evening, a bartender and a waiter kept hearing unseen children laughing and running through the bar area. The candles on each table which had been lit at the beginning of the night were suddenly blown out by a strange wind which rushed through the area, extinguishing them all. The apparently unchivalrous waiter fled, leaving the poor bartender to fend for herself.

Another incident with candles in the bar involves a bartender named Amy. She was recently at the bar, and she asked a waiter to light the candles on each table. He did so as she prepared the bar for a busy evening. The waiter completed this task and left the room to get the dining room ready for the dinner crowd. When Amy looked up, all of the candles had been extinguished. When the waiter walked back into the bar, he asked, “Why did you blow them out?” Amy simply shrugged and said, “I didn’t… but don’t re-light them. Whoever’s here doesn’t want them lit yet, so we’re going to let her have her way.”

Sometimes keeping the spirits happy is the wisest choice in the 17Hundred90.

Owens-Thomas House

124 Abercorn Street

On the northeast side of Oglethorpe Square, the Owens-Thomas House serves as a pinnacle of Savannah architecture, considered by many historians to be the finest example of Regency Style architecture in the United States. Regency Style takes its name from England’s King George IV, who ruled as Prince Regent from 1811 to 1820. Completed in 1819 by 24-year-old architect William Jay, the house is a stunning example of sophistication, both in terms of its fully-realized architectural style and the surprising technology used within. The plumbing system actually featured bathtubs with running water, as well as flushing water closets. The house is constructed of a substance called ‘tabby’, which is a combination of sand, crushed oyster shells, and lime.

Today the Owens-Thomas House has been converted into a house museum. However, there are certain areas of the house where the staff sometimes feel uncomfortable. In Savannah the dead are never far, and this Regency house is no exception.

Footsteps have been heard, both in the main house and the carriage house, at the end of the day.

Boom and Bust

The era of architectural splendor in Savannah started with the completion of the Owens-Thomas House in 1819. The architect, 24-year old William Jay, found himself in high demand amongst Savannah’s nouveau riche, who were suddenly making fortunes in cotton and exporting. He went on to build the Telfair Mansion (today, the Telfair Academy of Arts & Sciences), the Scarbrough House, and many other buildings that were destroyed over the years, such as a bank, a theatre, and several houses. Jay’s involvement is probable, because of Regency-Style influences, in the Wayne-Gordon House, more popularly called the Birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, and also the old City Hotel on Bay Street.

One of the key characteristics of Regency Style is symmetry. The house’s interior often contains such quirks as false doors, to satisfy the architecture. Jay also designed a square room in the house to appear round by using visual tricks—again, curved spaces are important to the style, as evidenced as well by the recessed front entrance with a curved door.

Richard Richardson, the original owner of the house, was related to Jay by marriage. Richardson was a banker for the Bank of the United States and a cotton merchant. Three years after the completion of the house, he lost his fortune in the fallout of a failed oceangoing steamship venture, the S.S. Savannah. The house was lost by Richardson when the bank foreclosed. Thus Richard Richardson lost his house when his own bank foreclosed on it!

The house became a prestigious boarding house run by Mary Maxwell, and it was at this home that Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette delivered a speech from the south cast-iron balcony to a group of enthusiastic Savannahians. In 1830, George Owens, congressman and one-time Savannah mayor, purchased the house from the bank for $10,000. It remained in the family until 1951, when Margaret Thomas, Owens great-granddaughter, bequeathed the house to the Telfair Museum of Art, then called the Academy of Arts & Sciences. Ms. Thomas specified that her room never be altered, and the Telfair has honored her wish.

Spectres, and a Smoking Spirit

The Telfair turned the Owens-Thomas House into a museum, which was originally located on the bottom floor, with the upper floors used an apartments. It has been previously reported that one day a spectre made itself apparent to two men who were visiting a friend that lived in the upstairs. The tenant saw nothing, but the two men insist that they saw a man in a riding coat and a shirt with ruffles. The apparition stood in the doorway for a time, then walked through and passed into another room. The two visitors were so flustered by this strange occurrence that they said nothing, and when they asked the tenant if he ever had anything unusual happen, the man simply stated that he was afraid of the downstairs at night. No further visitations of this particular apparition have been reported, however.

On another occasion, a staff member set the table before going home, only to find the chair pushed back the next morning, as if someone had been sitting at the table, had finished their business, and moved on.

Tour guide Missy Brandt once related a story involving the exterior cast-iron porch on the southern side of the house museum. She was telling a quick historical anecdote to her ghost tour as they passed by the structure. As she was talking, she heard a match strike behind her and began to smell cigar smoke. She looked around the group and saw that no one was smoking, so she asked if anyone also smelled smoke. “Yes, I saw a match flare up behind you, and smoke puffing out of thin air,” a member of her tour group confirmed. This was echoed by several people on her tour, who had all witnessed the phantom match striking in thin air, as well as the cigar smoke, which promptly disappeared when Missy mentioned it.

The carriage house in the back of the property was, at one time, the slave quarters. When the upper level was renovated, they found the entire ceiling painted a bright blue color. This is yet another example of ‘haint blue,’ a color that is supposed to repel evil spirits. As detailed in the chapter ‘The Slave and Geechee Culture’, the haint blue color symbolizes water in the Geechee culture, and it is so believed that an evil spirit will not cross water to harm you. The paint was made with a mixture of indigo dye, milk, and lime. This idea of ‘haint’ paint as a protector may have had a practical value, because the lime would act as a natural insect repellent. Since mosquitoes were the transmitter of yellow fever, the Geechee may have stumbled unwittingly into a practice of shielding themselves from one of the most feared diseases of the 19th century. This protection from the ‘evil’ that was yellow fever did not extend to the inhabitants of the main house, because Frances Bolton died shortly after the house was completed, and her death is believed to have been from that very illness.

Some workers at the museum are uncomfortable in the carriage house near dusk—with its history of men and women in bondage, it is easy to see why.

In numerous instances, the staff has heard footsteps in both the main house and carriage house at the end of the day. Thinking that some tourists have straggled behind, as sometimes happens, a search will be conducted. Sometimes the staff will find nothing but empty rooms instead of strolling tourgoers. Perhaps the ghosts in the Owens-Thomas House are also busy taking in the beauty and wonders of the house? With William Jay’s beautiful design, perhaps that is not so farfetched.

Today, the Owens-Thomas House operates as a house museum, and is available for touring.

12 West Oglethorpe

Between Whitaker and Bull

Many houses in Savannah have a reputation for being haunted. In fact, it has been said that having a ghost or two in an old structure downtown has become something of a status symbol. In a lot of my interviews with locals, one house was consistently mentioned as being inhabited by otherworldly presences: the crumbling edifice located at 12 West Oglethorpe Avenue. The structure has been vacant for many years—its most continuous use was as a Fraternal Lodge Meeting Hall. What is it about this vacant house that inspires such a feeling of dread?

In a larger sense, I hear ghost stories about certain houses a lot, and they always seem to have something in common, namely that they have been abandoned for many years. The wild stories about 432 Abercorn Street, located within this volume, immediately spring to mind because of the stories’ similarity to one another: a house in a prominent area of town which sits empty for many years, seemingly without any explanation as to why no one will live there.

Many tour guides tell a story about a doctor that haunts this property. Are these stories true?

One Savannahian revealed to me that she used to run past the house as a little girl. “My sister and I were terrified of that house, and we were convinced it was haunted. This was long before it was vacant. Years later I read To Kill a Mockingbird, and I suddenly realized that we treated 12 West Oglethorpe exactly like the children in the book treated Boo Radley’s house. We came up with all sorts of crazy stories of who haunted it and why.”

The local ghost tours seem fascinated by the house, as well. One popular story told about the house is that a doctor lived there, and in his attempts to battle yellow fever, he somehow transferred the disease to his children, who then succumbed to it. The aforementioned doctor now supposedly haunts the house, grieving for his lost children. This tale is unlikely for a number of reasons: yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes, and was not communicable from person to person. Also, an exhaustive search of the records reveals that no doctor ever lived in the house. The closest bit of truth to anyone remotely medical living in the area was a dentist, Dr. Samuel White—and he lived next door, not in the house itself. This story of the doctor is likely imported from nearby Charleston SC, because the tale bears a striking resemblance to an epitaph written on a tombstone (in the Circular Congregational Church’s graveyard right off of Church Street) detailing the sad tale of three young brothers in the Savage family who all died within days of each other—and their father was indeed a doctor battling the dreaded disease which took his children from him. Another story told about 12 West Oglethorpe is that a woman hanged herself after losing her baby.

Tour guides ask people to take lots of pictures, claiming that most photos will show an anomaly, or suggesting that people will feel ill the closer they get to the front door. I’ve seen plenty of blurry photos these same tour guests will hold up as ‘proof’ that the place is haunted, and several vivid descriptions by people who believe that they run fevers and feel ill when they get near the home, only to have their symptoms disappear when they move away from the structure. But you’ll have to pardon me if I seem a little jaded about paranormal happenings. I’ve lived in Savannah for more than twenty years, a place that many consider the most haunted place in North America. It takes quite a bit more that some overheating tourists and blurry photos to get me excited about a supposedly haunted property. That sort of stuff might make socks roll up and down in Anytown, USA, but not in a city as haunted as Savannah, GA.

The Search for Tragedy

Unsatisfied with the folklore, I dug for more information. I went down to the Georgia Historical Society, but even though I conducted a thorough search, I could find no recorded tragic happenings within its walls, yellow fever-related or otherwise. Another piece of the puzzle which eluded me is the date the building was erected. Conflicting records make this difficult to ascertain. According to an online search via tax records, the structure dates from 1900. An initial look at the Georgia Historical archives reveals this to be accurate—at least in theory. The records show that there was a new improvement by Beirne Gordon (partners with William Washington Gordon, Juliette Gordon Low’s father, in a shipping company) in 1898. The listing is for a two story brick house built on the lot in question. But there are several indicators that suggest that this was merely an improvement to an existing property. A little known fact is that Nellie Gordon, Juliette Gordon-Low’s mother, never got along with her mother-in-law, Sarah. Willie and Nellie Gordon actually moved from the Gordon mansion (currently known as the Birthplace) to a house built at 12 West Oglethorpe-- a short distance away from the Birthplace-- after the Civil War, and it appears that they lived there until Sarah passed away in the 1880’s. So records indicate that the property on which 12 West Oglethorpe currently sits was already in the Gordon name as early as the end of the 1860’s, meaning that Willie and Nellie Gordon, along with Juliette Gordon Low and the rest of the Gordon clan lived at a structure that was located at 12 West Oglethorpe Avenue, for at least fifteen years and perhaps as many as twenty. Whether it was the current structure or not is frustratingly unclear.

The house was sold in 1908 to the Elk’s Lodge. It remained in their hands for many years before becoming a school. The structure finally became vacant in the late 1980’s, a dubious status it continues to hold today.

Where Does This Leave Us?

Despite the conspicuous shortage of corroborating evidence, strange stories persist regarding 12 West Oglethorpe. Tours continue to stop there, and the legends grow. I seriously doubt if these stories are true, but one thing is painfully obvious: people certainly want the house to be haunted, whether it is or not. We seek to explain mysteries that we don’t understand, often by projecting our fears. A toy gets discontinued? An urban legend pops up that usually involves a child being seriously hurt, or even killed, by said toy. An abandoned house is a similar unanswered question, a riddle our brains wish to solve: namely, why does no one live there? Well, it must be haunted, right? And this is the way that a vacant, dilapidated house becomes fodder for a ghost story.

There is another industry insider ‘dirty secret’ aspect of this, one having nothing to do with research and verifiable facts, and everything to do with the admittedly difficult nature of being a tour guide. Guides have routes that they generally like to follow, and they time their path through the Historic District so as to hit each story’s location in a habitual, timely fashion. When another tour group for another company is in ‘their’ spot, sometimes the guide is forced to talk about something else nearby for the duration until their preferred location is clear. And often times these sort of ‘outside of the normal rhythm’ stories are the type of generic, ‘hip-pocket’ tales that are easily transferrable to any location, but is, by its very nature, very close to a prominent and famous ghost story location. It is the ghost-tour equivalent of that generic tilapia filet in your favorite restaurant’s freezer, which suddenly gets a new name when the much-more-expensive fish (usually snapper, flounder, or sea-bass) runs out: a substitute for the real thing that likely no one will ever figure out is a faux last-second alternate. It’s a little appalling, but this sort of thing happens in kitchens (and on tour routes) all the time.

For me, the tip-off that this is a substitution is the close proximity to one of Savannah’s most prominent haunted structures: the Birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, which is less than half a block away, and is one of the most popular spots in town. And rather than circling like an airliner awaiting its turn to land at an airport, the guide has to talk about something. And the request by guides to ‘take a lot of pictures’ is the ghost-tour equivalent of “Okay, kids, in today’s class we’re going to watch a video.” It kills precious time on the tour, during which the guide doesn’t have to narrate at all. I don’t presume to take these guides to task for being forced outside their routine. It happens. But I do deduct points for them not knowing enough about the area to find a great story, one literally underneath their feet. That same guide who tells a completely false story about 12 West Oglethorpe’s ‘doctor’ should look very carefully at the city block he or she is pointing to, because that entire section of the city (between Whitaker, Oglethorpe, Bull and York Streets) was once a cemetery, from 1733 until 1750. And it is pretty well-documented that the City didn’t move the bodies. Every single house on that block sits squarely on top of seventeen years worth of human remains from the early days of Savannah.

Whistling Through Graveyards

Colonial Park Cemetery, located three blocks to the east, is widely regarded as the oldest cemetery in Georgia, but it was not the first. The site of the first official cemetery in Georgia encompassed that entire city block, the same one in which 12 West Oglethorpe, built nearly one hundred and fifty years later, currently resides. That old burial ground was closed due to massive overcrowding. When Colonial Park Cemetery opened, one might easily assume that the bodies from the older cemetery would be moved into the newer cemetery, right? Um, no. The townsfolk had a practical reason for not moving the bodies into the new cemetery: they feared disease. Many of the dead had succumbed to yellow fever, a dreaded killer, as well as many other types of disease that the early Savannahians feared would still be communicable. Even more bizarrely, the city eventually allowed that land to be developed into businesses and houses. Today, there is only a brass plaque flanking Wright Square on York Street which commemorates the Protestant graves located in this first burial ground.

The most obvious question is: Why would Savannahians build over a cemetery? It might seem strange if you’re new to Savannah, but it is not at all unusual in this city to find human remains where they don’t belong. A search through the archives at the Georgia Historical Society reveals this to be true, and it isn’t limited to small areas of the city. For instance, a Savannah Morning News article from 1878 describes a man digging a ditch on the far western edge of Bryan Street (near modern-day MLK Boulevard) who struck something with his spade. Examination proved it to be a small coffin-like box, and inside it contained the body of an infant.

There was also a Jewish burial ground, located towards the south of the original cemetery. That cemetery has survived, and is bizarrely situated in the median of Oglethorpe Avenue. It is to the best of my knowledge the only recognized burial ground located between lanes of traffic. At last count, at least sixteen bodies are still interred there, nestled between the east- and westbound lanes of one of Savannah’s main downtown thoroughfares.

Getting back to the former Wright Square burial ground for a moment: any type of construction that takes place in that location that involves digging has to be done very carefully because of all the bodies still located under the buildings, back lane (alley) and street. Some road crews and utility companies have been accompanied by an archaeologist, and they usually turn up a few of Georgia’s earliest inhabitants when they do any sort of maintenance. A man working for Georgia Power who asked not to be identified relayed a grisly tale about laying some cable in that area using a machine that burrows sideways through the ground. He said, “A human body makes a distinct sound when that machine bores through it. We are supposed to keep a log of when we hear that sound. When we laid a cable in the alley running behind that area, I was busy all day writing down the fact that we kept hitting body… after body… after body.” He then described the sound, likening it to a wooden spoon caught in a garbage disposal.

Savannah is truly a city built on the dead. That’s the real story worth telling: it’s undeniably creepy, and has the added benefit of being absolutely true.

Marshall House

123 East Broughton Street

The beautiful Greek Revival hotel known as the Marshall House sits on Broughton Street, but the exterior is evocative of something more commonly expected in the French Quarter of New Orleans, complete with a cast iron balcony. Unlike so many structures in Savannah that have been converted into rooms for rent later in their lives, this building was constructed originally to be a hotel, and has been used for that purpose for most of its history. The upscale hotel boasts a fully-appointed bar, an adjoining fine-dining restaurant, and a front lobby which gleams of marble.

The Marshall House Hotel was built in 1851 by Mary Marshall. Her father, Gabriel Lever, a 19th century cabinet maker, bought some property on Broughton Street and passed it on to his daughter when he died. Mary built the hotel on the site, and it is considered by architectural historians to be the finest structure she had built in Savannah. The cast iron balconies and veranda were added in 1857. Years later, the hotel changed ownership and was renamed the Geiger Hotel, after its new proprietor, Minnie Geiger. In 1933, Herbert W. Gilbert leased the hotel and changed its name to the Gilbert Hotel, which closed in September 1945.

The hotel was reopened again as the Marshall Hotel in 1946 after extensive renovations. When their 10-year lease ran out in 1956, the owners decided it cost too much to bring the building up to the standards required by Georgia fire codes. The hotel closed, and many thought it would be the last time. But the Marshall House underwent extensive renovations in 1999 and re-opened its doors to the public as a luxury hotel.

“...when the Marshall House underwent renovations in the late 1990’s, the workers made a grisly discovery...”

Haunted Happenings on Broughton Street

Otherworldly stories persist about the Marshall House. Before the hotel reopened in August of 1999, the staff reported strange odors and something that they could only describe as “bad vibes” from rooms 214, 314, and 414. Many different types of deodorizers were used, to no avail, and even an ozone machine was tried to remove the odor, without success. Finally, the staff tried something drastic: group prayer. This worked nearly immediately in rooms 214 and 314, but 414 was different. That particular room had an aura and odor so oppressive that the staff members could not stay in the room long enough to pray. Finally, the housekeeping manager fixed on a unique solution: a radio tuned to a gospel station was placed in the room, with the volume turned up. This apparently worked, since both the odor and strange menacing vibes have not been experienced since.

Some staff members and guests alike have reported hearing the sounds of a small child bouncing a ball up and down the upper hallways of the hotel. Many hotel guests have asked about the disembodied sounds of the pitter-patter of a child’s feet in the halls, or of a child laughing. Others still have reported seeing a spectral cat, which then vanishes.

One former bartender claims that he heard the sounds of footsteps many times over the bar when he knew that area was deserted. He even heard a rhythmic banging sound coming from over the bar that had several people smiling into their hands. “It sounded like a couple was up there trying to break the bed, so to speak,” Kevin said with a wink, and the implication was clear. When he mentioned it to the front desk staff, they informed him that the room directly above the bar was empty.

A physician and his wife mentioned an encounter with something paranormal at checkout one morning. It seems the doctor had been awakened several times by a gentle tickling sensation on his feet in the middle of the night. In his sleepy state he was convinced that the comforter or the sheets were somehow responsible for the sensation of something lightly brushing his feet. The last time it occurred, he looked down to see a little girl tickling his feet. She smiled and vanished.

Some have had the chilling sensation of awakening to feel a hand being pressed against the guest’s forehead, exactly like someone was taking their temperature. Some research turned up the fact that for a time during the War Between the States, the Marshall House was used by the Union Army as a hospital. Sherman’s troops occupied the hotel and the Union army turned it into a hospital until the war ended, some six months later. Perhaps the former medical staff at the Marshall House is still fulfilling their duty to care for the occupants of the rooms, not realizing the conflict is long-since over, and the people tucked into their beds at night are not in need of medical treatment.

Built in 1851 by Mary Marshall.

A Terrible Discovery?

This link to being a medical facility would also explain the rumors that when the Marshall House underwent renovations in the late 1990’s, the workers made a grisly discovery in a downstairs room. It is said that some floorboards had rotted, and were in need of replacement. When they pried up the floorboards, they found human remains. When the authorities were called in, they treated is as if it were a crime scene, carefully cataloguing the remains they were finding. The odd thing about it was that they were finding hands, feet, arms and legs—nearly three dozen in all. Later tests revealed that the body parts dated from the Civil War era, thus confirming their Union Army connection.

The downstairs was reputedly used as a surgery, and a number of amputations were said to have been performed in that room. A surgical procedure such as removal of a gangrenous limb was performed very differently than it is today. Anesthesia was in short supply. The unfortunate soldier was often given a small amount of liquor, held down by strong male nurses, and the offending limb was savagely sawed off. Doctors are nicknamed ‘Sawbones’ even today because of this gruesome practice. The average amputation took several minutes. The wound was then packed with sawdust or lint with no regard for sanitary or antiseptic surgery. Also in use during that time period was the practice of placing a lead bullet between the teeth of the soldier receiving the amputation, giving the poor soul something to bite on during the crude procedure. This gives rise to the phrase ‘bite the bullet’. With that origin is it any wonder that the saying means doing something very much against one’s will?

With the severed limbs piling up, the Union soldiers allegedly found a quick and easy way to be rid of the leftover body parts: they pulled up a floorboard or two and tossed the severed body parts under the floor. There were several groupings of limbs, presumably because the surgeons would bury each day’s amputations in a bundle together.

In an ordinary year, the smell would have been horrendous. But the winter of 1864 was one of the coldest winters Savannah’s ever had on record, so those body parts would have decomposed slowly, and the Marshall House was abandoned for many years after Sherman’s troops left town. So there these body parts remained—until 1999! The Union soldiers left Savannah a souvenir that wasn’t found until 135 years later.

Here is where Savannah’s morbid sense of humor kicks in: what better room to use as a night manager’s office? Managers have complained of strange noises emanating in or around that office. Low moans and strange unexplained footsteps have been heard. One manager saw a shadowy figure pass by the open door to the office, and this happened at a time that he was supposedly alone. The man was wearing a heavy dark blue overcoat. He also claimed that there was one other odd thing about the man that he saw—the fact that he only had one arm. This Union soldier has been seen on numerous occasions.

When the human remains were removed from the office, it is said that the strange noises immediately started. The ghosts apparently miss their severed limbs, and have begun to search for them. One can only suppose that the Marshall House charged those Union soldiers an arm and a leg for their stay.

One manager had many problems sorting through her paperwork in the downstairs. She would find that documents she had just organized would be out of sequence moments later, papers would switch stacks on her by themselves and throw off her totals, and stacks of cash would mysteriously reorganize themselves. Exasperated, she had to admonish the ghost. “Okay, I don’t mind your playfulness, I like fun and games,” she said aloud. “I know I’m sharing your space, but please don’t play with the money.” The paranormal activity in the office, she claims, became drastically less frequent from that moment on.

At least, the activity abated for her, but not for others on the property. One security guard confirmed that there was definitely something odd about the downstairs. “There are some weird sounds down there, and they’re not being made by the elevator,” he said, cryptically. When pressed as to what he has heard on the lower level, he simply said, “Sounds that shouldn’t be there.”

How Much of This Is True?

I have been told the story of the Union Army’s discarded limbs being left under the floorboards at the Marshall House by countless people, some of whom have worked at the hotel. I have looked long and hard for any sort of documentation to back up these claims, but I will admit that the search has thus far been fruitless. I can confirm via several Savannah Morning News articles that the hotel was indeed commandeered by the Union Army, who used it as a hospital in 1864-1865. As of now, the ‘limbs’ story is just a fun bit of gruesome folklore. I will continue to look for the truth at the Georgia Historical Society, but so far, nothing. And the storyteller in me laments the fact that the hotel is so reasonably priced for being a luxurious property, so I can make no jokes about the Marshall House charging an arm and a leg.

A Ghost Story With Real Bite

Another terrifying incident seemingly straight out of the movie The Shining occurred in room 304. A mother and her preschool-aged daughter were staying in the room one night, and the mother was in the sitting area reading while the daughter was in the bathroom. The mother became aware that she could hear her daughter speaking, but even more disturbing was the fact that she could hear two voices, and it wasn’t the television. Her daughter sounded agitated. She asked her daughter who she was talking to, and her little girl responded, “The little boy in the bathtub.” When she walked into the bathroom, wondering who on earth was in the bathroom with her daughter, she found her girl in near tears, pointing to an empty bathtub. The girl said, “He’s right there and he has big teeth and he bit me!” The girl did indeed have a bite mark complete with teeth impressions on her arm, just above her elbow on the back of her arm. It was in an area that she would have no way of reaching with her own mouth, let alone biting. Needless to say, the pair was given a new room at a new hotel, free of charge, no questions asked.

This is not the only incident of strange bites at the hotel. Another woman, a Director of Sales for a prominent company, who stayed in a nearby room reported waking up with a bite mark on her arm. It appeared to be a child’s bite, and it was done with enough force to leave a bruise on her skin. This was found on her upper inner arm, in an area nearly impossible to reach on oneself without being a contortionist. Even stranger (or perhaps more telling of the amenities at the Marshall House), the woman still continues to stay at the hotel while on business trips to Savannah. Perhaps then, she was bitten by Savannah’s charm, as well.

Alice Riley

Many storytellers will narrate a tale in Wright Square about Alice Riley, the first woman hanged in Georgia, in 1735. Some claim that she practiced witchcraft, and was hanged because she was a murderess and performed black magic. A common claim is that she cursed the city from the gallows, which these same storytellers often state was located in Wright Square. This supposed curse by Alice is given as a reason why no Spanish moss will grow in the trees near where she was hanged. The likely source of these stories of witchcraft is probably a case of mistaken identity, confusing Savannah’s Alice Riley with Charleston’s Lavinia Fisher, who was hanged in 1820 (Fisher did indeed have some colorful things to say from the scaffold, reputedly saying, “If you have a message for the Devil, give it to me, for I am about to meet him!”). The historical record shows that the witchcraft angle for Riley and the curse are fiction, and there is a logical explanation for the lack of Spanish moss as well, but Alice Riley’s tale is surprising in its own right. So how true is this story?

Wright Square, allegedly where Savannah’s gallows once stood.

The Murder

First, I’ll present the documented history, even though contemporary accounts disagree on some major points. We do know that Alice Riley was one of roughly forty Irish servants who landed in Savannah in December of 1733. Their ship had been bound for another port, but a storm forced them to land in Savannah instead. James Edward Oglethorpe, seeing his colony’s need for more settlers regardless of their financial situation, somewhat charitably bought the servants’ indentures for five pounds apiece. The city magistrates of Savannah placed Alice and a fellow named Richard White into the household of William Wise. Wise himself was an unsavory character, already having tried unsuccessfully to pass off a common London prostitute as his daughter in hopes of bringing her to Georgia. Wise had property out on Hutchinson Island, located across the Savannah River from present-day River Street. He tended the Trustee’s cattle, but was unable to perform his duties because of illness.

Presumably, Riley and White were placed with William Wise to help care for the livestock, but Wise had other ideas. He made it a habit to call for the servants placed in his care to bathe and groom him. He would lie with his head positioned off the bed so that White could comb his long hair (many accounts specifically note that he was quite vain about his plumage), while Riley bathed him. In March of 1734, the two Irish immigrants murdered him together, by Richard White twisting Wise’s neckerchief and helpful Alice dunking his head into the bucket of water. Many motives have been ascribed to their actions, but we simply do not know why they did this heinous act.

The two were caught and sentenced to hang, but Alice was found to be pregnant. The child is credited to White, but considering Wise’s previous actions with the streetwalker one must at least raise the possibility of the child belonging to the lecherous master.

What we definitely know today is that both were eventually executed. Alice, by all accounts, was hanged on January 19th, 1735. But there is disagreement as to which order they met their end. Richard White, after an unsuccessful escape attempt, was hanged sometime after his recapture (possibly immediately following). Alice’s death sentence was delayed until the child was born, but sources conflict as to whether they also delayed White’s execution at the same time. A letter written on January 20th, 1735 (the day after Alice was hanged) by early colonist Edward Jenkins to James Edward Oglethorpe lists Alice as being executed after White. It seems unlikely that Jenkins would be confused as to the order of their deaths, since he not only personally helped apprehend White after his escape and personally witnessed White’s execution, but was writing Oglethorpe the very day after Alice’s hanging. Despite this seemingly incontrovertible documentation, several other credible sources, such as Savannah in the Old South, by Walter J. Fraser Jr, reverse the order of their deaths.

Ultimately, the sequence of their hangings does not matter, because the end result is the same: all of our sources agree that in mid-January 1735, Alice Riley and Richard White were both hung by the neck until dead, for the crime of murder, despite steadfastly maintaining their innocence to the end. No evidence exists of Riley’s involvement in witchcraft, or of her cursing anyone or anything from the scaffold. Nonetheless, the hanging of Alice Riley and Richard White spawned a number of firsts: first murder in the colony of Georgia, and first execution in Georgia, both of a man and a woman. Alice Riley’s child did not survive, bringing the death toll for the whole sorry affair to four.

What about the Spanish moss not growing in part of Wright Square’s trees? The wind blows it down from the live oak trees close to the north side of the square, which is not uncommon in Savannah. Squares close to the Savannah River rarely have moss for this very reason: it tends to be more windy near the water, and the moss simply cannot hold on to the live oaks.

An Educated Guess Regarding the Gallows’ True Location

I hear the ‘Wright Square gallows’ story told a lot by tour guides. But I would like to point out a few problems I have with that particular piece of folklore. Pre-Revolutionary Savannah was (correctly) regarded as a grubby little border town by everyone who encountered it. The time period we are talking about, 1734-35, means that Savannah was barely a town at all: just a scattershot of less than seventy-five lowly wooden-frame houses clustered around five squares, with a total population of less than four hundred people. It is extremely unlikely that a town that small would have constructed in Wright Square a permanent gallows, meaning a raised wooden platform and crossbar.

The historical record shows us that capital crimes were rare with such a small population. My friend and fellow tour guide Kirk Hutchins, points out that “the construction of a gallows would have certain implications for a small community. Gallows were professional machines. They were usually constructed and operated by professional executioners. A place or region would need to have enough executions to make such profession viable. Then the executioner would travel a circuit. Gallows [during the period] usually were not permanent structures, but were built for the occasion. Savannah seems unlikely to have ever had a permanent structure standing in wait. Otherwise it would have been a terribly foreboding place indeed. A simple hanging tree would be foreboding enough.” Kirk is correct, but additional information regarding specifics pertaining Savannah’s exection practices were found in the archives. According to Harold E. Davis’ book The Fledgling Colony: Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia, Savannah was such a small province during the Trustee period (1733- 1752) that City officials were forced to use other prisoners to be hangmen, in exchange for reduced sentences and/or a small fee. Imagine being jailed for drunkenness in 1734-era Savannah and securing your freedom by acting as executioner for a fellow inmate, and even getting paid for your trouble!

It is sometimes the uncomfortable job of history buffs to make logical assumptions when hard data is lacking. In the absence of new evidence revealing a permanent structure for the purpose of executions, I tend to agree with Kirk. A Savannah official in 1734 who theoretically proposed building a formal gallows structure would have probably had it pointed out to him by a logical cityfolk that the area near the jail was surrounded on the southern side by trees, any number of which would be well-suited to stringing up a convicted murderer, or in this case, a murderess. Or perhaps a temporary gallows was used, consisting of a small wooden frame and crossbar that could be taken down after the deed was done.

In fact, Davis’ Fledgling Colony cites just such a low-tech solution, stating: “Hanging was by strangulation. The condemned person climbed a ladder at the scaffold, had the rope put around his neck, and was turned [pushed] off the ladder.” No mention of a formal, permanent structure was made. A ladder could be set up beneath a convenient tree or temporary crossbar without the need for an elaborate scaffold. And the only reference to a ‘hanging’ location I could find was a mention of executions occurring on the South Common in the 1760’s (a slave belonging to Peter Tondee was put to death in that spot). The South Common, appropriately enough, is just south of Wright Square, and would have been full of trees during that period, since Chippewa Square did not exist until 1815.

A Modern-Day Sighting

Sometimes my life as a teller of ghost stories crosses over into my ‘normal’ life in interesting ways. For instance, I have a good friend with whom I go fishing on a regular basis, and we often cruise out to Wassaw Sound in his family’s boat. We’ll anchor right off the coast and fish for sharks or stingrays, just for the sheer epic battle of it all, because some of these leviathans of the deep are huge. Fighting a massive stingray to the surface and then releasing it, both you and the fish completely exhausted, might not sound like fun until you’ve tried it. But trust me, night fishing might be the best way to spend an evening near Tybee Island. You come away from the experience feeling positively Hemingway-esque. One evening, while waiting on our fickle fishes to decide that our bait was irresistible, this same friend congratulated me on my choice of career, since in his eyes, I was bilking money out of gullible tourists telling them lies about ghosts for a living. He was a lifelong Savannah resident, and somehow had never come into contact with anything even remotely paranormal. To say that this former Marine was a strong skeptic was putting it mildly. Anyway, I gently corrected him, and told him that I very much believed in ghosts. If I had been lying about my own experiences for the last decade-plus years, I explained, I doubted very much that I’d be able to look myself in the mirror. I got a strange look from him, like he suspected that I was having a laugh at his expense, but right about that time the sharks overcame their shyness and started attacking our bait, and we had a wonderful struggle reeling those gorgeous gray monsters to the surface. I quickly forgot about our chat about ghosts; the 45 minute epic battle I engaged in with an extremely agitated and impressively large shark probably was a contributing factor.

A couple of months later, this same friend and I were having a relaxing drink at one of our favorite watering holes downtown, when suddenly he looked around, lowered his voice, and said, “Hey, you remember our discussion that night on the boat about ghosts?” It was slow in coming back to me, but I said yes. “Well,” he continued, “I was driving my truck on Hutchinson Island the other night during that rainstorm. It was pouring down rain, when I saw this man and woman sort of huddled together, walking on the side of the road. I slowed down, and I noticed that they were both wearing costumes. I mean, my first thought was that there was a period movie being filmed nearby—they looked like extras who had wandered right off the set of the film The Patriot. I looked right at them as I passed, and they were as real looking as you or I. But when it dawned on me how weird it was that they were walking by themselves in a driving rainstorm in those outfits, I looked back in the rearview mirror at them. The man and the woman had vanished entirely. I mean, in an instant, they went from being so close I could see details of their clothes, to being completely gone.” He turned around in his seat to look for them, but they were nowhere to be seen. As he spoke, his arms has broken out in chills as he relived the moment of his brush with the paranormal in his memory. And so I told him the story of Alice Riley, who, as you recall, lived on Hutchinson Island with Richard White for months as their anger slowly heated to a boil against their unscrupulous master, William Wise. He slowly nodded, because the details matched up. One could argue that my friend imagined the entire incident, but why would he hallucinate exacting details of a story he didn’t even know?

Perhaps Alice Riley and Richard White do still occasionally roam the island where their wretched lot in life became too much for them to bear. One hopes that it is a happy moment that these spectres appear to be sharing, huddled together on a dark lonely road, before their short respective plunges off the gallows and into the history books.

Colonial Park Cemetery

201 East Oglethorpe Avenue

An often-quoted saying about Savannah is that it is a city built on its dead. It is true, by the way; we have a strange habit of placing streets, sidewalks, houses and other structures in areas where the ground is already occupied, so to speak. When I relate this fact, usually while my tour group and I are standing by the front gates of Colonial Park Cemetery at the beginning of our Haunted History Tour, someone in the crowd invariably asks the question: that’s not really true, is it? Usually before I answer, I make it a point to stare at the person’s feet for a pregnant pause, a smile gradually forming on my lips. Curiosity getting the better of them, their gaze inevitably shifts to the sidewalk they are standing on, and it is with a slow, creeping horror that they realize that they are quite literally desecrating the dead at that particular moment. Needless to say, I love my job as a tour guide in Savannah. In what other line of work can you give genuine thrills and chills simply by quoting the history books?

The cemetery, if you’ll pardon the pun, is a perfect embodiment of Savannah’s deep ties to tragedy. A walk through Colonial Park is to take a ‘Cliffs Notes’ tour of this city’s early history. In a Spanish moss-draped Southern Gothic city like this one, it’s only natural that we would have a prominent cemetery right in the center of town. Not only does this plot of hallowed ground contain many timeworn graves which provide mute commentary on the very thin line between mortality and the shadowy afterlife of our early colonists, but it also is a place where many people, myself included, have had genuine brushes with unexplainable phenomena.

The front gates of Colonial Park Cemetery, a burial ground which holds twelve thousand graves.

The Old Burying Ground

Colonial Park Cemetery, established by Christ Church in 1750, is Savannah’s oldest existing burial ground, but wasn’t the first in the city. As detailed in the chapter ’12 West Oglethorpe,’ the first cemetery was the area right off of Wright Square, bordered by York, Whitaker, Oglethorpe and Bull Streets, and was in use for the first seventeen years of the colony’s existence. The city, which was quickly expanding by the middle of the 18th century, saw a need for a larger funerary ground, so by 1750 they designated an area southeast of the existing city. At the time Colonial Park Cemetery was established, the area was a meadow-like field. No squares existed south of Oglethorpe Avenue during this early period, meaning that the townsfolk of Savannah literally paced out a rough area outside of town to bury their dead. As I describe in the chapter ‘432 Abercorn,’ there was also a space further south designated for African American burials, as well as a Potter’s Field for indigents and visitors to the city for whom no relatives could be reached to make funeral arrangements. I mention these facts because the surrounding landscape has changed so much over the years that it is difficult for the uninitiated to picture why Colonial Park has so many bodies buried outside of its confines. So the answer to the inevitable question: why Savannah would build on its dead? is that the parameters of the burial ground were poorly-defined in the early days, making it difficult for later urban planners to plot out streets and squares in the area without hitting pre-existing graves.

There are about seven hundred burial markers in Colonial Park Cemetery, and roughly twelve thousand graves. When I quote these numbers on tour, it always raises skeptical eyebrows, but the number is accurate. The dimensions of the cemetery used to be a good bit larger, but were pushed back in 1896 to accommodate the streets and sidewalks which border Colonial Park, even extending partway out into nearby Abercorn Street. In the 1960’s, workers doing some construction on that particular street began discovering human bodies. As a matter of fact, if you look down the brick sidewalk of the cemetery along Abercorn Street, you will notice a regular pattern of subtle depressions and humps within the walkway, reminiscent of gentle ocean swells. Many people (myself included) attribute this strange feature to the wooden coffins which are undoubtedly under the sidewalk, which have slowly collapsed under the weight of the bricks and earth over them.

There are other reasons for this huge disparity between tombstones and body count, however, namely the large brick burial vaults, which are a major feature of Colonial Park. Most of the brick tombs have peaked, house-like roofs, and bookended, squared-off fronts and backs. These family vaults are sometimes erroneously thought of as above-ground burial vaults, but actually when explaining their function to tourists, I often make comparisons to root-cellars. Down near the grass you can usually observe an arched opening, marking the top of the former door which has long-since been bricked in. When Colonial Park was an active cemetery, there would have been a series of steps leading down into the family vault, and if you were to gain access you would find a series of shelves inside which would be the perfect size and shape for a body. Many of the corpses placed in the vault would simply be shrouded instead of placed in coffins. Over time, a combination of heat and natural decomposition would reduce the remains considerably, and the bones would then be moved to a large burial urn in the center of the tomb, and the shelf was then reused, if need be. This process would be repeated over and over again, meaning that the remains of the family would be stacked together inside the urn. This reinforces the idea that even in death, Savannah families are very close.

Lining the eastern brick wall are many tombstones, some of which are only fragments, which have been broken off or otherwise removed from their original location over the years. A lot of the grave markers within the cemetery have disappeared over the years, either through neglect or vandalism, and the custom of affixing them to the wall undoubtedly arose from the desire to preserve them.

Colonial Park by moonlight.

Noteworthy Burials

Button Gwinnett (1735-1777) signed the Declaration of Independence, but perhaps even more noteworthy was his ill-conceived duel with Lachlan McIntosh in 1777. His wounds sustained during the exchange of pistol fire did eventually kill Gwinnett, but today his rare autograph is highly prized by collectors. He has a temple-style burial marker for his valuable service in the early years of the American Revolution. Contrary to what some tour guides might claim, the duel with McIntosh did not take place inside the cemetery, instead occurring near the present day town of Thunderbolt, about 5 miles southeast of Savannah.

Lachlan McIntosh (1725-1806) was a born military leader and strategist. His service in the American Revolution took him from Florida all the way to Michigan, and he was a trusted subordinate to George Washington. But he is unfortunately most known for shooting his rival, Button Gwinnett.

Susannah Gray’s (1791-1812) stone informs us that she “departed this life by the will of God, being killed by lightning on the 26th of July, 1812.” Her correct age is 21 years, not the 121 years and 1,124 days listed on her slab. This alteration is the handiwork of the Union troops in General William T. Sherman’s army, who camped in the Colonial Park Cemetery in 1864. Another changed stone is Josiah Muir, whose altered inscription reads that he died at the age of eleven, and was survived by his wife Mary, age seventeen, and his son Lewis, aged twelve. Among many others that the Union troops changed are Captain Jonathan Cooper, aged 1700 years, and Phillip D. Woolhopter, aged 1,491 years.

Archibald Bulloch (1730-1777) would have been immortalized forever as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but he instead decided to focus his efforts on Georgia’s defense against Britain. He died somewhat mysteriously shortly before the conflict spread to the South, but his contributions to U.S. politics were far reaching, including his family line: Archibald’s great-great-grandson was President Theodore Roosevelt.

The Habersham Family Vault is a prominent brick crypt on the northern edge of Colonial Park Cemetery. Please see the chapters titled ‘Little Gracie’ and ‘Old Pink House’ for more details about this key Savannah family.

An example of one of the family vaults located in Colonial Park Cemetery.

‘The Dreadful Pestilence’

Observant visitors to Colonial Park Cemetery will notice a certain year recurring as the terminus date on many tombstones: 1820. Not only was Savannah struck with a Great Fire, burning much of downtown, but the city was then laid low by a yellow fever epidemic that particular year. Yellow fever was one of the most feared diseases in seaport cities. Symptoms of yellow fever included black, bloody vomit, a jaundiced color, hemorrhages from the nose, gums, and bowels, and a fever-induced descent into delirium and coma. Death usually followed. It killed a tenth of the population in 1820, totaling nearly seven hundred people.

Savannah residents during that time period endured a nightmarish spectacle, with the wealthier citizens fleeing away from town in droves to escape the dreaded killer disease. The remaining citizens burned tar, paradoxically hoping to clear the air by generating billowing black smoke, and even fired cannons down city streets in an attempt to help combat the illness. Many people believed that poisonous vapors from the swamp or even the burial grounds were responsible for the affliction. Some doctors prescribed that sufferers of yellow fever should drink turpentine or even water laced with tar to ease symptoms of the disease, with disastrous results. It was not until the turn of the 20th century that physicians began to understand that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes, not communicable from person to person.

Today there is a plaque located inside Colonial Park Cemetery which is dedicated to the 1820 mass grave. No one is quite sure where the mass grave is located, but records clearly indicate that it is somewhere within the confines of the cemetery.

Some Erroneous Folklore

Many tour guides will claim that Rene Rondolia (see his chapter in this volume) had a secret underground lair located in Colonial Cemetery, and that this area was called ‘Rene’s Playground.’ The claim is that Rene would drag unwitting victims into a series of tunnels under the cemetery. This story of lairs and tunnels though, like Rene himself, is entirely made up.

Another false ‘factoid’ that I frequently hear is that duels took place behind the cemetery’s southern edge, and the loser of the contest’s body would then be simply tossed over the iron fence for easy burial. But according to Thomas Gamble’s book, Savannah Duels and Duellists, many of the duels between Savannah gentlemen actually occurred across the Savannah River in South Carolina. In all my years of research, I have never turned up an instance of a duel actually being fought at Colonial Park Cemetery. Furthermore, tour guides relating this false story as fact would probably be surprised at the number of duels which did not result in bloodshed. Not only were dueling pistols notoriously inaccurate, but many times the combatants would simply fire a shot into the air, and part as friends.

“Closer investigation revealed a dead goat.”

A Sickening Discovery

In 1999 and early 2000, the cemetery was the site of a documented occurrence which was both morbid and cruel. In late 1999, a dog with its throat slashed was found in the cemetery. It was a terrible thing to have happen under any circumstances, but it was even more mortifying for the town’s image because it happened in a centrally-located cemetery which was nestled between the police barracks and the fire house. But the awful findings were just beginning: in April of that following year, local historian and cemetery enthusiast Elizabeth Piechocinski was walking her dog next to Colonial Park when she spotted something which didn’t belong on one of the burial slabs. Closer investigation revealed a dead goat. The goat’s mouth and feet had been bound, the throat slashed, and the heart had been cut out. Found nearby was the goat’s heart in foil, a coconut, and a burned candle. Whether this was an unknown sect’s strange religious ceremony, or just a tasteless joke has never been fully determined, but a good friend of mine who is very knowledgeable about Voodoo ceremonies bluntly pointed out, “If the perpetrators of this ceremony were attempting to practice a form of Voodoo, they weren’t doing it right. That nonsensical ceremony they performed doesn’t make it Voodoo any more than leaving crackers and wine makes something Christian. They sound like idiots, or pranksters, or both.” Regardless, the City of Savannah now quite understandably locks the gates of Colonial Park every evening.

A Strange Video

In 2008, a young man was filming what he thought was an innocuous video within the confines of Colonial Park Cemetery. Jesse Greathouse, a fifteen year old tourist, panned right and left with his camcorder, just hoping to capture a sense of the old cemetery. It appears, though, that he captured a great deal more than that on his video camera. Seen in the frame is a small child running through the cemetery, and no one else strolling through the tombstones and burial vaults appears to react to what should have been a enough strange sight in its own right: a toddler sprinting, unattended, through a burial ground. But the video goes from odd to freakish when the child disappears behind a tombstone, appears to turn to vapor, rising into the trees. A few seconds elapse, and the child shoots back earthward with unnerving speed. Again, none of the casually-strolling tourists near this freak phenomenon seem to notice this event, and it begs the question, can they even see the child at all? But don’t settle for my description and interpretations of the video. Just type “Colonial Park Cemetery ghost video” into an internet search engine and judge for yourself: is it a genuine paranormal occurrence? I have watched this particular video many times, and still cannot explain what was captured on tape.

A Personal Sighting?

One evening, I myself experienced a bizarre happening in Colonial Park with possible supernatural ties. This was especially noteworthy because I had with me a tour group full of people. In late November, 2001, I was beginning my second ghost tour, which began at 9 o’clock. I was standing at the beautiful granite arched entrance and had just begun my introduction to the crowd—essentially telling them who I was and what they could expect on the tour. The temperature had dropped precipitously all throughout the evening, and the crowd began to pull in closer to me, perhaps in an effort to keep warm. Suddenly, I noticed that several people in the group were staring at something over my shoulder with expressions ranging from amazement to out-and-out fear. After being distracted by this for a few minutes and attempting to keep going regardless, I finally stopped talking and turned around. What I saw in the cemetery made my blood run even colder: about twenty yards away, near the marker for Edward Malbone, painter of miniatures, there was a strange, localized fog.

This was a vapor unlike any I had ever seen. It appeared to be tendrils of mist, swirling up out of the ground, and it only rose from four or five spots all densely packed together. These tendrils were rising up in columns, swirling even though there was no breeze at all. Nowhere else in the cemetery was there even light fog, let alone strangely dense mist, except in this one isolated location. These columns rose about five and a half feet off of the ground—it was pointed out to me later by one of the witnesses to this phenomenon that they were roughly as tall as a human, which I admit never occurred to me at the time. My entire tour group and I watched this unbelievable sight for a full three minutes until the strange vaporous forms gradually dissipated. I turned back to the group, who were full of questions about what they had just seen. One person actually accused me of somehow staging the incident! It was one of those moments where I just shook my head with a smile and said, “Only in Savannah.”

“I was suddenly awash in a very cool, pleasant blast of air, like an air-conditioned gust of wind on that muggy evening.”

Yet Another Haunting

Another strange occurrence at Colonial Cemetery: one night I concluded a pub crawl on a very warm, perfectly calm evening. Mother Nature’s frequent steamy summer joke is that the rising humidity often makes the still night air seem like it’s getting hotter, not cooler. But despite the temperature and my wool uniform, it had been a great tour, for reasons having everything to do with my crowd. They had been attentive and fun, as well as generous tippers, and I began walking back to my car in good spirits. It was a busy holiday weekend and finding parking had been difficult, so I had been forced to park on Habersham Street, a decent walk from the tour’s starting point. As fate would have it, that meant I had to cut south along Perry Lane, behind Colonial Park Cemetery. The stretch behind the burial ground is a particularly un-illuminated area at night, and what little light afforded there by streetlights was even further shaded by crepe myrtle trees and mossy live oaks. The streets were mostly devoid of foot traffic and cars, and the stillness of the hot, humid air seemed to muffle sound even more. As I walked, I became increasingly aware of one other sound besides my own gait and the sword on my hip clanking lightly: the sound of footsteps off in the distance behind me. I turned to look, but saw nothing in the gloom. I figured at first that I might be hearing the echo of my own steps and continued walking. But the sound persisted, and the footsteps I heard came at a quicker pace than my own. I finally stopped and turned, peering a little anxiously this time into the near-darkness, hand instinctively feeling for the hilt of my sword. Again, I saw nothing but an empty street behind me, but the sound of someone’s passing grew even louder and more distinct. I took a couple of nervous steps back, searching for any source of the noise I was hearing. And that’s when it happened.

I was suddenly awash in a very cool, pleasant blast of air, like an air-conditioned gust of wind on that muggy evening. Whatever (or whoever) it was, it (they?) passed right through my body. The trees never stirred and the Spanish moss never moved: this was not wind. And the pocket of air I briefly felt envelop me as the footsteps passed right through the space I was occupying was not only chilled and devoid of humidity, but it also smelled quite strongly of flowers. I instantly relaxed, feeling calming energy flowing through me. Whatever this was, it was not intended as a negative sign; quite the opposite, in fact. And then it was gone, leaving nothing behind but quickly-fading footsteps and a peaceful feeling. I have no explanation for what happened that evening, and even looked for nearby flowers to explain the smell I had just experienced, but there were none.

I know next to nothing about flowers (as readers of my book, The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter already know, my ignorance of blooming plants once got me into some serious and embarrassing trouble with a Voodoo Queen), but a few days later I smelled the same distinct scent again, this time from a fence near my home. Small white flowers bloomed with an intense fragrance, and I stopped to examine them. An older woman working in the garden at that particular house noticed me standing at her fence and waved. I told her that I loved the scent of her garden, pointing specifically at the white blooms, and she said, “Isn’t it lovely? I just adore Confederate jasmine.” All I could think of at that moment was my tour uniform, which is of a Confederate officer, and just had to smile at the serendipity. Was it a message of approval, or just an odd coincidence?

Deriving Meaning From Bones

A cemetery is ultimately more than a place to bury the dead. If you’re attuned, a burial ground often tells a story. How old is the place? How affluent were its citizens? How did the city grow? By that measure, Colonial Park Cemetery speaks volumes about the people and the relative wealth of the population. Began in 1750 when Savannah was a grubby, somewhat underfed seaport, the early simple headstones reflect that hardscrabble existence. As the city grew, though, it witnessed a renaissance of commerce and culture. In a century-plus worth of burials at Colonial Park Cemetery, the later tombstones are more elaborate. Ultimately what we have is a snapshot of a seaport, echoing both boom and bust.

Colonial Park represents much more than a collection of random tombs and burial markers. Early Savannahians were confronted with the prospect of disease, imprecise medical care, a staggering infant mortality rate, and unsanitary conditions. They responded to that adversity by erecting a simple yet elegant burying ground. As their city grew they embraced Colonial Cemetery, literally wrapping their streets and homes around it, as a reminder of the razor-thin and all-too-familiar line between vitality and decay.

I often point out the powerful acquaintance that those early residents must have had with death. Sometimes it makes my crowd just a trifle uncomfortable as I talk about it, but I illustrate this deep familiarity with the concept of afterlife by pointing out that on the southern edge of Colonial Park Cemetery, there is a children’s playground. The plot of ground on which it is located was within the original confines of the cemetery. So welcome to Savannah, I’ll say, where children literally play on the dead.

Conrad Aiken

228 East Oglethorpe Avenue

Conrad Aiken was one of Savannah’s most famous literary figures, along with Flannery O’Connor and Joel Chandler Harris. Aiken was a celebrated and decorated 20th century poet and author. But his life was marked with tragedy as well as triumph.

Born in 1889, Conrad grew up in a row of houses called Marshall Row, located across from Colonial Park Cemetery. He recalled later in life that he and his friends played amongst the tombstones, and in his autobiography entitled Ushant, An Essay published in 1952, he referred to it as “that jungle graveyard.” He recalled that “one could pry loose the bricks of the ancient vaults and crawl down into the warm dust to find broken boards and an old brown bone or two.” In his poem, The Coming Forth by Day of Osiris Jones, Aiken also mentions the cemetery and surrounding area, showing what an impact the cemetery had on such an impressionable youth.

A Dark Turn

His father William, a doctor, began to exhibit signs of what Conrad later described as the family petit mal of mental instability. He believed that his wife was trying to have him committed to an asylum, and surrounded himself with paranoid delusions. An associate asked William how he was doing, and he responded, “For an answer to that question I shall have to refer you to my lawyer.” Needless to say, this story does not have a happy ending.

William’s instability increased, and he tried on several occasions to take his own life. In one instance he turned on the gas in the apartment, informing his wife that they “would now see who would emerge from the apartment alive,” according to the Savannah Morning News’ account of the Aiken tragedy.

William Aiken quarreled with his wife during the last week of February, 1901. Eleven-year-old Conrad, who was home at the time, heard a silence and then his father’s voice counting to three. Then he heard a pistol shot. He heard his father count again, and then another pistol shot sounded, and he heard what sounded like a body hitting the floor. Conrad rushed to the nearby police station and told the desk sergeant that “Papa has just shot Mama and then himself.”

Conrad was sent north to Massachusetts to live with relatives. He went on to write numerous poems and authored several novels. During the First World War, Aiken claimed that he was in an ‘essential industry’ because of being a poet, and was granted an exemption for that reason. Aiken, during his illustrious career, held the poetry chair at the Library of Congress from 1950-57 and was awarded the National Medal for Literature in 1969.

The Great Circle

Aiken moved back to Savannah in 1962, and bought the house right next door to his childhood home. At first glance, to live next door to where his father shot his mother and then himself would appear morbid, but Aiken claimed that he had happy memories of the area. Also, the idea of ending up where one began would appeal to Conrad. It had both a literal and figurative meaning for him: he had even written a novel about the subject (‘Great Circle’, 1933). This cyclical idea is strengthened by the fact that Conrad lived his first eleven years in Savannah, and his last eleven years, as well: matching bookends to his life in matching houses on the same street. He died in 1973.

Aiken did visit his parents before his death, out in Bonaventure Cemetery on the far eastern side of the city. They were interred in one of the most beautiful sections of the cemetery, close to Johnny Mercer’s grave and within sight of the river. While he was there, he saw a ship passing in the Wilmington River with the name Cosmos Mariner. It struck a lyrical chord with Conrad, so he checked the Shipping News for more information. Cosmos Mariner had a destination officially listed as ‘Unknown’. This turn of phrase delighted Conrad, and he felt a kinship with the vessel.

Conrad specified that when he died, he wanted to be buried near his parents, but rather than a statue or large burial vault, he wanted a bench. The inscription on the bench says:

Conrad Aiken

Cosmos Mariner

Destination Unknown

It is a Savannah tradition, observed to this day, to sit on Aiken’s grave and toast him with either a martini or a mint julep.

Lucas Theatre

32 Abercorn Street

The Lucas Theatre was built in 1921 by Arthur Lucas. Located at the corner of Abercorn and Congress Streets, on the southeastern edge of Reynolds Square, this beautiful theatre, with an Italian Renaissance exterior and fully- renovated interior, is an edifice responsible for improving and enriching the cultural atmosphere of this unique Southern city. The theatre remained open until 1976, and the last movie that showed before the doors were closed was The Exorcist. A number of people tried to renovate the Lucas during its vacancy. Even actor Kevin Spacey, who was in town filming Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, gave a sizeable donation and hosted a black-tie fundraiser. The grand old theatre finally reopened its doors in December of 2000, with a showing of Gone with the Wind.

This tribute to the arts in Savannah has also had its share of ghost stories throughout the years, some true, and some with their veracity very much in doubt, but they are colorful tales nonetheless.

One bit of folklore being told as fact about the structure is the claim that in 1928, a group of gangsters in a car opened fire on a crowd of people waiting to get into the Lucas Theatre with a .45 caliber Tommy Gun. Some point to a grouping of blackened marks on the outside of the Lucas’ tile façade as evidence of the repair job done to hide the bullet holes. The story continues, claiming that a ticket-taker was shot in the back by these men as he attempted to reach safety within the doors of the theatre. Claims of seeing this man abound, who supposedly flings open the front doors, staggers into the movie-house lobby, falls to the floor, and vanishes from sight.

The first problem with this story is that the shooting never happened. No incidents of a drive-by shooting have ever taken place at the Lucas Theatre. An exhaustive search of the archives at the Georgia Historical Society reveal not one bit of supporting evidence for this story. Also, since the box office was located inside, the ticket-taker would have been stationed inside the lobby next to the main doors leading into the theatre, not on the sidewalk. And lastly, the black marks pointed to by tour guides are decidedly not caused by .45 caliber bullets. A round from a Thompson machinegun would have almost certainly shattered the Spanish-style tile, or at the very least left a gaping hole, not the dark smudges that are apparent on the front of the Lucas.

“Several of the workers involved in the renovation also claim to have had otherworldly experiences.”

The $10,000 Haunting

However, there are some strange stories about the Lucas which have the ring of truth.

A longtime Lucas Theatre executive, Jon Leisure, told me a story that occurred fairly close to the completion of the theatre: “We were getting ready for the premiere in December of 2000, and one of the problems we were having was that the air conditioners located above the balcony were leaking water. So we rigged up what we thought was a solution. We strapped what amounted to a funnel on the underside of the a/c unit, so the dripping water would flow into the funnel, down a hose and into a 5-gallon bucket at the bottom.” Jon went on to say that the plastic lid of the bucket was left on, and the hose passed through a small hole which was cut into the lid. The fit had been so tight, he insisted, that it had taken some ‘elbow-grease’ to get the hose through the hole in the first place. “It was a snug fit,” he said, shaking his head.

“When we came back the next morning, the hose was no longer in the bucket. Somehow, the hose had been pulled out of the hole in the lid. There was no way that hose could have gotten out of the bucket unless somebody pulled it, hard!

“The dripping water had absolutely ruined a portion of the balcony, an area that had recently been finished. It cost nearly $10,000 worth of damage to the plaster. Fortunately, it didn’t affect the premiere.”

Several of the workers involved in the renovation also claim to have had otherworldly experiences. One worker reported hearing the sound of a whirring projector and a light coming from the old projection booth. The problem was, it was early in the renovations and the projector had not yet been re-installed in the projection room.

The ghost stories predate the renovation. One former employee who worked at the Lucas in the early ‘70’s remembers an incident. “We were all pretty sure the place was haunted—even back then there were stories,” he said. “But boys being boys, we would often use this to scare some of the female employees, by hiding and jumping out, that sort of stuff. Well, one day it backfired. I hid in a dark room, ready to spring out and scare one of the girls, when suddenly I felt a presence in there with me. I could hear someone there in the dark, in the room with me. I knew I was all alone in there, but I could also feel them watching me. I made a pretty quick exit, and I also lost my enthusiasm for hiding in dark corners at the Lucas Theatre.”

Other members of the staff have reported hearing applause coming from the empty theatre. “I was walking into the theatre to start my shift,” one former employee recalls, “and I hear what sounded like a full theatre applauding. I remember thinking that it was odd, because it was early afternoon before the movies really got busy—why would there be a full audience watching a matinee, and why would they applaud? I walked to the door of the movie theatre and opened it, and it was deserted. We hadn’t been showing a matinee at all.”

It is only fitting that such a cornerstone of Savannah’s culture throughout the years would also have another type of deep connection to Savannah’s past. The stories of things that go bump in the night at the Lucas are perhaps exposing the ‘reel’ side of this beautiful Southern town.

River Street Inn

124 East Bay Street

Sitting on the bluff overlooking River Street is the hotel known as the River Street Inn. Portions of the Inn were built as early as 1817— the ground floor of the structure is constructed of ballast stones, which were brought as ballast in ships from Europe. This lower story, as is common with much of the construction on River Street, dates from circa 1817. The upper three floors were added in 1853. The building used to be a place where cotton was stored and graded, but now it has been renovated into a beautiful inn. The River Street Inn has another reputation, in addition to being some of the finest lodging in the city: a haven for haunted happenings.

Housekeepers say they dislike the third floor of the Inn because of the westernmost hallway. Strange occurrences include unexplained footsteps that sound as if they are walking on hardwood, even though the hall is carpeted. The staff has even heard disembodied voices. The most disturbing part is that the housekeepers hear their own names being called. And I had my own personal experience at the Inn, but I’m getting way ahead of myself.

“Suddenly...a door slammed hard behind me!”

A ‘Slam’ to the Psyche

After hearing many stories involving the Inn from the staff, I decided to check out the hallway in the Spring of 2003. I went down to the third floor and slowly began walking down the hallway in question. I am by no means a scientist, and I had definitely left my Ghostbusters proton pack at home, but I have to experience the areas about which I write. Not only is personal familiarity the only way I can write honestly about a location, I always wonder what might happen to me in an area which is reputed to be haunted. On several occasions I have been in the presence of what I would deem genuine paranormal phenomena, and in more than a couple of these I have felt a strange polarizing energy in the air. The only comparison I can offer is feeling like the air is charged with static electricity, as if someone pulled an acrylic blanket out of the dryer and then wrapped you in it. This is the feeling I experienced while walking down the hallway of the River Street Inn: every nerve ending seemed to tingle as I walked.

Suddenly, about three quarters down the hallway, a door slammed hard behind me! I nearly jumped out of my skin. As I stood there with my heart pounding, I began to feel a little foolish. I had, in my own opinion, psyched myself up so much that I had psyched myself out, so to speak. I had badly wanted an encounter with something unexplainable that I allowed myself to be frightened by what I assumed was a guest, one who opened and then immediately slammed their door closed. The strange ‘energized’ sensation was gone, as well.

I walked back up to the lobby and explained to Elizabeth, the staff member behind the front desk, what had happened to me in the third floor hallway. I poked fun at myself for being so scared by a door slamming. But she got an odd look, and asked for me to repeat myself. I told her again: “I went down to the third floor hallway and was scared silly by a slamming door. I swear, Elizabeth, if that guest had slammed their door just a little harder, you’d have to call housekeeping to clean up the puddle I’d have left in the hall.”

Elizabeth smiled as she tapped on her computer screen, and replied, “But there aren’t any guests on the third floor right now. It’s between check-out and check-in—the entire side on the third floor is completely empty right now.” I protested, “Surely there must be a housekeeper up there?” She shook her head emphatically, and asked if I had seen a housekeeping cart in the hallway. I hadn’t. “Could it have been maintenance?” I tried gamely. She again said no. I had been frightened by a door slamming in a hallway which was deserted except for me—at least by the living.

The ‘Monopoly Man’

Several guests and staff have had encounters with an apparition in this same third floor hallway. The spectre is male according to eyewitness accounts, and he is dressed in the clothes of a well-to-do 19th century businessman. In more than one instance the staff behind the front desk have been asked if there is a reenactment event in town. One very young girl started yelling to her mother about seeing ‘the Monopoly Man’, making a reference to the popular board game’s instantly recognizable icon. Her mother could see no one in the hallway, but the little girl was adamant that she could see this well-heeled stranger. If ghosts are indeed real, then it would come as no surprise to see a well-off gentleman wearing late 19th century garb in that area because in years gone by, the area was awash in wealthy bidders for cotton, ones who would have been dressed exactly as the young lady described.

One desk clerk named Stan claims to have had a strange encounter late one evening. He was sitting behind the front desk, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman dressed in white enter the lobby. Busy at his desk, he gave her a quick glance and continued with his paperwork. She approached the desk, but turned and walked briskly away-- and disappeared by walking straight through a solid brick wall. “I saw it with my own two eyes,” he said.

Yet another staff member had an encounter with something she considers paranormal. “I was working all alone on the second floor near the bar,” the young bartender said, “and I heard someone speaking in muffled tones. I walked out to see who it was, since the bar area was closed and was supposed to be deserted. There was no one there, so I went back to the bar and continued closing up, and then I heard the strange sound again—like a muffled cry, or someone choking back sobs. All the hair on the back of my neck stood up. When I peered down the hallway again, I saw a shadowy form enter the hallway, and walk right straight through a door without opening it.” She added, “It’s the only time I’ve ever seen or heard anything out of the ordinary, but once is enough for me!”

Amanda Marks, who used to work behind the front desk, claims to have had problems with the locking security mechanism on the front doors to the Inn that defy explanation. The lock is one that, when flipped at night, requires a room key for access. Amanda was having issues with that lock on a busy Saturday afternoon, because the switch controlling the mechanism kept flipping to the ‘on’ position, which had the unfortunate side-effect of locking out people who were attempting to check in. Amanda, who is a believer in the supernatural, spoke in a firm voice, asking the spirit to stop—doing so in front of paying customers at check-in. There were looks of astonishment when the problem immediately rectified itself. Apparently the ghosts at the Inn are well-trained.

B. Matthews Eatery

325 East Bay Street

In the course of my dual career as tour guide and writer, I am told a lot of ghost stories. Often times these stories are nothing more than anecdotes, but there are those occasions where a ghost tale, which I at first assume will be a little story, grows into something much, much larger. At the corner of East Bay and Habersham streets, there sits a perfect example of this phenomenon: a quiet, unassuming structure which has ties to several dark chapters of Savannah’s history. Now the home of B. Matthews Eatery, the building has a technical claim as one of the oldest buildings in Georgia.

I was eating a late lunch one day when one of the former owners, Charles, mentioned to me in an offhand way that the restaurant was haunted. I asked if I could interview him when he had more time, and he agreed. I believed it would be a small story when we sat down a day or two later. I was wrong.

One of my first questions regarded the building’s past. The building’s date listed in tax records was 1790, but Charles explained that the documentation on the building was from its sale in 1791. No one, not even the Georgia Historical Society’s records, has any definitive proof of the build date. It could have been much, much older than 1790. How much older, no one knows for certain. The building is thought to have been cobbled together out of both a former building on the site as well as a sailing vessel that foundered in the harbor. Many of the old planks and beams which were used in the construction came from this unknown seagoing vessel, including the large central beam in the center of the restaurant: the original ship’s mast. The restaurant is recognized as one of the oldest public taverns still existing in America today. The building could metaphorically represent Savannah’s history—both serving a different purpose now, and even a little cobbled together, but still beautiful.

“I was following him down into a dark underground lair for an unknown purpose.”

“Come Into The Basement...”

The interview took on a much more troubling aspect when Charles offered to show me “something important” down in the basement. I realized that I didn’t know this guy very well, and here I was following him down into a dark underground lair for an unknown purpose. Most horror movies started this way, didn’t they? He led me outside, and opened the metal doors set flush into the sidewalk. I was a little reassured that he descended first, moving carefully down to the bottom of the stone stairs, where he paused and knelt down. He moved something heavy I couldn’t see in the half-gloom, but it made a deep metallic scraping sound. “Look at this,” he said. “Ever seen one of these?” I stepped halfway down to get a better look. In his hands was a large, nasty-looking iron ring. I knew precisely what it was, and my involuntary shiver had nothing to do with the fact that the basement was cool.

“Is that a… slave tether ring?” I asked, just to be sure. He nodded grimly, and said, “This basement has a secret tunnel leading from here down to the Savannah River. All throughout this lower level there are large iron rings—“ he began pointing them out—“attached to the wall and the stairs where these pitiful souls were once chained. This means the tunnel was used to smuggle slaves up from the river, and then they were held here.”

The importation of slaves was banned by the Georgia legislature in 1798, preceding U.S. federal laws by ten years. Unofficially and illicitly, of course, the practice continued. The renegade slave ships were brutal places, as evidenced by Maya Angelou’s fire-and-brimstone words inscribed on the monument on River Street commemorating the unfortunate victims of slavers. These slaves would be moved from the river back up through the tunnels, which hid them from the eyes of the authorities. Another reason for the usage of underground passages was because the slaves being transported were in such awful condition, often being covered in blood or excrement. The slavers shielded them from public view not from a fear of prosecution, but from fear of their value being hurt by the perception of ‘damaged goods’. The tunnel may also have been used by smugglers, or perhaps by privateer crews in need of some able-bodied crewmen, and willing to secure their ‘fresh meat’ through kidnapping. Before we ascended back up into the main dining area, Charles showed me the terminus of the tunnel, long since bricked up. I imagined how much misery had passed through that particular cramped and claustrophobic underground avenue, and got a fresh round of involuntary shudders. I was very, very glad to leave that basement. Certain areas make my skin crawl, historically-speaking, and that one gave me a four-alarm case of the heebie-jeebies.

The building has been a bar for the majority of its days. Early in the 20th century a man by the last name of Mataxas entered the picture. He served as a deckhand on a sailing vessel and jumped ship in Boston in 1907, and by 1910 had made his way to Savannah. He met and married a local girl, and they had four children. Mataxas bought the bar, and continued to run the place as a tavern in spite of Prohibition. In fact, the family still owns the building to this day.

Charles recounted what one of Mataxas’ sons had told him: that he has fond memories of watching his father flavor the illegal gin. The tavern was a ‘Speakeasy’ throughout the 1920’s, often hosting parties where the illicit beverages flowed freely. After Prohibition ended, one of the doors became another means of selling alcohol: the old tavern had sidewalk service, selling bottles to passersby.

The bar also had an interesting solution to Segregation: the two rooms were joined by the bar on the southern side, which had a passage between for the bartenders—one white, the other black, each serving their respective clientele. The clientele was not allowed to mix, but the bartenders worked side-by-side, a strange instance of the 1950’s idea of ‘Separate but Equal’. The arrangement turned bloody, however. According to Charles, the black bartender began dating the daughter of his counterpart, and the enraged wife of the white bartender shot and killed her daughter’s boyfriend in a dispute over their illicit affair.

Adventures in Renovating

The old bar has been renovated on several occasions over the years, and many times the result was less than satisfactory. Charles showed me a picture of the condition of the bar when his early 2000’s renovation process began: the entire place had been painted midnight blue with yellow piping. “They painted over the three pink marble balustrades on the bars,” he said, disgust creeping into his voice. “Painted it—that’s pink marble from the only pink marble mine in the state, in Tate, Georgia.” And it was during these latest renovations that the owners realized that the building came with more than an ugly paint job: the place was haunted.

Evidence of these hauntings manifested in several ways. Things would turn up missing or moved to a new location while the work progressed, mostly tools. While this is not unusual on a job site, the workers related some humorous instances where the screwdrivers would disappear for hours, only to be found in plain view. Drill bits would vanish. Charles’ toolbox mysteriously disappeared for a time, and then was found nearby, apparently tossed against the wall. No one claimed responsibility for this, and it was in an area where it surely would have been noticed during the search. It was if the toolbox had suddenly reappeared out of thin air.

Another incident occurred right as the restaurant was opening. The portion scale, a vital piece of equipment for an efficient kitchen, went missing. The staff hunted high and low for the scale, but it was nowhere to be found. Charles finally threw up his hands three days later and bought another scale—an expense as a new businessman he could ill afford. When he returned and was installing the new scale, he noticed the old scale in plain view on one of the tables. “There is no way we could have missed seeing the scale there in the center of the table. It was pretty obvious at that point we were dealing with a ghost who liked to hide things and then give them back.”

Charles related other eerie happenings: “I was working late one night, trying to get the place open. I was cleaning the floors on my hands and knees, and suddenly, I felt someone in the room with me. I didn’t know what to do, so I started talking. I introduced myself, and explained what I was trying to do; I said I hoped that it was okay, and that we could exist peacefully in the old place together. I apologized if I was intruding, but explained that we had to open the restaurant soon. I also added that if the presence could, or felt like it, could it help me?

“The presence stayed for a while, and then finally I felt ‘them’ leave.” Perhaps the ghosts were simply not interested in lending a hand.

Mischievous Ghosts

Perhaps the appeal worked. In spite of the playful disappearances of tools and other spectral mayhem, the restaurant known as B. Matthews opened on schedule. It was not without a few hitches, however: to celebrate the opening, one of the owners was presented with a special knife set costing $1200. Shortly after the knives were given, two of them disappeared. “We hunted high and low for the knives, and I was beginning to suspect that they had been stolen by someone. Finally we found the knives—they hadn’t been misplaced or stolen. They were imbedded—point-first—deep in the wooden floor behind the bar.”

Salt and pepper shakers have been thrown across the restaurant at all hours, with such force they hit the wall. Also being thrown from time to time was a drawer face behind the register. “It wasn’t attached to a drawer,” the former owner explained, “Perhaps at one time it was, but at this point it was just decorative, so we wedged it in place.” The problem being, it wouldn’t stay put. The drawer face would pop out constantly, and with a surprising degree of violence. “Numerous times, it has hit the back of the register stand,” the owner explained, and showed me the spot where it happened. The space between the drawer face and the register was roughly three feet, and it would take more than a draft from the basement or the groan of a shifting building to pop the drawer that distance. “I never get the impression that the presence is unfriendly, or wants to harm anyone. I think they just want to be noticed,” he says. “We finally wound up just leaving that drawer face out—it’s a little unsightly, but if it makes the ghost happy, I’ll leave it.” In another case of spectral disobedience, the spirit has also been known to open the cabinet doors behind the work space at random times, apparently taking pleasure from the staff running into them, and occasionally falling.

The former owner reported that not all of the spirits at B. Matthews fall under this ‘friendly, yet mischievous’ category. One friend of the owners’, a man named Scott, popped in for a visit. Despite Scott’s description as very large in stature, he also possesses a sensitivity to all things spectral or paranormal. Scott asked to see the basement. The owners took him downstairs, showing him around when Scott suddenly fell ill. “He said he felt two spirits down there that were very unhappy. He was trembling.” Scott was so affected by his visit to the downstairs area that he had to cut his visit short and leave prematurely. It was only then that it occurred to anyone that the area had once housed slaves, and that someone as sensitive as Scott would surely pick up on the residual feelings of those bound in chains in a squalid state of inhumane treatment.

Dark Reflections

The interview concluded, and I found myself walking towards the Savannah River, located a short distance away. Along the way I tried making sense of a place with such a sordid history, and connections to slavery, privateering, smuggling, and murder; yet it was downright puzzling that for the most part the hauntings associated with the property were not overtly negative or violent. In fact, judging by the sort of activity reported, the spirits there seemed more playful than anything else. At least, I amended, the ones above ground. That basement might be a very different story.

I found myself almost in a daze, standing on the old cobblestones at the stone wall comprising one side of Factor’s Walk, which faces the river. I noticed there, for the very first time, a discolored and bricked-up former narrow opening, one which matched up neatly with the other end of the cramped tunnel I had just seen in B. Matthews’ basement, and I again felt a bitter chill on a warm day. I traced my hands over the now-sealed former passage, and thought about what it must have been like for those poor souls in chains, ushered towards an uncertain future. Their lives, as English philosopher Thomas Hobbes might have said, had been nasty, brutish, and short. I hoped that they had indeed found peace in the afterlife, because the chances of a slave finding contentment in this life were slim to none.

In spite of those past connections, the structure today housing B. Matthews Eatery contains one of the best lunch spots in Savannah. If the stories are to be believed, the restaurant has much to offer to connoisseurs of both great meals and mischievous ghosts. The spectres, however, are not listed on the menu.

Savannah Harley-Davidson

503 East River Street

The shops along River Street sometimes have stories that are difficult to explain. It seems that several ghosts have taken up residence at the Harley-Davidson shop on the eastern side of River Street. Like so many current shops along the river, this was formerly a cotton warehouse.

Members of the staff have reported strange sounds, primarily from the second floor, which is supposedly where slaves were once housed, as well as being a humidor when the shop was a cigar store. Then other bizarre occurrences started to take place. According to a Savannah Morning News article which ran October 31st, 2000, Sue Barnes, who worked at the store, saw a man in a suit and tie out of the corner of her eye during a moment she knew herself to be alone. “I thought maybe we had a ghost,” she said. According to the article, the faucet in the upper level bathroom was known to turn on, and the toilet had been known to mysteriously flush. But the truly mysterious occurrences were yet to come, and took place more recently than the year 2000.

Former staff member Laura O’Neil arrived early one Sunday morning, and found the children’s rack of clothes on the second floor in disarray. She straightened them and began getting the store ready to open. When she happened to pass by the clothes once again, she noticed that once again were hanging askew, so she approached them. It was then that she felt a strange cold feeling, a feeling like an icy gust of wind, and Laura heard a child laughing. “I decided those clothes could stay where they were,” she deadpanned.

Current staff member Melissa Pashea has had numerous experiences with the spirit, whom she has named ‘Boo.’ She was working in the upstairs when she began to smell cigar smoke. She called down to the first floor to another staff member, who also smelled the cigar. She even called out to see if someone was on the second level with her, and got no response, which is when she decided to confront the spirit directly. She said, “Boo, don’t be smoking up here.” The cigar smell vanished instantly.

Melissa also said that she has found footprints in the dust on one of the tables upstairs. The marks in the dust were of small bare feet, all over the case.

Merchandise is often found moved when the staff opens up in the morning, primarily on the second floor. A strange cold spot has also been experienced by many of the staff, and also by myself personally, on the second level that defies explanation. The temperature seems to drop suddenly by what feels like twenty degrees. The only comparison to the feeling when stepping into that cold spot is when an elevator dips unexpectedly before the doors open.

Is the child’s laugh heard by a staff member the presence haunting the Savannah Harley-Davidson? Or is it the man wearing the suit and tie? Perhaps time will tell, but one thing is certain: staff members are on their toes when they venture upstairs, because those ghosts have proven to be ‘hog’ wild.

The Anonymous Bar

Releasing the original incarnation of Haunted Savannah was a great experience for me; I support anyone else who seeks to write a similar volume about their own city, with only one note of warning. Eventually if you do choose to undertake such a venture, you’ll come to realize there will be one chapter which stirs up a lot of interest from the fringes of the genre, or as I like to say, becomes a flash-point for crazy. There was just such a chapter in Haunted Savannah, and I trust that it isn’t too much of a spoiler alert to reveal that you’re reading that section right now. Roughly three-quarters of all emails or letters I’ve received over the years have asked me a variation of the question, What was the true location of the Anonymous Bar?

Original drafts of the chapter had the name of the building and business, as I recall, but my former publishers correctly worried that there might be a lawsuit or bad publicity due to the nature of the story. Once I had removed the names, though, it bothered me greatly that I had knuckled under, and I remember pondering dropping the chapter from the volume entirely rather than cheapening it by giving only half of the story. Neither option appealed to me.

Compromise presented itself, somewhat improbably, in a completely unrelated conversation I had with an acquaintance, the content of which must remain confidential, but the solution to my problem appeared. Oxymoronically, I began to see that I could both keep my secret and reveal it, all at the same time. Never before had I written in a manner designed to obscure rather than enlighten, but in a very strange way I found the process to be oddly liberating. Ghost stories almost always need a context, but the Anonymous Bar was one of the rare compelling tales that seems unaffected by removing a house number or an X mark on a map. Revealing the where of the story is much less important than understanding why I have chosen to remove that information. Eventually all of the stories in this book come down to one question, namely what the eyewitness wanted to be revealed by telling me the story; and undoubtedly in this case, the witness did not want that information shared. Suffice it to say, I have honored the wishes of a very good friend, and not directly revealed the location or name of the spot. Subtly, however, I have given vital clues to those gifted enough to decipher what I’m telling them.

Strange Happenings

Located in the heart of the Historic District, the structure I’ll refer to as the Anonymous Bar was built after the Civil War. One of several former warehouses, the building has found new life as an elegant and stylish nightclub. Under that debonair exterior, however, lurks one of the most terrifying stories I have ever heard.

Not only is the structure haunted by traditional ghosts—stories much like the others contained in this volume—but there is also a presence or force at work which is so malevolent that several staff members and co-owners have fallen prey, with serious and even life-threatening consequences. Ghosts don’t generally send the staff to the hospital, as happened in several instances in this bar, whose name, lamentably, I cannot mention. Eerie forces are, or were, at work in the structure, at least as related by a former owner of a business at that location. But first, he made me swear that I would never, ever tell this story on tour.

“I was there once with my brother, in the basement,” the former owner told me one night over a drink. “The upstairs was deserted. I had just gotten there, and my brother had been downstairs working for hours before I showed up. While we’re down there renovating the place, I hear heavy footsteps running across the floor above me, y’know, bump bump bump! I’m looking around, because the place is deserted—who the heck is upstairs? Well, my brother barely looks up even though we’re the only two there. He says, ‘Man, that’s been driving me nuts.’ So I asked him who was up there, and he just looks at me and says, ‘Nobody. It’s deserted.’ My brother took a long drag of his cigarette, like he’s thinking about whether or not he should finish what he was saying. I guess he decided to, because he said, ‘I’ve been hearing it all night and when I’ve gone up to check, I didn’t find anybody. We’re alone.’” The former owner grew very solemn as he talked. “My brother is not the sort of guy who makes stuff up. He is a pretty literal person, and a very hard worker. We both heard it, and it was footsteps. It wasn’t any settling floorboard or mouse; these were heavy stomps coming from a deserted space above us.

“We actually heard that pretty frequently. Footsteps, voices, that sort of thing. There were times, like that instance with my brother, where more than one person would hear it.”

I have heard many haunted stories about this particular city block, and one common theme is that someone died in a fire. And indeed, one of the largest threats to Savannah during that time period was fire. Many of the large blazes which have plagued the city have started in that area, including one of the worst fires in Savannah’s history, the Hogan’s Dry Good Fire of 1889. Are these the ghostly footsteps of someone who perhaps died in one of the conflagrations?

A Dark Turn

One other story told by the former owner about the space sent chills down my spine—possibly because of the subject matter, or the fact that it had such a profound impact on my friend’s life. In fact, it nearly killed him.

“So the renovations are complete, and the bar opens,” he continued. “The problem is, people that worked there were having accidents or medical problems. I worked behind the bar, and one day I keeled over and had to go to the emergency room. Turns out, I had an aneurism and almost died. I still have a soft spot in my skull from the surgery, want to feel it?” At this point he offered to let me touch his soft spot, an honor I declined. “It wasn’t just me. In eight weeks we had ten people nearly die or had emergency-room-type injuries. We had a broken leg and an auto accident, that sort of thing. My brother nearly wound up in the same room as me at the hospital. There were others.

“One day I’m back behind the bar, still not really recovered from my surgery, and I’m talking to my brother, just basically saying how weird it is that so many people have been hurt in such a short amount of time. And my brother, real casual, says, ‘Do you think maybe that pentagram drawn in the upstairs has anything to do with it?’

“I nearly fell over. I said, ‘WHAAAT?’ and he showed me. There was a big Satanic symbol, a pentagram drawn in black on the upstairs floor—and it was right above the bar! Everyone who had been hurt was working right underneath that big ‘hex’ sign, and didn’t even know it. A big symbol, and black candles, the whole bit. My brother and I erased the drawing, and the problems stopped right away.”

The symbol, most associated with black magic or Satanism today, has roots in many religions, but I was not about to quibble semantics with my friend. After all, he was the one with a soft spot in his skull, not I. It does stand to reason that the symbol above the bar was used in some sort of dark, forbidden, malevolent ritual, as opposed to a Wiccan ceremony, or even the Freemasons.

The ghost stories regarding the bar are not unusual, but the Occult symbol and what was possibly a Satanic ritual by persons unknown is an extraordinary and disturbing twist. Were the owners and staff the target of a curse? And what was the motivation? These questions remain unanswered. He ended his association with the property in question, and has reported being very happy. A reasonable person might ask: Why does he not want the story to be told? It’s speculation on my part, but I believe that he cut all ties and moved in a different direction to protect the ones he loves.

Is it a coincidence that all the stories associated with the bar involve fire? The block has been destroyed by fire numerous times in the early days of Savannah—quite possibly spurring a haunting—and now the owners and staff have had to deal with a different sort of incident, also involving fiery torment. It has now been over ten years since I first heard this story and have nothing new to report, so I sincerely hope that all such flames have been extinguished at this location.

Scarbrough House

41 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard

The beautiful Regency mansion on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, which now houses the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, was built for William Scarbrough in 1818. The historic home was built by William Jay for perhaps the leading Savannah merchant of the time period.

The house has a historic past: U.S. President James Monroe was entertained here in 1819, when he had made a special trip to witness the launching of the S.S. Savannah, the world’s first oceangoing steamship. Scarbrough was a principal investor in the venture. Scarbrough proudly invited Monroe and other dignitaries to his newly completed home before the ship set sail to England. The voyage of the S.S. Savannah was a rousing success on the high seas, where she set a record for fastest journey across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, she was an abject failure where it really mattered: the bottom line of the ledger. The steamship was not a financial success and the investors lost a fortune. Scarbrough was ruined in the fallout, and he was forced to sell his lovely home at auction. It was bought by William’s son-in-law, who allowed William to continue to live at the residence.

Perhaps contributing to the financial debacle was the fact that William’s wife, Julia, was especially fond of parties, or ‘blowouts,’ as she called them. She was dubbed ‘The Countess.’ She once sent out five hundred invitations for a single party—a party that three hundred people wound up attending. These ‘blowouts’ were nearly unending. One lady visitor to Savannah wrote: “We hear ladies with families of small children boast of having been out to parties ten nights in succession until after midnight, and sometimes until 3 o’clock in the morning; and that they had not seen their husbands in a week.” Robert Mackay, a friend of Julia’s, did warn that her skill as a hostess did nothing for her skill as a singer, and that she not be asked to sing lest she “frighten the good people of England.”

In intervening years between the Scarbrough (and extended) family’s ownership and 1997, when the Maritime Museum began occupying the structure, the mansion was used as an orphanage, a school for African-American children, and as a museum by the Historic Savannah Foundation. The house, for years, was allowed to slide into disrepair and then ruin before the Foundation restored it over many years.

Even though the blowouts thrown by Julia Scarbrough had ended years before, that doesn’t stop many longtime Savannahians from talking about the house. Some claim to have seen the windows ablaze in the mid-1960’s, when the house was unoccupied. According to these accounts, the sound of laughter and raucuous piano music have been heard coming from the house in the wee hours of the morning. Perhaps ‘The Countess’ was so fond of parties that she continued to throw her grand ‘blowouts’ well into the next century.

“...the sound of laughter and raucous piano music have been heard coming from the house in the wee hours of the morning.”

Brothers, & Armed?

A family legend that involves the younger Julia Scarbrough, daughter of William and Julia, is one in which her eventual husband, Godfrey Barnsley, fought an unusual duel with his own brother, Gartrelle. It seems that they both loved the same woman, a young lady named Chessie Scarlett. Unable to settle who sould have her hand in marriage, the two siblings decided the fight a ‘poison duel’ to decide the matter. They arranged for an impartial friend to pour two glasses of wine, and into one was added a lethal dose of poison. The appearance and character of the wine was unchanged, so neither had any way of telling which glass held just the spirits, and which might make them a spirit. Both brothers drank deeply, and Gartrelle fell dead.

Godfrey Barnsley survived, but didn’t truly win. It turned out that Chessie had been in love with Gartrelle, the brother who died.

This tradition of bloodshed between brothers unfortunately ran in the family. Years later, Godfrey Barnsley’s great-grandson, Preston Saylor, feared that his sibling Harry was conspiring to have him committed to a mental asylum. Preston shot his brother, who collapsed into the arms of his mother and died.

Today, the Scarbrough House operates as The Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, and is available for touring.

The Foley House Inn

14 West Hull Street

The Foley House Inn, located on Hull Street between Bull and Whitaker Streets, is considered one of the most romantic bed & breakfasts in Savannah. In actuality the luxury inn is contained within two joined structures right off of Chippewa Square. The easternmost of the two was built in 1896—it contains the original inn—and the westernmost was built in 1870.

The Foley House Inn has a bit of strange history associated with it, and it has spawned some folklore. An interview with Charles, a former manager, was an insightful and amusing glimpse at not only the house’s history but also the attitude of some residents of the city towards Savannah’s haunted reputation. Charles confirmed the pertinent information, which is of a forensic nature contained in the story below, and when asked the veracity of the stories told about the Foley House and the city in general, he chuckled.

“I’ve always thought that Savannah has her reputation because we are a drinking town,” he said. “Does the Foley House have a reputation for being haunted? Sure. Have I ever had an experience? No, but then again, I don’t drink on the job, either. I’ve long suspected the housekeepers of taking a nip or two while on the clock—they’re the ones always talking about ghosts.” He related some of the stories that they have told, including seeing a woman in a white 19th century period-style robe in the hallways.

Charles, who thinks the tours in Savannah are often unintentionally funny, related an amusing story in which a carriage tour guide referred to the cast-iron ‘dolphin’ downspouts as ‘mahi mahi spouts’, erroneously naming them after the tasty tropical fish instead of the marine mammal. “The guide nearly kicked me off the carriage because I was laughing so hard,” he explained.

Charles made it plain that he believed the ghost story was a bit of folklore, and it is recounted here under that condition. Like most folklore, though, there are bits of fact mixed in—after all, legends must come from somewhere. The following version is one of several told about the Foley House Inn, with the true facts revealed below.

“...after all, legends must come from somewhere.”

Honora’s Loss

The structure which would become the Foley House Inn was built in 1896 by Honora Foley, who had recently suffered the loss of her husband, Owen. Her society friends urged her to remarry quickly, since during that time period, a woman supposedly needed a man to take care of her. But Honora refused to entertain thoughts of remarriage simply because of public pressure by well-meaning friends, deciding instead to grieve for her husband until she felt she was ready to love again. During those days there was little a widow could do to support herself, so she built this home as a boarding house to alleviate the financial burden of being single. She promised herself to be very careful to whom she rented a room, because it would be easy to rent a room to the wrong sort of fellow.

One of the first boarders she took in was a gentleman from Tybee Island, whose house had been damaged by a hurricane. Her new renter, Matthew, was a brickmason by trade, and he proved very useful and helpful with many repairs and tasks around the boarding house. The two quickly became friends. Matthew began to volunteer for work, free of charge, around the house where they’d be working side by side, and it became clear that he was attracted to her. He never spoke of it or declared his intentions, being a perfect gentleman, but it was obvious to all that Matthew assisted her with odd jobs simply to spend time with her.

Honora for her part was torn because of his low station in life, and her society friends disapproved. Matthew had none of the wealth or stability that custom deemed right for her. Her relationship with Matthew was never going to progress past friendship unless circumstances changed.

Her next boarder was a gentleman quite different from the first. We’ll call him ‘Wally.’ He was a very attractive man in his early fifties, yet he made her a little uneasy. Honora noticed the way his eyes followed her when she passed in front of him, and she also noticed that he was not such a gentleman as her friend the brickmason. Some of Wally’s remarks could be taken in a way that would be inappropriate. Yet, he was a very wealthy man from an even wealthier family. Some of her friends remarked that he would be a much more suitable choice than the brickmason. Still, she felt uncomfortable around him.

Honora spent many days pondering how to reconcile this situation. Wally made his intentions towards her very clear—he wanted a quick courtship and then marriage. He was very attractive, but something about his manner troubled her. He was very unlike her first husband, who had been kind, caring and cautious regarding their finances. It was one of the reasons she still loved her departed dearly: he had cared for her so much that he had made careful investments, explaining that she would be taken care of if something was to ever happen to him. Wally, in contrast, spent money recklessly. He never referenced a job or title, making vague statements or ignoring the question when asked what he did for a living. He also made several casual inquiries about how much she was worth and whether or not she held any titles to valuable property. But he was charming and flattering, and her friends were smitten with him.

One night Honora woke up from a sound sleep and realized that someone was in her room. She felt herself pinned down to the mattress by strong hands, and then a terrible weight on top of her. Reaching out blindly, she picked up the first object she could grasp—a heavy candlestick holder—and swung it with all of her might. She heard a satisfying thud when it hit home, a grunt, and then the weight fell off of her. When she finally got her senses, she found Wally crumpled by the side of the bed. Wally was very much deceased, his skull dented in at the temple from the candleholder. This is when she realized that her problems had just begun.

Honora had managed to avoid a terrible fate at the hands of Wally, but now she would have to deal with the public inquiry, and worse, lawsuits from Wally’s wealthy family. She could even go to prison for murder. Honora’s life as she knew it, as well as her fledgling business, was now over. Unless she did something drastic.

A Foley House Secret

The secret of what happened to Wally took eighty years to spill. The house next door was purchased in the 1960’s to expand the Foley House, and a hole was knocked into the wall separating the two structures. As the wall came down, Wally literally spilled out at the feet of the workmen. They had uncovered a false wall, expertly built, added into the Foley House to conceal the body. Honora Foley had apparently had one more odd-job for her brickmason, which he obviously carried out with all the skill of a master builder. The addition was so artfully done, no one suspected a thing for eight decades.

Of course, Wally was not his real name, but what better name to call a man who spent so many years sealed in a wall? Women often report a chill when standing near where the false wall used to stand. Wally apparently still makes his unwelcome presence known in this fashion.

Our mason, Matthew, apparently had a fee for his services: he and Honora were married and lived in perfect harmony, as best we can tell, for over thirty years. Nothing like a shared secret to cement a romance. Matthew had sealed the deal. However, it could be argued that Honora exchanged one ball and chain for another.

The folklore fills in the story surrounding the facts, and does so in an amusing way, like so many legends. The pertinent facts are these: Honora Foley, recent widow, did indeed build the Foley House in 1896. Years later, when the B&B was being expanded, the wall separating the structures was torn down, and a body was found, in the words of the manager Charles, “Very dead.” However, no clue has emerged as to the man’s identity, but the remains dated to close to when the property was being built.

Is the elaborate story of Honora, Wally and Matthew true? Probably not. But it is one more legend that really should be true, and no one in Savannah would be surprised if it were.

Savannah Theatre

222 Bull Street

The Savannah Theatre on Chippewa Square is the oldest continuously operating theatre in the United States. It opened in December of 1818, and has been going strong ever since. Originally designed by William Jay as a Regency style structure, the theatre has burned several times during its history, which explains the theatre’s current Art Deco façade. Enough of the original theatre remains even after the fires that the theatre can still lay claim to the title of America’s oldest operating playhouse.

The opening night featured a double bill, with the comedy ‘The Soldier’s Daughter’ and the farce ‘Raise the Wind’ playing to a sold-out crowd. Many complaints were made about the ladies in the audience having hairstyles so tall that they blocked the view of the action. The Georgian newspaper reported the next morning that the ladies’ piled-high hair “might be mistaken for steeple of the new brick church,” a reference to the newly-completed Independent Presbyterian Church on nearby Oglethorpe Avenue.

Police officers have reported strange noises coming from the old theatre in the wee hours of the morning.

A Revealing Ghost

The theatre also has its share of unscheduled performances of the spectral kind. A Savannah Morning News article from 1895 relates several fantastic accounts of ghosts in the old playhouse. In one instance, a mysterious fire burned a hole in the floor of one of the dressing rooms, but singed nothing else and, just as curiously, put itself out.

The paper goes on to say that several police officers on various occasions, both on foot patrol and on horseback, reported hearing a strange noise in the wee hours of the morning near the old theatre. Even though the theatre was clearly deserted, the officers claimed to hear applause coming from inside. None of these officers appeared brave enough to investigate, because no official report was ever made about the strange sounds of merriment coming from the old theatre.

By far the strangest account of hauntings occurred in the Green Room, which is a rehearsal room near the McDonough Street side of the theatre. A group of female dancers who were using this room to change into their costumes suddenly felt a sensation of being watched by someone or something unseen. They described this presence as unspeakably malevolent and evil. So strong was this overpowering feeling of dread that they fled the dressing room in various stages of undress! One can only imagine the incredible sight of a gaggle of screaming, scantily-clad ladies running for the exit—and one also wonders if the show in which they were performing could possibly approach the unbelievable scene of the near-naked cast fleeing en mass to McDonough Street. So this is one case where the ghost’s performance—and the reaction of the ‘co-stars’—surely overshadowed the real production.

The theatre also made national headlines in 1906, when a suspicious fire broke out several nights before Thomas Dixon’s controversial play ‘The Clansman’ was supposed to be performed. It is widely suspected that the Ku Klux Klan started the blaze.

A few other instances of strange history surround the old playhouse. In the 1850’s, actor John Wilkes Booth performed at the Savannah Theatre. Booth would go on to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., in April of 1865.

When the theatre was being remodeled in the early part of the 20th century, a portion of a brick wall, upon being broken, was found to contain a penny from 1818. Apparently it had been left in the wall by a worker constructing the original theatre. It was subsequently carried by the then-owner of the theatre, Fred Weis as a good-luck charm for many years. Weis lost the penny while in New York in 1948, and the Savannah Theatre almost immediately suffered a fire, which nearly reduced it to embers.

Shadow Players

Ghostly happenings in an old theatre is a story almost as old as time. One really must wonder though, if the dead and the living truly can interact as they seem to at the Savannah Theatre, what those on the ‘other side’ think of all the costumes and the pageantry that they glimpse through the gossamer veil? Cowgirls, preening 1950’s crooners, and Shakespearean skull-toting pontificators have all paced the stage here, so it stands to reason that the spirits would fit right in with all of the other strange sights and sounds. One thing separates the living from the dead, though: the willingness to exit, and leave the stage. Those in the spirit realm seem to linger, perhaps dazzled by the thought of their performance ending, or even waiting for one last bit of applause before the curtain draws to a close.

McDonough’s Restaurant and Lounge

21 East McDonough Street

McDonough’s Restaurant and Lounge, located across McDonough Street from the Savannah Theatre, is definitely a local’s hangout. The place combines offbeat locals and a steady tourist crowd, and also mixes a traditional Irish pub with a more modern karaoke bar (consistently voted best in the city) and dance floor. Among its virtues are a full late-night menu that serves until 2:30 a.m., and a happy hour that runs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. It seemingly has captured the flavor of Savannah like no other bar, which is not surprising, given the history of the location. According to the owner of the bar, the structure also houses its share of things that go bump—or crash—in the night.

Researching property in Savannah to find out when a structure was built can sometimes be frustrating, but there are times when the confusion generated by contradicting records can sometimes reveal a wonderful story. McDonough’s is a perfect example of this. According to property records kept by the Chatham County Board of Assessors, the building was built in two stages: the northern side came first, in 1890, and the southern side was an addition in 1900. But the records at the Georgia Historical Society contradict these dates. Since the Historical Society records are generally seen as more reliable, the archives housed there usually clear up any doubt. Not so in the case of when the structure housing McDonough’s was built; in fact, the archives deepen, rather than solve, the mystery. According to the property documents, the lot was given in 1831 to the Unitarian Society by the mayor and aldermen. The lot was sold numerous times between then and 1854, which is where we have any record of a structure being built by Dr. J. Gordon Howard—and apparently it took two years to build. Shoddy record-keeping can perhaps be explained by the South’s plunge into the American Civil War from 1861- 65. That brings us to an intriguing character.

“...I would hear pots and pans clanking, and other times I would hear a crash.”

The Curiosity Shop

In 1867, the building was owned by Theodore Meves, who opened a museum that he called the ‘Curiosity Shop’. The museum had exhibits of shells, minerals, and exotic animals. Meves advertised that his museum’s admission was fifty cents, and twenty-five cents for children, and he would often put on shows where he would feed rats to rattlesnakes. He advertised that he had the World’s Smallest Cow, and also claimed to have an alligator, rare birds, and a lion cub that was teething. He was sued by his neighbor for keeping and feeding a she-bear on his property, and won a settlement in the suit. The next year, probably much to the chagrin of his neighbor, he advertised a ‘Bear Fight’—no word on who or what the bear was opposing in the contest. One must wonder if the opponent was human, and if so, did Meves wish it was his cranky neighbor?

Meves was also a member of the German Friendly Society, and was skilled in the art of making fireworks (pyrotechnics), being employed by the city numerous times for that purpose. Records are incomplete as to when Meves moved his museum to Monterey Square, but by 1870, we know that the building had been converted into a grocery store by Julius Koox. In the historical records at the Georgia Historical Society, we find that it is the southern addition, and not the northern part of present-day McDonough’s which was built between 1890- 94. The tax records also state that there is confusion about the roof addition as well, but the office space was added sometime between 1919 and 1924.

Over the years the brick building housed many things, but in 1987 it was bought by Billy Lee, who converted it into an Irish pub.

A Revealing Interview

Mr. Lee graciously took several hours out of his busy schedule to relate his strange experiences in the old structure. In 1991, he says, he was living in the apartment on the second floor, located above the bar, and this is when things began to get odd.

He began to hear unexplained noises. “From my old bedroom, you can look out the door and adjoining the living room area there’s a galley-style kitchen. That kitchen area is where I heard most of the noises. Sometimes I would hear pots and pans clanking, and other times I would hear a crash. Sometimes I would hear boards creaking, like someone was walking around. The first time it happened, I thought I had a prowler, so I actually drew my pistol and went to investigate. Of course, nothing was there.” Oddly (or perhaps not, considering Savannah’s haunted reputation), this is not the only instance of a gun being drawn in response to a supernatural happening.

Mr. Lee had frequent encounters with his less-than-quiet unwanted spirit. “It got to be a common happening around there,” he explained, “and it didn’t seem to matter if I was alone or not. I had a girlfriend at the time who was terrified of the sounds that would come out of that kitchen at all hours of the night. She refused to come over to my apartment, because she was afraid of ghosts and wanted nothing to do with it. I could visit her, but spending the night at my place was out of the question.” Mr. Lee apparently took exception to having his social life infringed upon, because he began to attempt to rid himself of the ghost. “I yelled at it,” he said sheepishly. “The funny thing is, it seemed to work. The incidents fell off after that, so I guess it got the message. Things would still happen, but not nearly as much as before.”

Later, Billy Lee began to have very different experiences on the third floor. “This was a different type of ghost altogether,” he said. “My friend noticed it first. We were sitting on the couch watching television, and suddenly she asked, ‘What was that?’ I didn’t know what she meant, so she explained that she had seen some sort of gold light zip by, starting at the stairs. And I’ll be darned if I didn’t start seeing it, too, from time to time. It was this little slice of golden light which would zip right by. I saw it by the stairs, and I also saw it in the bathroom. It was the strangest thing—until you actually see something like that which you can’t explain, you can never understand.” It must be noted that Mr. Lee’s arms had broken out in goosebumps at this point in the interview. He did not appear to notice, and continued his story.

“I just get the feeling that this was a child. The light was only about four feet off the ground, right about the height of a child, and I don’t know, just something about it made me think of someone very young. Maybe it’s the energy or speed at which this light moves at—it’s like a dervish, then it’s gone.” When asked if perhaps something tragic had happened in the buildings past involving a child, Mr. Lee said, “I’ve never found any record of anything like that, but this is a very old building. You never know, do you?”

The history of an old building often resembles a half-completed puzzle even when a lot of records have been kept. Clear enough to make out the overall picture, but many details are missing. Keeping with the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ analogy, for a structure like McDonough’s, where so much is unresolved already, the story of the strange hauntings on the second and third floor must remain, thus far, unassembled. The chapter of who or what haunts the building remains unwritten, for now.

The Pirate’s House

20 East Broad Street

Very close to the Savannah River on East Broad Street, one of the oldest surviving structures in Savannah sits in an area called the Old Fort section of the Historic District. It is known today as the Pirate’s House Restaurant. Little can be confirmed about the early days of the structure other than it was used as a sailor’s tavern, but what is known is that members of the staff have said for years that areas of the Pirate’s House are haunted.

Among its features are fifteen dining rooms, arranged in a confusing and seemingly random winding manner, built at all different periods of Savannah’s development. This building also contains a famous rum cellar, and the legend regarding this subterranean room is that it is the starting point of a since-sealed tunnel which led down to the river. This secret passageway was allegedly used both for smuggling and for forcibly conscripting unwary drinkers at the tavern and forcing them to work aboard ship. We’ll explore the tunnel’s veracity and its possible uses in a moment.

Some claim the structure was constructed as early as 1753, but most learned sources place it at a more conservative 1794. Apparently those who claim the earlier date have neglected to read a map, because the layout of British defenses ringing the city during the Revolutionary War in 1779 (Siege of Savannah) were well-documented by both the British and the attacking French. All of these battlefield maps plainly show the redoubts (defensive trenches) slicing right through the middle of where the Pirate’s House is currently located—the British smartly incorporated into their defensive plan the ruined fort in the area, which has been known by four different names throughout Savannah’s history: Fort Savannah, Halifax, Prevost and Wayne, the last of which was used during the Revolutionary War. From this we can almost certainly state that the building is post-Revolution. Also lending credence to this is that both Washington and Warren Squares, which flank the area to the west, were not laid out until 1791. Suggesting that the Pirate’s House precedes the development of the squares which connect it to the city proper is counterintuitive.

What we do know: it was built in an area used previously as Trustees’ Garden, an experimental botanical garden by the city’s founders. This garden was an abysmal failure, and eventually the land was developed (along with Washington and Warren Squares) into residences as the city expanded that direction after the Revolution. Although describing this place as ‘residential’ paints the wrong mental image; this area was a wretched slum known as ‘Foley’s Alley’ or ‘Old Fort’, and was the poor Irish section of town. This is ironic because today, many of these homes have been renovated into houses much nicer than they would have been at the time of their construction. When visitors marvel at the beautifully restored wooden houses in the area, Pirate’s House included, they are actually looking at a former ghetto, reimagined. The nicer homes, which at various points in Savannah’s history have nearly all burned, are made of brick, not wood.

Pegging the exact date the Pirate’s House was built is difficult to say the least because of the strange manner in which rooms were added onto the house one at a time. The records at the Georgia Historical Society seem to suggest that there was an earlier structure which was demolished to make way for the first buildings which currently comprise what we know today as the Pirate’s House. The restaurant naturally would like to claim the earlier 1753 date for marketing purposes, but there is very little proof of this. Likewise, their claims that a portion of the property known as the Herb House is from 1733, the year of our founding, is doubtful. Research indicates that the Herb House actually is from a time period quite a bit later than is suggested, and could possibly be as late as the 1850’s.

Many false stories have circulated about the Pirate’s House—it is said to be where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a portion of Treasure Island (yet there is no evidence he ever visited Savannah, and mentioned this city in the book only in passing) and that he used it as a setting for where the bloodthirsty pirate Captain Flint died while asking for rum. Many Savannahians claim that Captain Flint’s ghost still haunts the rooms of the house. However, this is easy to disprove since Flint was a fictional character in Stevenson’s epic tale. Some also say that Edward Teach—also known as Blackbeard—roamed the halls, and some claim he still does. This story is also simple to discount, since Edward Teach died in November of 1718, more than fourteen years before Savannah was even founded, and thirty-five years before the earliest possible completion of the Pirate’s House.

Did pirates really raise tankards of ale at the bar? Or is it nothing more than a fanciful story and a marketing scheme? The truth about the Pirate’s House is much more complicated.

Are there really tunnels going from this building down to the Savannah River?

History of Pirates in the Area

Here is a quick recap about the era of piracy pertinent to this discussion. What we know is that the so-called ‘Golden Age of Piracy’ along the Atlantic and Caribbean took place from 1715 until around 1726, after the War of Spanish Succession (known in the Americas as ‘Queen Anne’s War’). When the Treaty of Utrecht ended hostilities in 1714, suddenly there was no need for the massive navies that had been amassed by the European combatants, and the naval forces were abruptly disbanded. For instance, the British Royal Navy went from about 53,000 sailors in 1703 to about 13,000 in 1715. This figure does not even include privateers, who were merchants carrying ‘letters of marque,’ which authorized them to raid enemy shipping. Due to the end of Queen Anne’s War, suddenly the seas were full of English, Spanish and French sailors (to say nothing of the Dutch, Portuguese, Prussians, etc.) who were skilled in attacking enemy vessels but abruptly found themselves out of work.

From this perspective it is easy to see why pirate attacks would skyrocket in the years following the cessation of hostilities. This gives an interesting meaning to the name of Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, for instance, because Edward Teach was making a political statement by christening his flagship with the name of the conflict in which he had loyally fought for the British. He was clearly angry over the fact that he had been trained as a sailor/warrior, but abruptly found himself unemployed, along with about 40,000 other British seamen. Imagine how many men of other nationalities also suddenly found themselves in this predicament at the same time!

Against this backdrop, it is easy to see why many of these former navy sailors would turn to piracy. It was dangerous work, but incredibly profitable. In fact, pirate ships were more democratic than most realize, because they actually elected captains and the loot was shared more or less equally amongst the crew. This is not to make any sort of statements that pirates were misunderstood or had any sort of nobility to their actions. Pirates were ruthless killers, and should rightly be called terrorists of the High Seas. For a number of years before Savannah’s founding, these brigands ruled the oceans.

Both piracy and privateering consisted of the practice of preying on merchant ships and raiding coastal towns for profit. Privateering was legal and piracy was not, because privateers were sanctioned by a government to be conducted against an enemy during wartime. Privateers declared their prizes in court rather than robbing their victims and fleeing. They had the appropriate certificates and even flags for the activity. These privateers were in many cases a lot worse than pirates, because pirates would often just relieve the ships of cargo; whereas privateers would claim the cargo, sometimes even killing the crew and selling the vessel. The true irony was that it was often privateers who more closely resembled the modern idea of the ‘savage pirate on the high seas.’ Privateers were essentially pirates who paid their taxes.

For a clearer idea about privateers versus outright piracy, consider the differences between Sir Henry Morgan the privateer, and Edward Teach, the pirate. Both captured ships, both tortured captives, and both held coastal cities for ransom (Morgan did this to Portobello, Panama and Blackbeard did this to Charleston, South Carolina). The difference was the share: Morgan paid one to the Royal Crown, and Teach did not. So to the authorities, Morgan was a hero and Teach was an outlaw.

By the early part of the 1720’s however, the British Royal Navy got enough control over American waters to finally start ridding the oceans in that area of pirates. They employed multiple tactics, including offering pardons to pirates who would give up the practice of raiding vessels, and the opposite extreme of highly publicized executions of notorious pirates who refused to stop. These strategies appeared to work. According to David Cordingly’s seminal book on the subject, Under The Black Flag, the number of pirates operating in the Caribbean and North American waters declined drastically: the number drops from two thousand pirates in 1720 to about two hundred pirates by 1726. Those still interested in piracy as a career were not stupid; they moved to other locations where the British Navy presence was not as pronounced, or they simply retired. Since Savannah was not established until 1733, it appears unlikely that the Pirate’s House was a haven for bloodthirsty buccaneers. Pirates were becoming increasingly extinct, and had been for at least the last fifteen years prior.

A pirate presence was unlikely from 1733 forward, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist in Savannah. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So I checked the archives, which sounds a lot easier than it actually proved to be. After an exhaustive search of available records which took several months, the only account linking Savannah and piracy which turned up was in the journal of Peter Gordon, who was one of the original colonists in 1733. His story, occurring before Savannah was even established, describes the colonists’ ship the Anne running across a strange and suspicious-looking vessel. Gordon writes, “...We were alarmed by a sloop who as soon as he perceived us standing along shore, emediately (sic) changed his course and bore down upon us, which... made us conclude that he must... be a pirate...” Gordon related that the craft was flying colors which appeared Spanish, and the craft veered away soon after being fired upon. Gordon also noted that “the pilote (sic) whome we hade on board said he hade some knowledge of him that he hade been a pirate, and that he certainly would have plundered us hade he not found we were too strong for him.” In a humorous aside, Gordon also commended the women of the Anne, taking notice of their bravery in that they asked to be permitted to load the weapons and even to fight alongside the men, but “some of our men who hade been noted the whole voyage for noisy bullying fellows, were not to be found on this occasion but skulked either in the hold or between decks.”

If this is the only recorded instance of a pirate being sighted near Savannah, the odds of ‘bloodthirsty buccaneers’ being in Savannah in 1794 are unlikely, but not impossible. Also clouding the issue was the fact that while piracy was very much against the law, privateering was acceptable to the English government, as long as the privateers attacked French or Spanish shipping.

The famed Jean Lafitte (c. 1776- c. 1826), a privateer, pirate, and double agent for both the Americans and Spanish, is thought to have visited Savannah. Lafitte’s connection to the area is shadowy, but that is not unusual since he was engaged in mostly-illegal activities—the last thing he’d want to do would be to write down his dealings. So although records are unclear it would not be a huge leap of logic since we were such a major seaport. The building which currently houses the Pirates House is occasionally referred to as once belonging to the famous privateer, but there is absolutely no historical basis for that claim. Lafitte did indeed own a house which later became known as the Pirate House, but it is one located in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi (and curiously enough, that house, though now destroyed, also had a much-debated tunnel leading to a body of water). Equally spurious in nature is the claim that Lafitte married a local girl (who according to some accounts reformed his wayward ways). Lafitte did indeed marry, but it was to a girl from Galveston, Texas named Madeline Regaud.

Savannah is connected to privateers, however. The newspapers of the time were full of accounts of problems with the freelancers trying to recruit crews from the local populace. In fact, there is a stone in Colonial Park Cemetery that exists as a testament to the brutality of privateers—Jacob R. Taylor was killed in 1811 by a French privateer crew. Two French privateer craft, La Vengeance and La Franchise, were anchored in the Savannah harbor. According to Jacob’s friends, the crew of one of these vessels attacked and stabbed the unarmed Mr. Taylor as he strolled the streets of the city. The funeral for Taylor nearly turned into a riot when friends of his ran into some crewmen of the French vessel.

The question of whether or not pirates really did inhabit the old bar on East Broad Street is not an easy one to answer. Technically, the answer is: probably not. However, since most people’s concept of a savage pirate is actually closer to the true definition of a privateer, and since first English and later French privateers did sail Savannah’s waters, then the answer in the spirit of the law is yes. True piracy, though, was seeking less-civilized waters, such as the Indian and Pacific Oceans, even before Savannah was founded.

The Tunnel: Rumor or Reality?

A time-honored legend at the Pirate’s House is one of the infamous basement tunnel, long since sealed, that ran from the sublevel of the house to the seaport. It has been suggested that via this passageway, unscrupulous sea captains would arrange for sailors to be shanghaied, a practice also known by more formalized titles: conscription or impressment. It is also said that many men fell prey to this barbaric practice, including one Savannah policeman walking the dreaded beat of ‘Foley’s Alley.’ This same kidnapped policeman awoke aboard a strange vessel bound for China and was forced to work as a privateer. It supposedly took him two years to finally make his way back to Savannah. The tunnel was discovered during renovations in 1962, and is reputed to have been sealed for safety reasons at that time.

How much of this is fact and how much is fiction? What we have are two separate issues: was there a secret tunnel, and were men shanghaied (conscripted) out of the old tavern which is currently the Pirate’s House?

First, let’s explore the tunnel and compare it to the historical backdrop already discussed earlier. There are two sections visible: one is inaccessible; you can just catch a peek of subterranean passage in the dining room to the south near the buffet table. There is another section to the north which is entered via stone stairs leading downward directly beneath the so-called Captain’s Room, the true oldest part of the property (claims about the Herb House notwithstanding). Like so much of the history at this location, the tunnel is possible but not plausible. I’ve been in what is described as a section of the tunnel many times, and it is by all appearances simply a dirt floor basement. I could find no evidence of a tunnel dug out to the Savannah River. Furthermore, the two sections seem to be truly separate, and not part of a cohesive tunnel. They do not appear to meet up. And even if they did join, and if the area able to be accessed is truly the beginning of the tunnel then the tunnel would be running south, not north to the Savannah River. Yes, you read that correctly: if it is indeed a tunnel, it runs the wrong way.

Second, was it a smuggler’s tunnel? Unlikely. A more plausible explanation for the unknown basement or tunnel (we will take the 1962 ‘discovery’ story at face value) is that the dugout area is part of the nearby Fort Wayne, which protected the extreme east of the city from attack from the very early days of Savannah’s founding. It is possible that we are seeing a remaining part of the British defensive network. It may well be some combination of the two. Perhaps we are looking at a powder magazine, or even a storage area for Wells’ Wharf, which was then at the far eastern end of River Street and located about a block north from the Pirate’s House.

Regarding the forcible conscription of sailors: this was a real practice, and it likely happened right here in Savannah. There are reports of this method of filling out ship’s rosters from shipping ports all over the world. There is no word that it occurred at the Pirate’s House, but I really don’t disbelieve that it did. Speaking as a researcher, the fact that I couldn’t find any substantiated reports of this does not mean that it didn’t happen. It was a highly illegal and immoral practice, and no one would write it down if they were involved. Sometimes as a writer you’re forced to go with your gut, and I feel that this did take place.

The man involved in securing the unwitting dupes was called a ‘crimp.’ A crimp wouldn’t need a tunnel to shanghai men (or boys), but having a basement would help, because he could lure the unsuspecting victim downstairs with promises of strong drink or other more unsavory activities. He could then secure his prey with either drugged alcohol or a simple solid whack on the back of the skull. The crimp would then sell the victim to the boarding master, whose job it was to secure able bodies to fill out the roster aboard the merchant sailing vessel.

It is doubtful that true pirates would feel the need for such an arrangement, because serving on a pirate crew was so profitable. Pirate craft needed experienced crewmen who performed jobs like carpentry, medical care and coopers (barrel makers) and not random, fairly unskilled sailors. No, it would be far more likely that a tyrannical privateer captain would engage in such practices of smuggling unconscious men to serve as crewmen; that, or the captain of a warship. Likely, many men who enjoyed a drink at the old seaman’s bar on Broad Street wound up waking up aboard ship, heads pounding either from drugs or a wallop, bound for ports unknown.

The Staff’s Ghostly Encounters

The people who work in the Pirate’s House have had numerous supernatural experiences. Included in these stories was a tale about strange voices issuing forth from the deserted downstairs. A bartender one night complained to me in confidence about hearing “men call out from down below, but those are men that aren’t there anymore.”

The Travel Channel program America’s Most Haunted Places- Savannah featured the Pirate’s House. One account was from a cook who saw an apparition one night, which from his description could be nothing but a 18th- or early 19th- century seafaring man. He was working alone in the kitchen, and the stranger walked through the area, pausing only to glare at him briefly. The sailor then walked through the door without opening it. The cook described him as looking incredibly threatening, and it was not coincidentally the last time the cook has worked alone in the kitchen. This same cook attested that one evening he was cleaning up near a piano, and suddenly saw a pair of malevolent ancient eyes glaring at him from the reflection on the piano. He wisely fled the area. The cook also will not enter the kitchen without his large gold crucifix, which he wears as a talisman around his neck, which he believes protects him from further spectral visits.

A former server named Lisa recounted her story for me one night. She had always been curious about the stories of the old tunnel under the restaurant, so one night she mustered her courage. Lisa initially tried to get a few friends to accompany her, but no one else was brave enough to go into the deserted space with her, so against her better judgment she went alone. She moved down the ancient stone stairs, and immediately felt a chill which was much deeper than the cool of the basement air. As she progressed, she felt extremely ill and woozy. Waves of nausea struck her, and finally she had to abandon her trek downstairs in an attempt to find the rumored passage. She retreated her way back up into the restaurant, but her sick feeling did not fully disappear until she left to go home. She initially thought that perhaps she had inhaled some fume or vapor that had made her dizzy and ill, but she felt it every night when she returned to work at the Pirate’s House after that night she explored the subterranean area. She began to believe that some sort of psychic energy given off by the spirits at the House perhaps was making her ill for invading the passageway. She finally quit two weeks later, and in a bit of irony began to work at the 17Hundred90 Inn and Restaurant, which has its own share of ghosts.

Fortunately for Lisa, the ghosts in 17Hundred90 have been more receptive to her presence, and several of her occurrences are recounted in that chapter. It is my opinion that perhaps in her experience at the Pirate’s House she was reliving the drugged and woozy state of many of the shanghaied men, in years now departed, which passed through the very tunnel in which she first had that feeling.

Hard-Hearted Hannah’s

For many years there was an upstairs jazz bar called Hard-Hearted Hannah’s located in the upper portion of the restaurant, which is currently being used as a gift shop. When Hannah’s was operating in the space, however, the staff experienced bizarre smells not normally associated with a jazz club. These strange smells have been described as roses, copper or even the smell of blood. Strange lights and voices have also been known to emanate from the upper floors, which in years gone by were rooms for rent to sailors.

A former server, Brittany, recounted several stories involving bizarre happenings in Hannah’s. She once was back in the prep room, and she cleaned out the coffee pots and pushed them onto one of the metal prep tables, far from the edge. She turned and walked out through the swinging door, and heard a loud crash behind her. She walked back into the prep room and found the coffeepots smashed on the floor—somehow they had hurled off of the table with enough force to crash against the far wall. There was no one on the back room, so the pots had apparently moved by themselves.

In another similar instance with another female server whom Brittany had trained was closing by herself one night. She called Brittany late that night and begged her to come back down to the restaurant. The young woman claimed that the coffeepots had jumped off of one of the back tables by themselves and smashed on the floor, and so she refused to close Hannah’s by herself because of the incident. When I asked Brittany why coffeepots would shatter on a regular basis in the old structure, she smiled, and told me her theory. “Maybe there’s a ghost of some old sailor who didn’t like us drinking coffee. Maybe he wanted us to have rum, instead.” This, of course, is just as good a supposition as any—and makes a great story: the ghost who doesn’t like to drink alone.

Brittany also said that she would see people from time to time out of the corner of her eye—people that would then disappear. “I’d just catch a quick glimpse, like someone flitting by, and then they’d be gone,” she said. She also related that there was a stairwell connecting the upper bar with the downstairs restaurant, and on several occasions she would feel a presence. “I’d suddenly have the feeling that I was not alone,” she claimed firmly. Several of the staff would refuse to walk down the stairs alone, preferring instead to take the more circuitous route of walking outside to get to the Pirate’s House kitchen.

The times of sailing adventures, pirates and privateers were incredibly violent and brutal. One can only imagine the quiet desperation of the sailors involved that has seeped into the very timbers of one of the oldest structures in Georgia. And perhaps those men who were shanghaied also left behind their energy, thinking of the port city they were taken from so brutally against their will.

Andrew Low House

329 Abercorn Street

The Andrew Low House, which today is a beautiful house museum, is located on the southwest trust lot of Lafayette Square. The residence was completed in 1849 by John S. Norris, a noted architect responsible for many of the wondrous structures erected during that time period. The house combines Greek revival elements along with unusually square proportions and deep bracketed eaves—which speak of Italianate influences. A pair of imposing cast-iron lions guard the front door.

Built for British cotton merchant Andrew Low, the house is currently run by the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Georgia. The carriage house, which today houses the Girl Scout First Headquarters, is a separate museum directed by the Girl Scouts of Savannah. Andrew originally married a local, Sarah Cecilia Hunter, but both she and their four year old son died before the house was completed. Low remarried five years later to Mary Cowper Stiles. Together, they had a son and three daughters. The son, William Mackay Low, would marry Juliette Gordon Low, also known as Daisy, eventual founder of the Girl Scouts.

Andrew Low, like many English during the American Civil War period, was a Confederate sympathizer. He saw the Confederacy as a valuable trading partner with England, specifically in regards to the South’s major cash crop: cotton. After the outbreak of hostilities, Low and his wife were arrested in the North in 1862 while returning from England. Andrew Low was accused by the Union of being a Confederate collaborator and spy because of an intercepted message that identified a Confederate agent in England named Low. The couple did nothing to deny this, and the Union officials spent weeks sorting out the confusion. Andrew Low was imprisoned in Boston on suspicion of collaborating with the enemy. According to family lore, Mrs. Low, then pregnant, hid incriminating papers and letters in her coiled hairstyle to protect her husband. It turned out that John Low (the son-in-law of Andrew Low’s business partner, Charles Green) was the real agent, and the confusion enabled him to slip safely back to Savannah before the Federals realized their mistake.

The Low family was renowned for their hospitality. Prominent English author William Makepeace Thackeray recorded his feelings in a letter written in one of the guest bedrooms: “Know that I write from the most comfortable quarters I have ever had in the United States. In a tranquil old city, wide stretched, tree-planted, with a few cows and carriages toiling through the sandy road, a red river with a tranquil little fleet of merchant men taking cargo, and tranquil ware-houses barricaded with packs of cotton; a famous good dinner, breakfast, etc. and leisure all morning to think and do and sleep and read as I like. The only place I stay in the States where I can get these comforts - all free gratis- is in the house of my friend Andrew Low of the great house of A. Low and Co., Cotton Dealers, brokers.”

“A house with such involvement in the historic course of events in Savannah would surely have a few supernatural stories to tell.”

A ‘Daisy’ Link

Juliette Gordon Low lived in the house for many years, after marrying William in 1886. Their marriage, unfortunately, was very troubled. Perhaps an omen of this ill-starred love occurred right after they took their vows: Juliette, who already had ear trouble, had a grain of good-luck rice lodge in her good ear, virtually destroying her hearing. She did not let this misfortune deter her, however; to talk with Daisy was to have her dominate the conversation anyway.

Even from when Daisy was very young she had a reputation of being eccentric, behavior that did not diminish with age. She was sometimes seen wearing real vegetables on her hat in place of flowers, and once went trout fishing with writer Rudyard Kipling in full evening dress. In another incident, Juliette crashed her car into a neighbor’s dining room and drove off without a word to the stunned family, who were sitting at breakfast. When later asked why she didn’t stop, Daisy replied that she didn’t want to be rude and interrupt their meal.

After her marriage to William fell apart in 1901 due to his infidelity, she spent much of the next decade traveling around the world, searching for fulfillment. She met Sir Robert Baden-Powell in 1911 in England, who founded the Boy Scouts. Baden-Powell was mortified when 6,000 girls applied for the Boy Scouts. He urged Daisy to pursue a sister organization for the Scouts, and so Daisy became involved in organizing the Girl Guides in England and Scotland. She eventually introduced her organization to America. The first troop was founded in Savannah on March 12th, 1912.

By the time of her death in 1927, the Girl Scouts of America organization had grown to nearly 168,000 members. She was buried in her Girl Scout uniform—and in her pocket was a telegram from the Girl Scout National Council, delivered right before her death: “You are not only the first Girl Scout but the best Girl Scout of them all.” She bequeathed the house to the Colonial Dames Society, and deeded the carriage house to the Girl Scouts.

Storied Past, Supernatural Present

A house with such involvement in the historic course of events in Savannah would surely have a few supernatural stories to tell. Mostly, unexplained sounds and shadows are reported in the old house. One housekeeper has said she has seen the blonde apparition of Mary Cowper Stiles, whom she refers to as ‘Miss Mary,’ on numerous occasions. It must be a frequent happening, judging from the first-name familiarity. The housekeeper has said that Miss Mary is often sad because of her lost children.

Mary died in the master bedroom, where Juliette Gordon Low also passed away. Former tour guide Missy Brandt reported always having a strange feeling in that bedroom. “You never feel like you’re alone,” she said.

Missy also recounted the time she was mistaken for a ghost. She recounts walking in the lower floors of the house museum, and one of the docents caught sight of her shadow and a glimpse of her blonde hair and nearly had a heart attack. The woman grabbed her chest and gasped. “I was afraid that I had made a ghost,” Missy joked, “but fortunately she survived.”

Missy also recounted hearing footsteps near her office. They came from the direction of the old butler’s pantry, so the phantom footsteps are thought to belong to ‘Old Tom,’ the lifelong servant for the Low family.

Perhaps the ghosts in the old house have an appreciation for the hard work done by the Andrew Low House’s fine staff. It would stand to reason that such historically important characters that shaped Savannah’s past would have an affinity for continuing their spectral existence in a proper setting. Maybe such cultured and respected individuals have retained their good taste—in the spirit world.

Today, both the Andrew Low House and the Girl Scout First Headquarters operate as house museums, and are available for touring.

Mulberry Inn

601 East Bay Street

Located on the far eastern side of the city, close to the Pirate’s House, there sits a structure that has been through many facelifts throughout the years. The two-story structure now contains the Mulberry Inn, one of the finest hotels in Savannah. It was originally built in the 1860’s as a multi-purpose building intended to be a cotton warehouse, among other things. In the early 1900’s it housed the Coca-Cola Company’s first franchise bottling operation. Now fully refurbished as a luxury hotel, the Mulberry Inn offers a glimpse into the city’s past, perhaps in more ways than implied by the hotel’s glossy brochure.

There are complaints from the front desk that the big grandfather clock in the lobby chimes intermittently. Several employees at the Mulberry noted this occurrence to me. This wouldn’t bee too strange, except for one problem: the grandfather clock is broken, unable to chime at all.

The elegant Mulberry Inn.

Another strange event, which has occurred several times, first happened in late October of 2000. A front desk staff member received a late-night call at the desk from room 217. Guests in that room were complaining of noises near their room. The weary couple had been trying to get some rest, but were being kept awake by an extremely loud and unusual sound: a horse, which sounded to be in distress. This odd disturbance seemed to be emanating from somewhere nearby. Thinking that a television was simply being played too loudly in an adjoining room, the couple tried to sleep through the noise. But after nearly an hour the exasperated couple could stand it no more, so the front desk was summoned.

The front desk checked the computer and found that no one was staying in rooms to either side of room 217, so two hotel employees went up to the hallway to figure out what was going on. Immediately upon stepping out of the elevator near the room, both heard the distinct sound of a horse, whinnying in fear. Halfway down the hallway, one of the pair of workers suddenly decided such an investigation simply was not in her job description. She turned to her co-worker and said, “Tim, I know what I’m hearing, but there’s no way a horse is loose in the hotel. This is not something I’m being paid enough to check out.” She refused to go any farther. Tim, however, made a thorough check of the hallway, but he could find no evidence that the sound was coming from any of the rooms, and there were no horses outside on the street, either.

The guests were moved to another room in the hotel, and apparently all was well with the rest of their stay. But the question remains: what was the strange sound coming from around room 217? Research into the historical records reveals that not only was the building once the former site of a livery stable, there was even another stable which preceded the current building. This earlier stable which existed prior to 1860 burned to the ground, so it is not a great stretch of the imagination to suppose that perhaps some horses were killed or seriously injured in the blaze. It is not uncommon for horses to refuse to leave their stables during a fire. In fact, it has been documented that horses have even been known to run into a burning barn, because they equate their barn with safety. If a horse was in fact killed in this fashion it would certainly explain the strange noises of a horse heard in distress by the guests and employees. And it is important to note that neither the guests nor the front desk staff were aware of the long history of horses attached to the property until I turned up the connection in my research.

The hotel staff, for their part, insist that they have had to deal with this problem numerous times. They’re not bothered by working in a haunted hotel, but they are getting tired of the ghosts at the Mulberry ‘horsing’ around.

Hamilton-Turner Inn

330 Abercorn Street

On the southeastern side of Lafayette Square, the Hamilton-Turner Mansion represents one of the finest examples of the Second French Empire style of architecture in the United States. It was built in 1873 for wealthy jeweler and businessman Samuel P. Hamilton. Hamilton was not only a jeweler but also the president of the electric company and mayor of Savannah during his lifetime. As one of the richest men in town, he wanted to showcase his wealth, and the house certainly accomplished that goal. The Hamilton-Turner Inn was one of the first homes in Savannah to have electricity; a crowd gathered when the switches were thrown for the first time, because some were convinced that the house would explode. Hamilton is reputed to have left the lights blazing at all hours, even all night long, possibly to irritate his neighbor, who was the president of the gas company. The windows are single panes, which was incredibly expensive because it was a fairly new technology at that time.

As the owner of the largest and most opulent house in town (and during the time of Reconstruction), Mr. Hamilton was fearful of thieves breaking in and stealing his valuables. To guard against break-ins he hired an off-duty policeman to stand guard on the roof with a rifle. His plan literally backfired, however: the guard was found early one morning in a pool of blood, shot down from his perch atop the house. No one was ever charged in the murder, and the slaying has gone unexplained to this day. Hamilton himself died in 1899.

Many claim that the house served as the model for Disney’s Haunted Mansion attraction, but the theme park house was actually inspired by an existing structure located in Baltimore, Maryland. There is no connection between the Hamilton-Turner House and the Haunted Mansion attraction. The house does resemble the artwork of New Yorker Magazine cartoonist Charles Addams—indeed, older Savannah residents will sometimes call the mansion “the Charles Addams House.”

“I’ve even heard giggling from the top floor.”

A ‘Midnight’ Connection

Along with the beautiful architecture, the house also draws some attention from those seeking the locations mentioned in the bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, because it was owned by Nancy Hillis, the character known as “Mandy” in the book. This was also the location of Joe Odom’s ostensible museum and house tour. Ms. Hillis owned the mansion for a number of years, and rented out rooms to make ends meet. As reported in the History Channel’s ‘Haunted History-Savannah’ program, the first incident that occurred while Hillis owned the structure was witnessed by a tenant, who saw a man standing at the top of the stairs. He was described as a man wearing a smartly-tailored suit, and his features matched that of Samuel P. Hamilton.

Hillis herself reported hearing footsteps running on the upper floors on numerous occasions. She, along with a friend, was so alarmed by this that they even dialed the police in one instance. Upon arrival, the Savannah police officer also confirmed that he heard the footsteps, and went upstairs to investigate. All he found were empty rooms, and all the points of entry or exit were locked.

Some Ghosts Have a Ball

By far the most common hauntings at the Hamilton-Turner Mansion have to do with Mr. Hamilton’s children. As a wealthy and powerful socialite, Hamilton would throw grand parties. It has been said that Mr. Hamilton asked his children to steer clear of these social galas, and the two children would stay in the upper floor and play billiards. Apparently these children grew bored with their game, or at least bored from being excluded from the fun downstairs time and time again. They began first rolling, then throwing the billiard balls down the stairs to break up the monotony. It is this sound that is sometimes still heard coming from the upper floors of the old house.

“I’ve heard pool balls ‘breaking’”—meaning racked balls being put into play—“and I’ve heard them rolling down the stairs,” claims one former innkeeper. “I’ve even heard giggling coming from the top floor.”

This same innkeeper had a strange brush with yet another ghost on the property. As she was heading out to her car, which was parked on Lafayette Square one night near dusk, she experienced a feeling of being watched. “I looked back at the house, thinking perhaps someone had called me, and that’s when something caught my eye. I saw a man’s silhouette standing motionless on the roof. As I stood there, thinking I was seeing things, I realized I could see a faint orange glow of the man’s cigar. I blinked a couple of times, and then he was gone. Vanished, in front of my own two eyes.”

Was this the ghostly sentry, still watching over the house? Does he feel as though his duty to guard the Mansion is still incomplete? And what of the children—are they the Hamilton children, still bored and wanting some attention? Only one thing is certain: you would be hard-pressed to find a more luxurious inn in which to experience a haunting.

215 East Charlton Street Poltergeist

I believe... that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandring souls of men, but the unquiet walks of Devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, blood and villainy; instilling and stealing into our hearts that the blessed Spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the affairs of the World.

-Browne

Religio Medici

Leading ghost tours can give one a reputation, earned or not, for being knowledgeable in all aspects of the supernatural. As demonstrated in this volume, some guides do research, and others either just repeat folklore (or worse, fabricate their tales entirely). Sometimes the assumption by others that the possession of a tour guide license equals knowledge about the paranormal can spawn some odd questions. A perfect example of this was the night I was asked: “How do you get rid of a ghost?” The question came while I was leading a tour. I had just entered a bar with my tour group on the pub crawl, so I had a few minutes to talk to the man who asked me the question. As absurd as that inquiry would appear to be in any other city, in Savannah this is a pertinent question. Roger, the dark-skinned young man doing the asking, was quite serious, and looked like he needed help.

How do you get rid of a ghost?

Roger’s Encounters

He went on to tell a story about his new apartment, located at 215 East Charlton Street, which was a perfect location right off of Lafayette Square. The spectral activity started right away, he said, before he was even fully moved-into his new ground-level apartment. As people often do, he had unpacked his picture frames and art prints onto the floor along the baseboard, trying to figure out where best to hang them. While talking to a friend who was helping him unpack his kitchen supplies, he began leaning against the kitchen doorframe. Suddenly he felt a hand in the center of his chest that pushed him backwards with surprising force. He stepped back to regain his balance and stepped right through a glass picture frame, cutting his foot badly in the process. He and his friend had not been drinking at all, he says, and they were both shocked at how forcefully he had been hurled backwards.

“I’m a grown man and I’m scared of this,” he said with conviction. But the most disturbing aspect of Roger’s haunting had come during the nighttime hours. He had awakened, he said, on numerous occasions to find himself being pushed violently out of bed. He swore that these were not dreams—he didn’t fall, but had rather been pushed roughly out of bed in the wee hours of the morning. One night he was shoved with so much violent force that he hit the wall, some two feet away, before slamming down to the ground, dazed. It is unlikely that anyone, even rolling in his or her sleep as hard as they could muster, could do this. The only conclusion possible is that he was hurled out of bed by something which possessed the force of a football linebacker smashing an offensive lineman.

I took Roger’s number and promised him that I’d look into it the next time I went down to the Georgia Historical Society, completely unsure of what’d I’d find there.

Bloody Plot

A property search of the property that Roger was renting revealed little, at first. The house in question was built in 1889 by Captain James Johnston, and a carriage house existed on the property before that time. The house’s history revealed no clue as to the identity of the violent entity inhabiting its walls: no murders, tragic deaths or suicides had occurred there. After many fruitless hours searching the stacks, I was starting to get frustrated (and yes, I realize how odd it was to be getting disturbed by the fact that no one had been killed inside that particular house). Why was Roger having these experiences? What was the explanation?

As I sat in the Historical Society, looking around for any means to find out more information about that property, my eyes landed on a large framed map of the city. I started thinking about tragedy in a broader way, and how it related to that parcel of land, and that’s when it hit me: before the house was built, the area was involved in the 1779 Siege of Savannah, which was the second bloodiest battle of the American Revolution. In fact, the British defensive fortifications had been constructed that area. Roger’s experiences likely had little to do with the house itself, and everything to do with the soil underneath it.

A Historic Connection

On September 8th, 1779, a French fleet comprised of forty-two vessels appeared off the coast. They were commanded by Count Charles-Henri d’Estaing, who had brought with him a force of four thousand French, Irish, and black volunteers from Haiti. Their goal was to wrest British-occupied Savannah away from the Crown and restore it to American rule. The troops converged on Savannah, and were met by nearly a thousand American soldiers from Charleston and Augusta. Included among the Americans were Colonel Francis Marion, later known as the Swamp Fox, Sergeant William Jasper, hero of the Battle of Charleston, and Polish warrior Count Casimir Pulaski.

D’Estaing called for the surrender of the British, commanded by General Prevost (nicknamed ‘Old Bullet Head’ for an old wound to his temple). Prevost asked for a twenty-four hour truce to consider his options, and then used that time to fortify his positions. At the end of the twenty-four hours, General Prevost sent his reply—they would fight. Amazingly, d’Estaing did not attack immediately, instead laying siege to the city for more than three weeks, hoping to force the British to surrender.

The French artillery can be excused for their inaccuracy: a mistake by the supply ship’s steward called for each cannon crew to receive a keg of rum instead of a keg of beer. The cannon crews, drinking copiously, were supposed to destroy the British lines. Instead, they bombarded the city’s houses and buildings, and on occasion their own troops—in fact they hit everything except the British defensive fortifications they were supposed to be reducing. A terrified population sought refuge with their captors after being shelled by their so-called liberators. A number of women and children were killed in the barrage. Some children established a cottage industry: snuffing out the French cannonballs with sand and selling them to the British, so they could be fired back.

The Allied attack was to take place in the very early morning hours of October 9th. The British were warned well in advance by civilians, which were allowed free movement between the Allied battle lines and the town. The attackers were pounded by artillery from both land and sea. The attempted assault lasted just an hour, the bloodiest hour of the entire Revolution. D’Estaing himself was wounded twice. Among the dead was Count Casimir Pulaski, who was the highest-ranking foreign officer to die in the Revolution, and Sergeant William Jasper, who was killed trying to save his regimental colors.

The screams of the wounded, groans of the dying, and roar of the cannon would have drowned out the curses of the Allied troops towards their incompetent commanders. Overall, there were nearly one thousand casualties, most of them Allied. The battle clearly over, a truce was called, and the bodies of the dead were buried in an unmarked mass grave, the location of which is unknown. The Allies retreated, and Savannah would remain in English hands until July 11th, 1782.

A Very Specific Haunting

Perhaps, as has been explored in other chapters, the energy from past events can literally become embedded in a specific location. What then of this unassuming house, located on a peaceful square? The house may have been free of conflict, but the plot of ground upon which the house was built had been literally doused with human blood over two centuries before. Add to that fact that the area is located within the confines of the former Potter’s Field (a burial ground for the very poor), one which had been eventually built-over as the city expanded south of Colonial Park Cemetery. That means that this small area has seen perhaps as much pain, suffering, and death as any spot on the planet.

This violent past might explain Roger’s experiences in his apartment. What he was reporting were classic symptoms of what is known as a poltergeist (German for ‘noisy ghost’). Poltergeists are flare-ups of pent-up, invisible energy, and can manifest themselves as doors slamming, objects breaking, or, as experienced by Roger, can sometimes unfortunately direct their energy towards an individual. According to my reading on the subject, the poltergeist which focuses on a person will usually target someone who is going through turmoil, especially an adolescent. But why then would this entity direct negative energy at Roger? He seemed to be a normal, well-adjusted adult. One clue did surface, however: as I revealed details of the Siege of Savannah and talked about the clash of nationalities in that battle, he said, “Hmm, that’s funny.” When I asked him what he meant, Roger explained that he was connected, at least ethnically-speaking, to practically every nation taking part in the battle: English, French, Irish, Haitian, and American. “And, their blood soaked this ground,” I added, “they were killing each other right here, on the very spot you rented.” Roger involuntarily shuddered.

I did have some advice for him: the first step in dealing with an unwanted poltergeist is also the easiest: he should ask it to leave, in a firm voice. “Tell it the outcome of the battle,” I suggested. If that fails, he could call in a priest or minister to bless the house, or even perform an exorcism (many claim that this strategy is completely ineffective, and judging by the failure of the exorcism rites at the Hampton Lillibridge House, they very well may be right). The last step would be to simply move.

The last option was ultimately the answer for poor Roger. He tried for a while to find peace with the entity occupying his home, but failed to devise a successful, long-lasting strategy for driving out his unwanted ‘friend’. Considering the military history of the plot—and its unfamiliarity with the phrase ‘successful strategy’— Roger’s attempt at a truce was doomed to fail. He finally chose the wisest, albeit the least satisfying course: he withdrew, moving less than a quarter of a mile to new digs.

The new tenants have reported no problems.

432 Abercorn Street

Benjamin J. Wilson House

If you were to come to Savannah and take a collection of different ghost tours, all offered by rival companies, certain houses would keep popping up on many of the tour routes. This is to be expected, both for reasons relating to reputation (many of our Historic District homes have very famous ghost tales attached), and for reasons of a less scrupulous nature (some tour companies simply copy what other tours say, repackaging someone else’s story as their own product out of sheer laziness). For both of the rationales I just posited, you might quite rationally expect the ghost stories about various locations within the downtown area to be identical. After all, the history is the history, right? At least the various samplings should be very similar, owing to the fact that despite whatever ‘spin’ the guides are giving each story, the basic facts are largely the same. But what to make of a house where none of the guides seem to agree on the history of the house, much less the ghost story?

This brings me to 432 Abercorn Street, a prime example of a house about which no one can come to a consensus. Before I delve into shedding some light on the topic, let me first paint a rough sketch of what is being said about the house. I have obtained the following largely from the vast reams of material which are readily available on the internet. I have simply combined and edited the various stories into one narrative.

“Tourists often take pictures of the house, only to find images of a little girl sitting in one of the windows.”

The Legend

What you’ll likely hear on a tour:

The house was built in 1868 for Civil War General Benjamin J. Wilson. Shortly after their Greek Revival house was completed, the General’s wife died of yellow fever, leaving him to raise their daughter alone. He was a strict disciplinarian and was used to having his orders obeyed by men in combat, so he regarded any rule-breaking as insubordination, tantamount to treason.

The already-gloomy mansion was very close to the Massie School, the oldest (and first) public school in Savannah, which is still in use as an educational center today. General Wilson’s daughter loved to play with the children who went to Massie School, but her father disapproved of her socializing with them. He believed that she was of a higher social class than the grimy undisciplined urchins he saw running through the neighborhood, so he simply forbade her from having any contact with them. Undeterred, the little girl continued to run across the street to play with the other children.

Enraged by her disobedience, General Wilson punished his daughter by tying her into a chair in front of the living room window, ropes holding her in place. She could still see the other children playing outside, but now she could do nothing but sit and watch. In those days before air conditioning, houses could become unbearably hot, and the poor girl was sitting in front of the window, exposed to full sunlight. After a few days of sitting in such horrible punishment, the little girl died of heat stroke and dehydration. A few years later, General Wilson also died in the home, but his death was of natural causes.

The General and his daughter have never left the house, according to many. Tourists often take pictures of the house, only to find images of a little girl sitting in one of the windows. Other tourists are less lucky: before they can snap a picture, their cameras shut down or have their batteries drained. Malfunctioning cameras have begun to grow very hot and even smoke in tourgoers hands.

General Wilson’s face doesn’t show up in a window like his daughter’s. Instead, his image is etched directly into the stucco. If you look for him, supposedly he can be seen looking out from the wall next to the right-hand window on the second level. This living-room window is the one where his daughter purportedly died. Is the image of the old man’s face just a coincidental arrangement of cracks and discoloration, or does the angry General still glare ominously at outsiders from his home?

There are other, darker happenings surrounding the house. In 1959, a family came to visit some friends, who happened to live at 432 Abercorn. The visiting family included three daughters, ranging in age from four to thirteen. The adults all went out one evening, leaving the children at the house. When they returned to the house hours later, they found all three of the girls dead. Two of them were still inside the house, and one was sprawled on the front porch, as if she was slain while trying to escape. There were occult-type objects left at the crime scene. This gruesome triple murder was never solved.

In the 1980s, the house was briefly rented out by some art students from nearby Savannah College of Art and Design. They constantly complained of hearing pounding, heavy pacing, crying, and even a lot of giggling which sounded like a young girl. One of these students mysteriously disappeared after a few of them conducted a séance in the house. To this day, it is not known what became of him.

The current owners are content to let the house crumble rather than take a chance on any more strange happenings.

How Much of This Story is True?

How much of this preceding tale, some or all of which you might hear on a tour in Savannah, is accurate? Well, I love a good ghost yarn as much as then next guy, but there are so many things wrong with this story I scarcely know where to begin. Bad legends deserve to get a beat-down in my opinion, so… batter up.

There was no general named Benjamin J. Wilson who fought for either side during the Civil War. There was a general named “Benjamin Wilson,” but he was born in 1866, and there is no indication that he ever lived in Savannah. Someone is getting these two men confused, and blending their details to suit the story. But there is no indication that the ‘Benjamin J. Wilson’ that had the house constructed at 432 Abercorn was even in the Civil War, at any rank.

The real Benjamin J. Wilson (again, the one who built the house) is listed in the 1870 City Directory as a merchant, and he owned a store on Bay Street. There is no designation of ‘general’ associated with his name (no, he didn’t even own a general store!), and there is no mention in any archive or directory about a wife, or any children. The property itself formerly held a house of worship, St. Paul’s Free Church, which was built in 1856. But the church burned in 1865, and the lot was sold to Wilson in 1868. The current house was built the following year.

Let me repeat that: there is no documented proof of any wife, children, abuse, or murder. Could it have happened? I suppose it’s possible. But it is also ‘possible’ that Benjamin J. Wilson invented Silly Putty, interstellar space travel, and ran a two-minute mile. But where’s the proof? An outlandish tale without corroboration is just a bunch of hot air. In the absence of anyone stepping forward with any information about Benjamin Wilson or 432 Abercorn that I somehow failed to find, despite an exhaustive look through the archives and tax records, the story is lacking in documentation of any kind.

What about the young Wilson girl’s abuse and murder? Could that be accurate? I have a few thoughts on the subject. In the course of my job as a writer, I am forced to study the evil that people willfully do to one another, and I am cursed with a very vivid imagination. The downright wickedness of John Montmollin, slave dealer in 1850’s era Savannah, for instance, is a very real, palpable thing to me. In writing about it, I was forced to confront his callous disregard for others. In much the same way, Madame LaLaurie in 1830’s New Orleans (whom I wrote about extensively in my 2013 book The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter) ‘got’ to me. I’ve also studied that famous murderous pair of Charlestonians, Lavinia and John Fisher in the early part of the 19th century, in detail. I’ve read with growing horror of the crimes of female serial killer Belle Gunness on a bleak farm in the early 20th century. Ted Bundy, Aileen Wournos… the list goes on and on. But there is one common thread running through all of these murderous narratives that the tale of Benjamin J. Wilson does not have: the killer always attempts to cover up the crime. Those who willfully commit murder, regardless of their circumstances or motivation, simply do not put their still-living victims on display in a front window for all to see in a major urban center. Even those killers that qualified professionals would deem irrevocably insane seem to understand, on a certain level, that they need to hide their egregious breach of social convention. So, to me, the story of Benjamin Wilson mistreating his daughter in such a public fashion is quite simply ludicrous. It is the stuff of so-called ‘splatter’ or ‘gore’ movies, and does not resemble real life in the slightest.

Likewise, I found zero documentation for murders involving this house, in 1959 or any other year for that matter, and no records of disappearances, either. When you cut those elements out of the story, all we’re left with is a bunch of cameras not working and a ‘face’ in some stucco that you really have to squint to see. Even if you take the other accounts I found on the internet (people experiencing all manner of paranormal things near this house), the story comes out as a lot of speculation and rumor. The stories seem to key upon uneasy feelings.

Is that all there is to this tale? A made-up story regarding an abandoned house? Surprisingly, the answer is no, there is in fact much more to this property than the erroneous ‘ghost story’ being attached to the building. In a very strange parallel with another chapter in this book (12 West Oglethorpe), this story arc that is missed by (most) Savannah tour guides is one literally right under their noses. But to tell it properly, we need to really dig for it, both in the archives and in a literal sense.

So... What, Then?

Savannah, if the pun can be forgiven, has a grave problem. The amount of renovation taking place in Georgia’s First City is constantly turning up the obvious remnants of her close ties with a tragic past. We are consistently turning up graves in odd locations, even today.

In keeping with this tradition, a December 14th, 1927 Savannah Morning News article described a body which was unearthed by a crew laying storm drains on Gordon Lane, which is the alley to the south of Gordon Street. The crew found a crumbling coffin with a human skeleton inside, which they unearthed in full view of children out on recess from the Massie School, located just north on Calhoun Square. Yes, let that location sink in for a moment. According to the article, the children, rather than being sickened or afraid, were highly excited that there were people buried so close to their school.

Further examination revealed even more skeletons and bones, including one which had been decapitated (presumably by the road crew, accidentally), pine boxes, and a few crumbling headstones. Research shows that this is the location of an old slave burial ground, which is shown on an 1818 map of the city, clearly titled ‘Negro Burial Ground’. During that time period, before any houses or schools were built on the location, the area was known as the Common, a mostly undeveloped patch of land just south of modern-day Liberty Street. Supposedly the bodies were moved in 1855 to the African-American section of Laurel Grove Cemetery (South) to make way for city expansion—but apparently more than a few bodies were missed. As late as June of 2004, human remains were found by a utility crew in this location, this time digging in front of the Massie School. This was reported in the Savannah Morning News, with an accompanying picture of a Savannah-Chatham Metro police officer holding aloft a human skull at the dig site. How many burials remain from this nearly forgotten cemetery? Without a significant (and expensive) archaeological dig to find out, the question will remain unanswered.

The land presently occupied by 432 Abercorn Street, as well as the Massie School and all of surrounding Calhoun Square, was used for African-American burials. And the weirdness doesn’t end there: there are not one, but two paved-over burial grounds in this vicinity. In his memoir Recollections of a Long and Satisfactory Life (1934), William Harden, a white Savannahian, recalls two early cemeteries, one a Potter’s Field and the other for black burials:

The Potter’s Field was the one farther north and extended from Taylor Street as far south as the lot on which the Massie School was built. The negro cemetery began a little farther south of that, extending as far as Huntingdon Street. There were no streets laid out in that section of the city then, and houses were not built there until later. Even as late as 1851 I used to go through these burial grounds with my bow and arrow shooting sparrows and other small birds. I do not recall if I ever saw a tombstone in either of these cemeteries, but the grave mounds were numerous, those of the negroes being plainly indicated by the ornaments laid upon them, such as are always found on graves of that race.

Based on a rough comparison of distances on the map and William Harden’s memory, the South Common was the site of quite a bit of overlap between the two ‘unofficial’ cemeteries. This means that there was not one but two burial grounds that the City of Savannah allowed to be developed into residences, churches, and schools.

Suddenly, those uneasy feelings that people frequently report in Calhoun Square are taking on a whole new light. They have nothing to do with a contrived story involving a sadistic father, instead likely stemming from the psychic anguish over a hundred years’ worth of graves being desecrated. With the vast and chilling true-life strangeness that Savannah has to offer, tour guides should never have to make up stories. As we see with both this property on Abercorn and the 12 West Oglethorpe structure, we see that someone has gone to great pains to make up an elaborate story for a piece of land which doesn’t need any fabrication. Both properties sit, somewhat improbably if this were any other spot on earth, on top of hallowed ground. And those built-upon dead aren’t resting easy.

Voodoo After Midnight

Still known locally as The Book or simply Midnight, the 1994 runaway bestselling page-turner Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil sometimes seems like a distant memory (to say nothing of the events in 1981 which spurred the book in the first place). But even though the book is in its second decade in print, I still get asked about the bestselling book. Purported to be non-fiction, John Berendt’s tome details the death of a young man at the hands of one of the most prominent men in Savannah society, antiques dealer Jim Williams, who claimed self-defense. The novel documents the May 2nd, 1981 slaying at the Mercer House, as well as the protracted trial’s impact on Savannah’s high-society.

I am generally resistant to discussing the happenings within Midnight’s pages for a number of reasons, but primarily because while the subject matter of the book is entertaining reading, it does not represent or bear much relation to the Savannah I know and love. One story I will tell, however, does relate indirectly to Midnight, in that it explores the strange and unique side of Savannah’s ties with Voodoo culture. For the very first time anywhere, this tale will see print within this volume.

One other reason I include this story is personal; to attempt to right what I perceive as a wrong characterization within Midnight’s pages. I make no accusations towards the talented author of the aforementioned book, Mr. John Berendt. I simply disagree with his portrayal of the late Judge George Oliver, who presided over the courtroom case Berendt chronicled in his book. Judge Oliver, who will henceforth be called ‘Judge,’ was made to look old, tired, and uncaring in the book. In one passage it is hinted that he fell asleep while court was in session. This in no way describes the man that I met on a handful of occasions. Old, yes; but the Judge was always sharp as a tack, quick-witted, and full of vigor.

I found myself sitting next to the Judge and his charming wife during Thanksgiving, 1994. Of course, I had already read Midnight, which had just been released, and was fascinated. I had been invited to dinner by Miss Helen, who was the mother of a client for whom I had painted a mural. Miss Helen, who spoke with a nearly indecipherable Greek accent when it suited her not to be understood, and near flawless English the rest of the time, had heard that I would be unable to go home for Thanksgiving. Her famous Greek hospitality wouldn’t stand for me sitting at my apartment alone during the holiday, which is how I wound up sitting next to the Judge with a plateful of turkey.

I had wondered at the identity of the gentleman sitting to my right who regaled us with story after side-splitting story, mostly involving the Savannah elite. When I asked Miss Helen, who had come close to me while serving gravy, she turned on the Greek accent. “That’s the Judge, dear,” she said, and when I asked her if it was the judge from Midnight, she confirmed this. I was suddenly full of questions regarding the famous case, but Miss Helen read my mind. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Wait... until he has a few drinks in him.” I took from this that it was a sore subject with the Judge.

I, of course, did exactly as I was told. One did not quibble with Miss Helen’s instructions. I waited until the Judge looked well-warmed, shall we say, and I looked to Miss Helen, who gave me a nearly imperceptible nod, meaning, go ahead. I leaned over and asked him timidly about the story. My question dealt with the fact that he had heard all the facts of the case, and in fact was the very one who ruled whether something could be entered as evidence, and was thus in a unique position to say whether Williams was innocent or guilty. He turned to face me, and the room went absolutely quiet. The faces at the table were equal mixtures total dismay and euphoric glee: would everyone get to see the Judge throttle this rude boy, the one who dared to ask The Forbidden Question, right before dessert? He took a long time in answering.

“You want to know if Jim Williams did it, do you?” I suddenly knew why the man had been a successful judge for so long: when he needed to be, Judge Oliver could be incredibly intimidating. I can only imagine the power he held over witnesses, juries and even lawyers. Then the Judge’s features softened. “Oh yes. That son of a b---- Jim Williams was absolutely guilty of cold-blooded murder.”

The room seemed stunned. “I’ll tell you another thing, too,” the Judge continued, “I do not blame him. That boy he shot was trouble with a capital T, and the only one who couldn’t see that was Williams.” The Judge moved to stand up, and added, “Sometimes, people just need killing.” And with that, the Judge left the room.

A Terrifying Aftermath of Midnight

It was while he was out of the room that his wife told a story of her own indirectly related to Midnight. After the case was over, all that she and her husband wanted was to be left alone. They refused interviews, including several requests by John Berendt. She prefaced the story by saying that they had never told this story to anyone, but it had been on her mind lately.

“After the case was over, we left Savannah and went out to our vacation spot on Tybee just to get away. The political climate was so hot in Savannah that we just couldn’t stay. So we locked up the house, set the new security system, and took a little break for a while.

“Upon returning, we noticed something odd. The security alarm was still set, but some things had been moved ever so slightly in the house. Nothing was missing as far as we could tell, but we kept finding dirt in the house even though it had been thoroughly cleaned before we left. We also found this white powder, like talcum powder, in a few spots. We didn’t think that much about it, until we restocked the refrigerator.

Inside the butter dish, feet-up, was a dead bird.”

I did not understand—I hadn’t been in Savannah long enough to know what that meant. So I asked her how that could be.

“Young man, you don’t really think that little bird let itself into our house, flew to the fridge and opened it, opened up the dairy case door, and crawled under the butter cover to die, do you? That dead bird was Voodoo, dear.” When I asked what she and her husband did then, she said, “Well, we cleaned it up and got a new security system. We couldn’t do much else about it, could we?”

That was when Miss Helen piped in, “You could have always moved. I might’ve.”

The Slave & Geechee Culture

All Negroes... who are now or shall hereafter be in this province and all their issue and offspring Born or to be Born shall be and they are hereby declared to be and remain hereafter absolute slaves and shall follow the condition of the mother and shall be deemed in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors.

- Georgia’s slave code of 1755

The historical record of slavery in the South is not a particularly gentle one, nor is it a proud moment in American history. Originating in Africa, where slavery itself was common, a person could be bought or traded for, and shipped to the Americas by slavers. Often, the ones doing the enslaving were rival African tribes—selling prisoners of war was a common practice. An account of the despicable practice can be found in the section detailing the voyage of the renegade slave ship Wanderer contained in this volume in the chapter entitled ‘Pour Larry’s.’

In addition to codes enforcing slavery as an accepted condition, there were also laws concerning things not allowed, as well. Slaves were not allowed to own a gun or even a dog, sell liquor, or assemble for any purpose other than religious worship. It was against the law to teach a slave to read or write. A slave could not be out on the streets after 8 p.m. And yet there was a burgeoning social order forming amongst those ensnared in the one hundred ten years of legalized slavery in Savannah.

The Geechee culture in the area is a remnant from what was once this society of slaves. Often times, this culture is mistakenly called ‘Gullah’, but in actuality the Gullah people exist in an area to the north, in and around Charleston, South Carolina. The two peoples are similar, but not interchangeable: both are rooted in slavery, but the Geechee people have a history and tradition all their own.

Freed after the Civil War, these Island people would often group near the coast where both fishing and farming was plentiful. Named after the Ogeechee River, the community developed their own dialect—one similar to the pronunciations elucidated in Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories. In addition to what amounted to their own language (also called ‘Geechee’, or ‘Geech’ for short), this culture also had an elaborate belief system through their African descent that stretched back before the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt. These beliefs are centered on a deep spirituality, believing in both ghosts and in a type of magic cast by charms, potions and amulets.

Casting Roots & Boo Hags

This magical ability to cast spells is called ‘conjuring’, or ‘casting roots’. The pronunciations of these are, respectively, “con-juh-ing” and “casting ruts”. A magic spell itself is called a ‘conjure’. The spell is often cast by burying a bag or bundle on the property of the unsuspecting victim. There are also ways of conjuring involving secret potions to drink, powders, nail clippings, and that most powerful of talismans—graveyard dirt. Someone skilled in the art of casting spells is called a root doctor, or a witch doctor. They can be employed if you feel that magic is being used against you, and for a fee they will protect you from evil.

However, a witch doctor is very different from a witch, which is often called a ‘boo-hag’ or simply a ‘hag’. Not to be confused with the Hollywood version, witches in this tradition look no different from regular people. Witches are more akin to modern-day vampires, because the belief is that they not only suck blood, but also steal the life-force or essence of the victim. To have your essence or blood stolen by a witch is known as ‘being rid’ or ‘ridden’. If someone looks poor or sickly, the assumption is that a hag stole that person’s energy in the middle of the night; they are being “rid by a witch.”

One example of this took place in the 1940’s. On the eastern edge of town there is an area that used to be called Old Fort. A man named Jack Wilson had married a girl named Evie, even though another woman, Malinda, had shown a lot of interest in being his bride. A few months into the marriage, Jack and his new bride were beginning to feel weak and tired. Jack noticed that he would feel more tired upon waking than he had when he went to bed, so he began to suspect that he was the target of being rid by a witch. He didn’t tell Evie what he suspected, deciding instead to lay a trap. He went to bed at the usual time, but he only pretended to sleep. He had taken to bed with him a large axe-handle, which he put alongside himself under the covers. His wife dozed off, and for a long while nothing happened. Just as Jack himself had started to fall asleep, he heard the window in the bedroom sliding open. He could hear someone or something enter the room. Jack remained motionless and waited. He felt something on the bed, so he opened his eyes and saw a large black cat on the bed between him and his sleeping wife. It climbed onto Evie, and she began to cough and choke in her sleep.

Jack decided to jump out of bed and swing the axe handle at the cat. He hit it in the side and it screamed with rage—but it was a woman’s scream it let out! The cat scrambled off the bed and leapt out of the window into the night. Jack ran to his wife to help her.

The next morning, Jack put his hunting dog on the scent of the cat. He took the axe handle along, too. The dog followed the trail about half a mile, stopping at some bushes. The dog began to snarl and bark. Jack pushed the bushes aside and found Malinda. She was lying on her side, with three broken ribs. When she saw he still had the axe handle in his hand, Malinda begged Jack: “Please don’t hit me again, I promise to leave you and Evie alone!”

Haint Blue

Another Geechee tradition is the color of Haint Blue, a color that is supposed to repel evil spirits. This color is interpreted as a ‘sky blue color,’ or even as deep as a medium Cerulean blue. As detailed in the sections devoted to the Hampton Lillibridge House and Owens-Thomas House, the color symbolizes water in the Geechee culture, because water is seen as a protector in that tradition. It is believed that an evil spirit will not cross water to harm you—and this idea of water as talisman from evil spirits is not limited to this belief system. In our own Western culture, baptism is symbolically seen to wash away sins, Holy water repels vampires, and even in Hollywood, the Wicked Witch of the West was melted away by that very universal solvent!

The paint was made with a mixture of indigo dye, milk, and lime. It was painted many places for the protection of the family within: under the overhang of front porches, around windows and doors, on window shutters, or even underneath the chairs inside the home. This idea of ‘haint’ blue as a protector may have had a practical value, because the lime would act as a natural insect repellent. Since mosquitoes were the vector for transmitting yellow fever, the Geechee may have stumbled unwittingly into a practice of shielding themselves from a feared disease.

The more one walks through the Historic District and in parts of the Victorian area of town, you cannot help but notice the haint blue color up underneath front porch overhangs and around the windows of the homes. This is still very much a tradition in this unique Southern city, regardless of whether the inhabitant of the house in question is still, or was ever, associated with Geechee culture. Even young trendy couples seeking to capture some old-world authenticity to their historic home have been known to paint haint blue around their homes—perhaps even unaware of the deep spiritual meaning of the color they chose with such triteness.

The First African Baptist Church was built in 1859.

First African Baptist Church

23 Montgomery Street

The First African Baptist Church on Franklin Square is the oldest black congregation in America, with the first service being held in 1788. The current structure was built in 1859, when the congregation moved from another building on West Bryan Street. Among the church’s features are beautiful stained glass windows, and a decorative carving on the floor, which actually housed a deep and guarded secret.

Hidden under the floor is a secret passage, which was one stop along the path of the ‘Underground Railroad,’ a series of safe-houses for escaped slaves fleeing Northward before and during the Civil War. The intricate carving served as air holes when these runaway slaves were being hidden underneath to avoid re-capture. The ceiling of the church is also indicative of this dual role of the building: it is in the design of a ‘Nine Patch Quilt’, which represented a secret signal that the church was a safe house for slaves.

Kevin Barry’s Irish Pub

117 West River Street

The abominable slave practice espoused first by England, and then the United States, has repercussions even today, and evidence of this foul traffic of human lives still exists in our present-day city. Many people living and working in structures built with Savannah Grey bricks are unaware that these building blocks of the Historic District were fashioned by hands bound in chains. The Hermitage Plantation, located right outside of Savannah and owned by Henry McAlpin, was responsible chiefly for the production of Savannah Grey bricks, and their output was largely accomplished by slaves. But these are not the only evidence of this despicable custom, as shown in the chapter entitled ‘B. Matthews Eatery.’

Another clue to our ties with slavery is at Kevin Barry’s Irish Pub, located on River Street. This pub and restaurant is a former warehouse, and there are sections of the structure which date as far back as 1814. Part of the bottom floor is built out of ballast stones, brought over in the holds of ships bound from ports all over the world. Along with the best Irish stew in Savannah, the old building also has past associations with human chattel.

Located on the back wall of the far east room there are a series of bolts in the wall, along with holes drilled into the very rock comprising the ballast stone wall. These bolts were once linked to chains binding slaves to the walls of the old structure. Even though the slave trade had technically been outlawed by 1798 in Georgia, and nationally by 1808, slave traders still had free reign importing negroes because of a disinterested legislature and indifferent inspectors.

One other sign points to illicit slaves being housed in this location: a bit of graffiti carved into the ballast stone construction. As one enters Kevin Barry’s on the ground floor entrance, one can view a large black stone making up part of the wall directly to the right of the door, under the lamp. One may need a lighter or a match to illuminate the carving for a proper viewing, but the sketch is truly worth the effort. The profile of a man is clearly visible, and he is wearing what appears to be either a wig or skullcap. According to the owner, Vic Powers, this is possibly a caricature of the slaver, or perhaps even the likeness of an already-purchased slave’s master. The handiwork of the image is quite good; although the artisan is untrained, the representation is undeniable.

One wonders at the thought process of the artist as he made this image so long ago. An uncertain fate clearly awaited him or her—was this an attempt at levity, or was there a more serious purpose in mind? Was the sketch completed? This is yet one more unexplained story in this, our wondrous yet strange Southern city.

Sorrel-Weed House

6 West Harris Street

On one edge of Madison Square sits one of the finest architectural efforts in Savannah, an amber-colored Greek Revival jewel tucked into a leafy green setting. This house has sparked strong feelings in many people all throughout its lifetime here in the Historic District. For instance, it is impossible not to have powerful sentiments about the man who commissioned the house’s construction, at least once you learn his history. The house’s renovation has proved contentious, which stirred an outpouring of public opinion and controversy in recent years. There is also a rift within the paranormal community between what actually occurred here historically versus what has long been reported as fact on ghost tours. It seems like everyone in town, from credentialed historians to civil rights activists, has a take on this particular house. There are facts and then there are factions, and I’ve been told a lot about both. The battle lines are still drawn around the Sorrel-Weed House, which could be an ironic turn of phrase, as you’ll see by the end of the chapter.

In a story where everyone has an opinion, it should be easy to ascertain the truth, right? The facts, though, proved elusive at first.

“...almost immediately strange things began to happen.”

The Legend

If you were to take a ghost tour, you might hear a variation of the following story:

The house we know today as the Sorrel-Weed House was built in the early 1840’s, and designed by noted architect Charles Cluskey. The house was built by Francis Sorrel, a wealthy plantation owner who was originally from the West Indies. He married well after he emigrated to the United States, pairing with a young woman named Lucinda Moxley. He was twenty-nine years old when they married; Lucinda was seventeen years of age, and from an extremely wealthy family which did business with Francis. Their marriage meant that Francis received one-seventh of Lucinda’s family estate as a dowry. They had three children together. Unfortunately, Lucinda died just five years into their marriage in 1827. The cause of her death was officially recorded as yellow fever, but there were whispers by many that foul play, suspected but never proven, was involved.

Two years later, Francis was joined in matrimony again, this time marrying his dead wife’s younger sister, twenty-three year old Matilda, in 1829. This marriage also netted Francis another seventh of the family estate. He and Matilda had eight children, of which five survived to adulthood. Easily the most famous of the children was Gilbert Moxley Sorrel, who served with distinction in the Civil War on General Longstreet’s staff. He has been called by many historians the finest staff officer in the Confederacy.

Francis’ shipping business grew exponentially during this time period, and he quickly rose to be one of the city’s most prominent and wealthy men. However, Francis did have his vices. He was known to have taken sexual liberties with many of his slaves, and had a long-ongoing affair with one young slave girl in particular named Molly. Supposedly, Francis arranged for Molly to have special quarters set up above the carriage house so that they could have their lover’s trysts in private. However, they were discovered one night by Matilda Sorrel. Enraged by her husband’s infidelity, Matilda committed suicide by leaping from the second story balcony of the house, bashing her head against the flagstone courtyard. A few weeks after this grisly death, the slave Molly was found in the carriage house hanging from a noose, in yet another alleged suicide on the grounds.

The suspicions many people already had about his first wife’s death, coupled with the quick succession of suicides of both his wife and lover, made many people doubt Mr. Sorrel’s trustworthiness. In fact, Francis had a deep secret which would have ruined his social standing in Savannah: he was actually part black. His mother had been a free woman of color (a mulatto, as a person of white and black lineage was then called), meaning that Francis was one-quarter black, or a quadroon. This would have destroyed his reputation, and seriously harmed his business. It was believed by many that he murdered his first wife to keep the secret, and married her sister to secure even more of her parent’s holdings in case the true story of his mixed blood descent came out.

Francis Sorrel’s reputation suffered greatly as a result of these succession of strange deaths: his two wives, and then his slave paramour. The house was sold to Henry Weed a few years later, mostly to recoup after a series of financial losses by Sorrel. Despite the sale, his fortunes nosedived and he died about ten years later, an embittered and shunned member of the Savannah social scene. The house passed through a series of owners, eventually becoming a dress shop in the latter portion of the 20th century.

In the late 1990’s, the house was bought by new ownership. Almost immediately, strange things began to happen. Disembodied voices were heard in all parts of the house, including screaming and what can only be described as ‘terrified begging’ from the carriage house. Strange lights were seen in the basement, and on several occasions, tenants of the carriage house moved out abruptly in the middle of the night.

In October of 2005, the Ghost Hunters television program filmed a special in the Sorrel-Weed House. The TAPS team (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) conducted an investigation, and encountered several unexplainable phenomena: handprints that could not be accounted for showing up walls via thermal imaging, and more disturbingly, EVP’s (electronic voice phenomenon, which is voices captured on tape) from within the carriage house, where a woman’s voice is screaming, “Get out, get out....help me… my God...my God!” A man’s voice can be heard with the woman’s, but his words are inaudible.

The house is now open for touring, and many guests report that they feel a choking sensation in the basement, or are otherwise overwhelmed by the conflicting spirits of Molly, Matilda, and Francis Sorrel.

How Much Of This Is True?

How much truth is contained in the above story? I have spent about half a decade unraveling the facts from the fantasies, an odd obsession which led to many hours in the Georgia Historical Society, examining tax documents and checking old newspapers on microfiche. What I can report is that while the legend gets a lot of the story right, the parts that it gets wrong are spectacular, and definitely alter the way we should view this story.

Any discussion of what occurred in the Sorrel-Weed House has to center around the man who built it, Francis Sorrel. He was born in the West Indies in the modern-day Dominican Republic city of Santo Domingo, in 1793. Born Mathurin-Francois Sorrel, he was forced to flee the island at the age of eight due to a slave revolt. It is believed by many that the boy was saved from that country’s bloody civil war by sympathetic slaves who sheltered him during a time of massive social upheaval. It is true that Francis was of partial black ancestry, as the legend states. While he had no problems later in life passing as a full-blooded white man and thus hiding his true lineage, in this instance his so-called ‘mixed blood’ probably saved his life.

Sorrel’s early history is complicated. I am skipping most of it because it has little to do with the later events we’re examining, but I strongly urge those who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding to read The Sorrels in Savannah: Life on Madison Square and Beyond, by Carla Ramsey Weeks. But the legend does get much of Sorrel’s matrimonial history correct: the marriage to a younger woman (Lucinda), her premature death from yellow fever, and his subsequent marriage to her younger sister, Matilda. The speculation about Sorrel murdering his first wife is completely unsubstantiated, however.

He was an incredibly astute businessman, and was involved in many charitable works, including being one of the charter patrons of the Savannah Poor House and Hospital. This man did not resemble the wicked, scheming person described by the legend. But while it is not easy to paint Francis Sorrel as a villain, neither is it appropriate to make him out to be the hero of this particular tale. This one-quarter-black man was a slave owner himself, as well as an ardent supporter of the practice. No, the one word that kept coming to mind when I read about Francis was ‘survivor,’ a word that sprang up again when Sorrel met with Union General William T. Sherman, at the terminus of his fiery March to the Sea in 1864. The Savannah businessman was reported to have told the Union General that he believed that the Confederacy cause “hopeless.” I cannot help but wonder if that is truly what Sorrel believed, or if he was simply telling Sherman what he wanted to hear. Sorrel was nothing if not adaptable.

The Slave Affair

What about the crux of the story, the alleged affair between Francis and the slave girl, Molly? And how does it fit in with stories told about the Sorrel-Weed House? Well, no documentation has ever surfaced which proves that Molly was a real person. And the hanging? Tobias McGriff astutely points out in his 2012 book, Savannah Shadows: Tales From the Midnight Zombie Tour, that a Haitian slave seeking to end her own life via suicide would be unlikely to choose a noose, since it was seen as “a symbol of terror and degradation by white owners.” Colonial era slave-owning planters, much like some ’Jim Crow’ post-Civil War American Southern whites, used the noose as an emblem of intimidation and power.

While it is true that Matilda Sorrel died as the result of a fall from a second floor balcony on March 27th, 1860 (the date listed on her burial records at Laurel Grove Cemetery), there is no indication that she killed herself over her husband’s alleged (but never proven) infidelity. The only record we have of Matilda’s apparent suicide is in a compilation of Civil War-era letters later published in a book called Children of Pride. Charles Colcock, Jr. reports to his mother in a letter that Matilda Sorrel threw herself off of an upstairs porch “in a moment of lunacy… falling upon the pavement of the yard,” a fall which ended her life. His mother, Mary Jones, answers his letter and comments that she was aware that Mrs. Sorrel had been suffering from “great mental depression” for a long time. This sounds as if Matilda Sorrel’s mental instability is common knowledge.

Gilbert Moxley Sorrel, son of Francis and Matilda as well as a highly-decorated Confederate officer, did write about his mother’s death, at least indirectly, in his book, At the Right Hand of Longstreet: Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer. Moxley, as he liked to be called, was considered to be the epitome of the Southern gentleman by nearly all who met the man. It is telling, therefore, that his only words on the subject of his mother in three hundred and fifteen pages was: “Death bereft my father of his wife in time’s flight.” It would be difficult to come up with a colder way of referring to one’s own mother, while still remaining polite, than this sentence. Also quite revealing is that the ten words Moxley devoted to this painful subject focused on his father’s loss, not his mother’s death. Apparently there were strained feelings, whether from he suicide itself or the earlier mentioned mental instability of Matilda. One would assume if there had truly been infidelity on his father’s part which prompted his mother to take her own life, wouldn’t it stand to reason that Moxley would be less focused on his father’s pain?

Francis Sorrel retired from business, but unlike the legend, maintained his wealth and social standing until his death on May 5th, 1870.

But isn’t the infidelity/suicide story at Sorrel-Weed at least plausible? you might be wondering at this point. The answer, stunningly, is no, it isn’t. The entire tale is rendered completely meaningless because of another date crucial to the story: June 14th, 1859, roughly nine months before Matilda’s suicide. Why is this date so important? Because that is the date that Francis Sorrel sold the house on the corner to Henry D. Weed for $23,000 (a little over half a million in today’s dollars), and moved his entire family next door into 12 West Harris Street. This means that the suicide happened next door at 12 West Harris, not at the Sorrel-Weed House! The story of the slave girl, the carriage house EVP, and the ‘Francis-Matilda-Molly ghost story’ angle still being told as fact at the Sorrel-Weed House are being represented as happening the wrong location entirely.

I have heard a few tour guides attempt to justify the legend’s validity by claiming that Francis Sorrel did in fact sell the house to Henry Weed in 1859, but due to an agreement between the two men, Sorrel and his wife continued to live in the home for a few months. If that assertion is true, that would mean that Matilda’s suicide could have plausibly occurred at the Sorrel-Weed House. The problem with this suggestion is that I have seen no documentation whatsoever to support this idea, such as a written record of rent being paid or other indications of Sorrel occupying the home into 1860. It seems unlikely, especially without proof stating otherwise, that someone who bought a mansion for a hefty sum would allow the seller to live on the premises for nine months. Weed and Sorrel were not related by blood, and Sorrel wasn’t suffering from any sort of financial hardship, even before the sale. In fact, a document exists which elegantly nixes this suggestion that the Sorrels could have continued to live at the Sorrel-Weed House after the purchase: the 1860 census, which quite correctly shows Francis living at 12 West Harris Street, not 6 West Harris. In the absence of proof stating otherwise, I feel it is safe to state unequivocally that Matilda Sorrel died at 12 West Harris Street, not the Sorrel-Weed House.

What Does This All Mean?

Now we know the folklore account of the Matilda Sorrel suicide and the slave Molly suicide/murder is wrong. The historical record conclusively proves that they lived at a different address when the only verifiable suicide, Matilda’s, took place in March of 1860. But there are still many paranormal things which have happened (and continue to happen) at this particular house, events which are difficult to explain away. For instance, there is the strange sensation of nausea and choking that many people feel in the basement. Those who consider themselves sensitive to psychic energy have described feeling panicked for no reason. Then there is the fact that people’s cameras and cellphone batteries, which were fully charged before the tour began, are sometimes found to be completely drained of energy by the end of the tour. One elderly gentleman who took my pub crawl the night after visiting the Sorrel-Weed House even claimed that while in the home, he suddenly began having trouble hearing the guide. Turned out, his hearing aid’s brand-new battery was completely drained. And, his wife further explained, they had to wait until morning to go get a new one so he could hear during their vacation. What sort of mean ghost picks on a grandpa? And why would people be experiencing strange happenings when the suicide happened elsewhere?

There is another, barely-explored theory, one which might explain the strange conflicted emotions many experience in the house. A former guide who worked in the home, Bradley Dilling, declined to speculate on the true location of the suicide, but did offer up an intriguing idea: it is Bradley’s belief that the hauntings, which he personally experienced at the Sorrel-Weed House during his employment there, have little to do with Francis and Matilda Sorrel and everything to do with the plot of ground on which the building sits. Brad quite correctly reminded me that the southernmost point of the British horseshoe-shaped earthen fortifications during the Siege of Savannah during the Revolutionary War were located in what was later developed into Madison Square, very close to (and possibly sited on) the Sorrel-Weed House’s current location. In what was then the South Common (a meadow-like area full of scrubby juvenile oaks and pines) the French, Haitian and American troops essentially dashed themselves to pieces while trying to retake Savannah from the extremely well dug-in British and Scottish soldiers. This ill-conceived assault in October of 1779 was, according to many historians, the bloodiest hour of the entire American Revolution, with well over a thousand casualties recorded.

If the paranormal occurrences in the house are real, perhaps the cause has been misidentified. Guides who tell the erroneous ‘affair and suicide’ story because it contains tawdry thrills are omitting, either through ignorance or apathy, a great story which both literally and figuratively changed the landscape of Savannah.

My concern is broader, however, than just a missed storytelling opportunity: I am wary of the extreme liberties some people take with Savannah’s history. Guides could still point at the house and talk about Francis Sorrel and, with the right storyteller, his life’s story would provide chills without having to falsely tie a suicide to the property in question. He was an uncomfortably complex man. His time on Earth contained the stuff of Greek tragedy: both tribulation and success, but his victories were only won by denying part of himself. He was part black and part white, and was caught in a time of extreme racial inequality. One has to wonder if he saw the bitter irony of his own slave ownership, because the fact that he prospered by owning other, less fortunate human beings, he was perpetuating the very system which would denounce him, if the truth about his lineage was revealed.

Alternately, tour guides could talk of the unsettling and deeply ironic fact that a mixture of French, Haitian and American blood was spilled in an area where, sixty years later, a man who whose pedigree consisted of that same French and Haitian blood built a house, where he flourished after coming to America. Could this be the real source of the controversy engendered by this house? Could the truest ‘haunting’ at the Sorrel-Weed be the spectre of the deeply conflicted sides of the man who built it? Or perhaps are there echoes of an epic battle which took part on that plot of land before the house was even built. I like to imagine that it is a combination of all these factors. Sometimes, the most tumultuous houses in the Historic District have nothing to do with the ghosts which may or may not roam their interiors. The houses which emanate the most disquieting vibes are sometimes the ones with the most disturbing history, not hauntings.

Today, the Sorrel-Weed House is privately owned, and is available for touring.

Is this the true location of the suicide?

Fort Pulaski

U.S. Highway 80 East

In the American Revolution, the Allies’ misguided assault on British-held Savannah ranks among the most costly and bloody hour of the entire conflict. Among the dead was Polish Count Casimir Pulaski, the highest-ranking foreign officer to die in the Revolution. He was called the Father of the American Cavalry, and he served as George Washington’s personal bodyguard. But the dashing officer died, as so many men did, in the futile charge against well-entrenched British positions.

Fort Pulaski, named for the brave and bold Count, was designed in part by Robert E. Lee, back when he was fresh out of West Point, in 1831. The future commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War, Lee was in charge of sorting out the complex task of draining the swamp on which the fort now sits. Pulaski was designed to be an impregnable fortress, with masonry walls seven and a half feet thick. It was seized by the Confederates nearly three months before the attack on Fort Sumter, so the taking of the fort was actually the first military action of the Civil War.

The fort was well-fortified, having fifty cannon, when the Union landed on Tybee Island very late in 1861. The Union spent months sneaking their own cannon onto Tybee, working at night as to not draw fire from the fort. The guns which the Union was hard at work concealing consisted of a new type of cannon, which was untested in combat. The rifled cannon could fire shells further than ever before, but of even more importance was their accuracy. The Rebels defending the fort were unaware of the existence of this new weapon, and were not terribly concerned about the Union soldiers on Tybee Island, because they appeared to be too far away to be able to cause serious damage to the fort.

Military wisdom held that cannon were ineffective against stone or masonry forts at a range of 800 or more yards—and the Union artillery was more than twice that distance away. The Rebels were well-trained, and had enough provisions and powder to withstand a siege of 4 months or more. Their commander, Colonel Charles Olmstead, was arguably the best artillerist in the Confederacy.

Thirty-six Union guns squared off against fifty on the Confederate side. The battle began on April 10th, 1862. Confederate General John Pemberton, watching the battle, suggested that Fort Pulaski was wasting shot and powder by returning fire against the Union attack, because after all, wasn’t the fort impregnable?

The rifled Union guns proved to be far more effective than anyone imagined. Their incredible long-range accuracy began to take a toll on the fort’s southeast wall. The guns kept up their pounding of Fort Pulaski through that night, and into the morning of the 11th. The morning’s light revealed that the fort’s integrity had been compromised, and by noon that same day, a gaping hole had been blasted through one wall in the fort. Union shells were entering the fort itself. These shots were hitting the wall of the powder magazine, which contained forty thousand pounds (twenty tons) of gunpowder. Colonel Olmstead was faced with a terrible choice: surrender, or see both himself and his men killed in a massive explosion. Olmstead, upon surrendering, said, “I yield my sword. I trust I have not disgraced it.”

Fort Pulaski, the supposedly impregnable fortress, surrendered after thirty hours of shelling. The immovable object met the irresistible force, and the results were disastrous for the Confederacy. Colonel Olmstead and his men spent most of the remainder of the war in Union prisons.

Photo by Timothy H O’Sullivan of the breach in April 1862. Obtained from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

‘The Immortal Six Hundred’

The battle had been a Rebel fiasco, but the truly terrible had yet to occur. It wasn’t until 1864 that six hundred captured Confederate officers were interred at the former Rebel stronghold by the Union Army. These men became pawns in a war of retribution between the two sides—a disagreement over the proper treatment and housing of prisoners of war. These men, called “The Immortal Six Hundred,” were placed on starvation rations to retaliate for the barbaric practice of the Confederates, who were placing Union prisoners-of-war in the line of fire to protect vital interests, essentially using them as human shields.

These six hundred men were forced to survive by eating rats, cats, and in one case, a kitten. One of these cats belonged to the daughter of the Union camp commander. Forty-four of these men died as a direct result of their treatment, be it the harsh and unheated quarters or the lack of nutrients. Thirteen of them were buried in unmarked graves somewhere in or around Fort Pulaski. But even the ones who survived continued to have health problems years later, in spite of their release.

As late as 1930, one survivor was still bitter. He was quoted in an interview as saying that while he loved his country and it was still a thrill to see the flag, “but with that thrill comes an unspeakable sadness; for it was the Stars and Stripes that floated over... Pulaski.”

Photo by Timothy H O’Sullivan of the breach interior in April 1862. Obtained from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Parade Ground Happenings

Numerous people have reported seeing or experiencing strange things at Fort Pulaski. One couple reported seeing a soldier atop the parapet near dusk. “He was standing at the edge, wearing a dark blue jacket,” the woman remembers, “and then he simply stepped back out of view. I walked back, to get a better view of him, but he was gone.” The man, a Civil War reenactor, confirmed this, but did add, “I don’t think he was wearing blue. His jacket was definitely dark, but I know that some Confederate units wore a darker shade of gray than the others. It was a color called Richmond Gray—it was almost black, it was so dark—and they called it that because it was issued at a depot located in Richmond, Virginia.” Then, perhaps to assuage the stormy look his wife gave him, he added: “In the dim light of the setting sun, it probably did look blue to Sharon, but I’m certain it was Richmond Gray because I have just such an outfit at home. The fellow was wearing wooden buttons—he was Confederate.”

There are living historian interpreters in the fort from time to time who do in fact dress from that time period, but given the acrimony even today over the Union occupation of Pulaski, it would be unlikely that any of the reenactors would wear blue. But it does bear pointing out that Fort Pulaski was only under Confederate control for one year in the conflict, so if they did in fact see the spirit of a departed soldier, he would be much more likely to be wearing blue.

Another man visiting the fort reported hearing strange sounds in the powder magazine. “I was viewing the display, and I distinctly heard someone say, ‘Charlie, come here.’ I stepped out into the parade ground and there was no one there. It sounded like he was right there at my shoulder when he spoke, but I could see no one around me.”

Others, including myself, have felt something amiss in the soldier’s quarters. I attended a reenactment entitled “Christmas with the Troops” in 2002. Along with firing the cannon and doing parade ground exercises, the well-drilled reenactors (and period-costumed ladies) also provided ginger cookies and some good cider around a roaring fire, where we sang traditional holiday folk songs. It was midway through singing that I began to feel ill. I experienced a claustrophobic despair unlike any I’ve ever felt. My whole body began tingling, and I had to step outside. I leaned on a brick archway and tried to regain my composure, and one of the older reenactors walked over to check on me. “Feeling okay, young fella?” He asked. I told him I needed air, and added that I had never had an anxiety attack before and had never experienced claustrophobia, either. He smiled grimly, and said, “You’re not the first. Given the history of that area you were just standing, it isn’t a shock at all. It happens all the time—people feel sick, and once they get outside they feel fine.”

It is not surprising that an area so imbued with turmoil and despair would be haunted. Both the terrific pounding absorbed by the fort in those desperate hours of early 1862, and the confinement of the Immortal Six Hundred in 1864 could well have seeped into the very brick walls of the fortification. The anguish of both events cannot help but have repercussions even today.

Tybee Island Bed & Breakfast Inn

24 Van Horn Avenue

On Tybee Island near North Beach sits a fortification called Fort Screven, built in 1897. It was constructed to bolster the coastal defenses and defend the mouth of the Savannah River during the Spanish-American War, and served that purpose until after the Second World War. Also part of the Fort Screven complex was the old hospital complex, a collection of houses just a few hundred yards to the south of the main fortification. Those buildings have been turned into private residences in some cases, but also into a popular bed and breakfast. But the Tybee Island Bed & Breakfast Inn (formerly known as the Fort Screven Inn) has another reputation other than beautiful rooms and friendly staff. Strange hauntings are experienced there by staff and guests alike, with unexplainable and sometimes terrifying results.

This story has personal significance to me, because I worked and lived at the Inn during the winter and spring of 1997. I did not believe in ghosts when I began the job, but by the end of my stay I was very much a believer in the supernatural. I was hired originally to be the caretaker just during the winter months for a friend’s bed and breakfast, but I was requested to stay on for some additional time when the owner returned.

When I was interviewing for the position, I remember being asked whether or not I believed in ghosts. My response was an emphatic ‘no.’ With that, my friend was satisfied, but added that he had previously had a hard time keeping innkeepers around because of all the spectral activity. After showing me the ropes of the job, he departed for Texas for several weeks.

“Do you believe in ghosts now?”

A Non-Believer is Converted

Early on in my stay, I began to notice that there were some strange sounds originating in the hallway. The sounds were like someone was walking up and down the hall with heavy boots—but there was no one there. This happened at all hours of the day and night. I at first attributed this to the settling and groaning of an old house. It was, after all, built on a hill which sloped back with the property, and the winter months on Tybee can be pretty windy. One guest complained about the person stomping out in the hallway in the middle of the night, but the inn was empty except for that couple and me, and I didn’t leave my room all evening.

The incident that really changed my mind about the reality of ghosts involved this hallway, specifically the door leading down to the basement. Often times in the course of my daily routine, I would walk past and find the door unlocked. It was one of those types of surface-bolt locking mechanisms, the type where a tubular bolt on the door slides into a corresponding clasp on the doorframe, and the door would be unlocked nearly every time I’d walk by. It seemed to be more likely to happen when I was all alone in the inn. On one occasion I locked it, and turned around to walk down the hall, and I heard it unlock behind me! I heard the distinctive click of the tubular bolt sliding to the open position. I turned back, and sure enough, the door was unlocked again.

I started to think that maybe the hallway was warped or had settled, and perhaps the force exerted by the shifting weight of walking down the hallway could explain why it was unlocking. So I walked backwards down the hall, watching the bolt the whole time—and nothing. It didn’t move. I even jumped up and down in that hall, I’m sure it was quite a sight. I reached out to see if it was loosened, and my fingers got within a couple of inches, and the lock unlocked by itself. The door then opened by itself. I saw it happen with my own eyes. Needless to say, I didn’t go anywhere near that door for a while.

When my friend returned from Texas, the first question he asked me was, “Do you believe in ghosts now?” I had to admit yes. After so many unexplainable things happened to me, I had begun to accept that there are other forces at work that we simply do not understand. That door in particular was an area where many baffling events took place. On another occasion, the door itself was pounded with a knocking so loud that I heard the commotion from where I was sitting outside, on the front porch swing. I rushed to the hallway to see what the matter was, and the door was once again slowly opening by itself.

Frightening Twists

On a few occasions, the strange happenings took a scary turn. One guest left abruptly early one morning, complaining that someone unseen had held her down in bed and bitten her on the side of the neck. She did have a red mark on her neck that looked like teeth marks. She paid for her room in full, and practically ran to her car to get away from whatever she had encountered.

She was not the only guest to have an incident. A couple claimed that they experienced some very strange things one night. The young pair was awakened by a strange sound coming from the bedside table in their room. It was a strange vibrating sound, almost a ringing, as they described it. The couple noticed that not only was the racket coming from one of the bedside lamps, the lamp itself was also levitating ever so slightly, about a quarter of an inch. When the man reached over and touched it, he claimed the lamp dropped back down onto the table. Then the strange noise moved across the room and began to vibrate the TV. The most surprising part of this story is that the guests were not the least bit alarmed by this activity. They were laughing and joking the next morning at breakfast. The other guests loved it. When I asked them if they were disturbed or wanted to switch rooms, they both laughed harder and told me that they had both grown up in haunted houses. They were a bit upset that the next night was perfectly peaceful. They were looking forward to another haunting!

I, as well as other guests, experienced a cold spot in one of the bedrooms. It felt as if the temperature dropped twenty degrees when you’d get near one side of the room. The air conditioner wasn’t in use yet because it was still cool, and there was no draft in the room, but that spot was usually colder than the rest of the house for no discernible reason.

The ghost was not without a sense of humor. A gruff guest named Ron, who was combative with the staff and surly with his fellow guests, suddenly claimed that his bagels were missing. First he accused some other guests of stealing his breakfast food, but when they denied it, he then accused me of taking it. No amount of my denial was sufficient, so Ron searched everywhere for his missing food, including the trash can—Ron was looking for evidence of the wrapper, which he thought would be proof that someone had eaten the breakfast roll. No bagel or wrapper turned up. Days after Ron and his wife departed the inn, the bagel suddenly surfaced, appearing right in plain view in the very front of the freezer. This became known jokingly by the staff and guests alike as the ‘Saga of Ron’s Haunted Bagel.’

One afternoon I restocked the refrigerator with cans of soda that we provided for the guests. I walked back to the kitchen and put the remaining eight of the twelve-pack of sodas in the pantry, which is located right next to the main hallway. I placed the sodas on the center shelf, with the open end of the cardboard case pointing up in the air. Now, this case of sodas was not near the edge of the shelf, and wasn’t resting at an odd angle, or anything out of the ordinary. I walked away, and heard a bang that was so loud I jumped in the air. It really startled me. When I walked back to the kitchen to see what had caused it, I found six of those soda cans rolling across the kitchen floor, all in a row, slowly rolling away from the pantry door. Two things about this still make me scratch my head even today: first, the cardboard case of sodas was still upright in the pantry. Did they jump out? Or did the case tip over and then somehow tip back with two soda cans still inside? Either way, it was impossible. And the second really odd thing about it was the fact that the house had settled on its foundation, and the house was built on a hill that sloped back. So when I found those soda cans rolling across the kitchen floor, they were rolling uphill. I retreated out of the kitchen and didn’t come back in for a while—I remember thinking that if something that odd was going to be happening in there, I wanted to be nowhere near it. That was one of the strangest experiences of my life.

On one occasion I was downstairs in the basement, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. When I turned around to see what it was, I realized that the pull-chains attached to the electric lights were all swaying back and forth, as if someone had batted them all at once. On another, also in the basement, the lights went out on me even though the light switch was at the top of the stairs and the door had not opened. In the absolute dark I made my way back to the top of the stairs and found the light switch in the ‘off’ position. No one else was even staying in the Inn—I was all alone.

The strangeness was not just experienced by humans. One couple who stayed at the inn had a dog that apparently did not like the main hallway one bit. It would cry and whine, wanting either to go into the room they had rented, or back outside. And not just dogs sensed something unusual. We took in two kittens that had been found near the Inn, and on several occasions I noticed that they would both watch something that only they could see. They would both be fixated on the same invisible object, eyes and heads turning in unison.

Another innkeeper, who worked around the same time period, stayed in the upstairs. She was uncomfortable in her room, even with all the lights on. She claims that she often felt the sensation of being watched while she was watching television. “One night I was sitting on the bed, and I kept being distracted from the program by the feeling of a presence in the room… coldness, and an uncomfortable scrutiny. I kept turning my head quickly, to see if I could catch sight of whoever was with me, but I never saw anyone in the room when I tried to catch them that way. But once, rather than turn my head towards the right, which is where I kept feeling the presence, I turned my head instead to the left, toward the mirror. I saw a man in the mirror, and he was standing right next to the bed—and right next to me! I screamed and ran out of the room. That was my last night in the inn. I told the management that they could keep the job, because I had had enough.” She described the man as wearing a uniform that had a military cut, light greenish-tan in color, and a wide-brimmed hat.

Both that former innkeeper and I were in total agreement when asked about the frequency of strange occurrences. “I’d say that things happened almost daily,” she said.

Some activity also centered on a certain candlestick holder attached to the wall in the main front room— occasionally it would be found upside down in the mornings, and it wasn’t loose in its attachment to the wall. It took a degree of force to spin it upside down, and yet it was a common occurrence to find it inverted.

Call From the Other Side?

A mother and daughter who stayed at the inn had what was perhaps a call from the other side late one September night in 2001. Resting peacefully in their room, the phone rang, waking them both. The mother picked up the receiver, and heard a strange static sound, so she hung up. Once they fell asleep, the phone rang again, with the same result. The older woman looked for a ringer on the phone so she could turn it off, but found none. When it rang a third time, the daughter picked up the phone and a strange male voice said, “Tell Emily I’m sorry for waking her up,” and the line went dead. Emily was indeed the name of the mother, so the pair assumed the caller had been one of the other guests staying at the inn that night whom they had met earlier that evening, and they had made a mistake trying to dial out of the building.

The next morning at breakfast, the mother and daughter commented on the ringing phone. The owner of the inn pursed her lips and said, “Someone called your room last night? That’s impossible. It has to be patched through to your room from downstairs, and no one was awake to transfer your call. Also, that phone can’t ring. There’s no ringer inside it—we have to knock on your door for you to know someone is calling.” Not batting an eyelash, the daughter said, “Well, at least the ghost was polite!” This drew a laugh from guests and staff alike.

The current owners are not believers in ghosts. But when asked about unexplained happenings at the inn, one of the owners said, “I don’t believe in this paranormal stuff at all. But my mother, who is a believer, worked here for a short time. She was so uncomfortable in this house she moved back to Atlanta, and she claimed it was because she could feel a presence here.”

What of the identity of the ghost or ghosts? There are several possible explanations. The house, as previously mentioned, was part of the hospital complex. It was also one of the few buildings associated with the fort which had a basement. One of the former owners claims that bodies of men in the fort who died in accidents were stored downstairs. Another possible source would be the twenty-plus years the building served as a nursing home. So there is a possibility that the ghost is a serviceman who died in the hospital portion of the structure, but there is also a possibility that the undeparted spirit could have ties to the period of time when the house became a nursing home. Either way, the house has associations with death. Fortunately, neither the nonliving nor the living seem to mind sharing such a beautiful bed and breakfast.

More Savannah Hauntings

The same ignorance makes me so bold as to deny absolutely the truth of the various ghost stories, and yet with the common, though strange, reservation that while I doubt any one of them, I still have faith in the whole of them taken together.

-Immanuel Kant

Dreams of a Spirit-Seer

Living in Historic downtown Savannah means hearing lots of ghost stories from locals. Naysayers might invoke the old saying: Savannah is bisected by Bull Street, so we Savannahians naturally have a line of ‘Bull’ down our center, but to be a native of Savannah is to accept the strange supernatural flair of this city. You don’t find many atheists in foxholes, to be sure, and you don’t find many skeptics in Savannah. The cynical words of those who would disparage this city’s haunted reputation are crushed under the weight of so many unsolicited stories.

These ghost stories are sometimes related to me in passing, but I feel that when taken all together, these begin to paint an accurate portrait of why Savannah is considered to be a truly unique place to live. I have culled the best from these separate tales into one chapter.

Ghosts at Garibaldi’s?

315 West Congress Street

A former server at the upscale restaurant Garibaldi’s, located on West Congress Street, related the following story:

She worked at the restaurant for a number of months while the building was being renovated. The eatery was being expanded into the upstairs, and was getting a facelift downstairs as well. When she started the job, the servers described often hearing footsteps above them on the still-in-progress second floor renovation. When they would investigate, the upper floor would be deserted. She didn’t particularly believe her fellow workers, suspecting them of having a laugh at her expense.

One early one evening, she heard footsteps above her on the second floor. Thinking it might be one of the managers and needing a question answered, she stepped into the upstairs before she began her shift. But she found herself in a deserted room. Hearing disembodied footsteps turned into a common occurrence for her during her employment as a waitress at Garibaldi’s.

Another blustery January evening, she and a friend were having a drink at the Rail Pub, which is a bar a block away on Congress Street. On their way home they decided to walk over to Garibaldi’s to see if their co-worker was finished with her shift. Peering through the glass, they glimpsed a woman from behind walking down the downstairs hallway. Thinking this was their friend, they tapped loudly on the glass to catch her attention, but she continued walking away from them without looking back, and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway. Thinking that their friend has simply not heard them, they decided to call her cell phone. The friend answered immediately—and informed them that she was already home. The restaurant had been slow and they had closed early. Garibaldi’s was deserted—at least by the living.

The Planters Inn Apparition

29 Abercorn Street

The Planters Inn on Reynolds Square is also reputed to be haunted. The ghost apparently has a bit of an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, because this female spirit is said to straighten picture frames that are off-kilter. This picture-straightening phantasm has been seen in the rooms, in the hallways, and was even seen one night in the lobby by several eyewitnesses simultaneously. She has been reported to appear, level the offending picture, and then disappear.

No one knows the identity of this apparition, but the Empire-waisted nightgown she is said to wear gives a few clues as to her profession. The Planters Inn used to be called the John Wesley Hotel, and for a time in Savannah had the reputation of being the most upscale brothel in town. Indeed, historian Rebecca Clark related a story involving a beauty salon located in the lobby. Her mother forbade her to visit the Wesley Hotel, and the owner of the salon, Mr. Davis, had to visit the Clark home to do Rebecca’s hair, instead. “Nice girls did not frequent that hotel,” Becky said with a smile.

The Olde Harbour Inn

508 East Factors Walk

Situated on the east end of River Street, the Olde Harbor Inn overlooks the Savannah River, its exterior largely unchanged from the 19th century. The stone foundation of Olde Harbour Inn was laid nearly 200 years ago, but in 1892, a swift blaze caused nearly complete destruction of the original building. The current structure was rebuilt on the ballast stone foundation. The building was the former home to Standard Oil Company until 1907. In 1930, it was occupied by Alexander Brothers Company, a blue jeans and overall factory. The entire building was renovated in 1985, and was opened as the Olde Harbour Inn in 1987.

It has been said that during this 1892 fire that a surly worker named Hank lost his life. Many suspect Hank of setting the blaze himself, because the flames began around his office, and he was in an argument with management at the time of the suspicious incident. If he did indeed set the blaze, then Hank’s revenge backfired, because he lost his life in the inferno. He was the fire’s only fatality.

Hank still has a reputation of being surly. He knocks on doors, twists door knobs, and even more disturbingly, he has been known to stretch out across the bed with unsuspecting guests. One woman awakened one night to feel the mattress compressing next to her. Thinking it was her husband, she rolled away and attempted to go back to sleep. Only then did she see her husband sleepily walk out of the bathroom doorway, heading back to bed. The ‘someone’ on the bed with her was not her husband! She screamed and rolled out of bed.

Apparently (and unfortunately for that couple), being the grouchiest ghost in Savannah can sometimes get pretty lonely.

Spirit at Ft. Jackson

1 Fort Jackson Road

According to the Travel Channel program ‘America’s Most Haunted Places-Savannah’, old Fort Jackson, situated just east of Savannah on the river, has some surprising supernatural stories.

Begun in 1808 because of worsening relations with Britain, the brick stronghold was still in use during the time of the Civil War. It became a Confederate fortification, protecting Savannah from a sea-borne Union invasion. It was during this time that a Rebel soldier set in motion an event which still has psychic repercussions at the fort: he attempted to murder his superior officer.

No one is quite sure the exact circumstances involved in the incident between Private Patrick Garrity and Lieutenant George Dickerson. What we do know is that Private Garrity was on guard duty near the drawbridge, and was approached by Lt. Dickerson. Garrity, for reasons unknown, bludgeoned his superior with his musket, breaking both his musket and the officer’s skull in four places. Private Garrity then attempted to evade his pursuers by jumping into the moat, where he then drowned. The Lieutenant survived his beating, but never fully recovered. He was unable remember the incident, much less give a reason for the attack.

An apparition has been seen at the spot of the attack, and most assume it is the ghost of Garrity. One night the site manager was closing the fort, and saw a silhouette of a Confederate soldier walking alone in a long grey frock coat on the parade ground of the fort. The apparition was only visible from the waist up. The site manager calmly recorded the incident in the daily log book, and then left for the evening.

Another silhouette of a soldier has been reported standing on the casement walls above the parade ground by both the site manager and several other eyewitnesses.

There has also been an incident involving an award given out every year to reenactors stationed at Ft. Jackson. On numerous occasions, the award has broken or has parts turn up missing right in the area that Garrity attacked his superior. Is this a case of Garrity still taking out his aggressions on fellow soldiers? Or is his frustration that his side of the story is yet untold? For Private Garrity to finally rest in the afterlife, perhaps these questions must be answered, so he can find the peace that eluded him in life.

The Earl Grey Ghost

210 East State Street

In a 1924 yellow brick condominium-style apartment building, there are reports of a ghost with some baggage: tea bags, to be precise.

It seems a young couple moved into their new apartment, located at the corner of Abercorn and State Streets on Oglethorpe Square, and they loved everything about their new place except for one thing: a strange recurrence in the kitchen. Often times, upon awaking, they would find teacups sitting out, as if they had just missed someone sitting at their kitchen counter. “Sometimes, it would be just the empty cup sitting on an empty saucer, but on occasion we would find the actual remains of a cup of tea, with teabag, in the bottom of the cup,” the young lady related. “Now, neither my boyfriend nor I drink hot tea, which is the funny part. I’m from the South, so for me it’s sweet iced tea or nothing. He’s even English, and that’s sort of our joke, the fact that I fell in love with the one Englishman who doesn’t like hot tea!”

The young lady began to get nervous, because someone was obviously using their kitchen without their consent. “I was hoping that there was an innocent explanation, like a neighbor who had a key or something. But of course your mind starts to envision the ‘Tea-Drinking Slasher,’ that sort of thing. We even changed the locks in the apartment, but it continued—I’d say once a week or so, we’d find a teacup.” Finally, exasperated, they called the former owner, a young man named Rodney. His answers to their queries surprised the couple, because he related the following story:

Rodney had been forced to sell his former apartment because his girlfriend wouldn’t come anywhere near the place after an incident in the kitchen. She had stayed over the previous night, and got up early the next morning for a bit of coffee. It was there that she unexpectedly ran face-to face with Rodney’s mother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of hot tea and wearing a yellow bathrobe. She was mortified, because she hadn’t even known Rodney’s mother was in town visiting—the two had never even met, and the setting for their first meeting were less than ideal, you might say. After exchanging pleasantries, she slipped back to the bedroom and woke Rodney up, and began to chastise him for not warning her that his mother was in town. Rodney looked at her very strangely, and then calmly informed her that his mother had died two years before. She was visiting Rodney in the apartment shortly after he had moved in, and she suffered a massive stroke, and expired. When Rodney’s mother died, she had been sitting at the kitchen table, wearing that yellow bathrobe and drinking her customary cup of hot tea.

The new young couple was faced with a terrible choice: sell their lovely new apartment, or live with the knowledge that they were in a supernatural time-share situation with Rodney’s dead mother. They wound up compromising. “We left Rodney’s dead mom a note,” the young lady explained, “We wrote her a nice letter in the kitchen, explaining that Rodney had moved. After that evening it was the last time we had a problem with the teacups, so apparently she got the message.”

With a mischievous wink, the girl added, “We even gave her Rodney’s new address, in case she wanted to visit.”

Oglethorpe House

201 West Oglethorpe Avenue

One of Savannah College of Art and Design’s main downtown dormitories is Oglethorpe House, which is affectionately called ‘O-House’ by the students housed there. Built in the late 1950’s, this six-story modern-style building was originally a hotel, called the Downtowner Motor Lodge. It became a Ramada Inn during its history, and was eventually sold to Savannah College of Art and Design for use as a dorm. So now the dorm is ‘haunted,’ if you’ll pardon the expression, by a group of pierced and tattooed SCAD students.

Many supernatural stories persist about the structure. Separating the folklore and myths from the real stories is difficult work—any time you have a group of young, impressionable, and creative people all living in a confined space, you will hear tall tales. Sometimes, too, the stories are fueled by more than caffeine and an over-active imagination. Dismissing the easily distinguishable urban legends (any tale involving deranged killers, messages written in blood or the like are standard fare), several stories told about the space have the ring of truth.

One such tale involves the Emerald Room, which is now demolished but at the time was located across the street. When Savannah entered her great decline in the 1960’s, bars such as the Emerald Room were inevitable. Several ladies of ill repute would ply their trade at the bar, and the convenient proximity of the Downtowner Motor Lodge made it a prime spot for business to be conducted. One of these ladies of the night met an awful fate at the hands of a client on the fifth floor. It has been said that her heels can still be heard clicking on the walkways, when no one is visible.

One young lady insists that it isn’t high heels she hears clicking, but marbles. She and her roommate have heard marbles being dropped and rolling outside her room on numerous occasions. Her room is located on the top floor of Oglethorpe House, so the sound definitely has to be coming from right outside their room, but nevertheless they find no one outside and nothing amiss. The legend, unverifiable but persistent, concerns a young boy who died in the old hotel while playing with marbles. Perhaps then, if the stories are true, his spirit still plays in the old hallways.

Conservative Savannahians, viewing the blue hair and multiple piercings, often say that SCAD students have lost their marbles—but this is one case where the marbles were lost long before SCAD was on the scene.

‘Hollywood’ Ron

Ron Higgins, known as ‘Hollywood’ to most locals, was many things in his lifetime: a tour guide, business owner, entrepreneur, sports fan, lover of great food, consummate prankster, and one of my best friends. Ron founded Savannah Movie Tours, which was (and is) a tour of the film locations used in major motion pictures throughout Savannah’s beautiful Historic District. Hollywood Ron was involved in the production of many award-winning films, including Training Day, Amistad, Pearl Harbor, Remember the Titans, Armageddon, and Sweet Home Alabama.

In addition to being deeply involved in the city’s film industry, Ron was a textbook example of what Malcolm Gladwell described as a “Connector” in his seminal book about marketing: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. A Connector, as described by Gladwell, is a touchstone for the community and flashpoint for ideas, two qualities that Ron certainly embodied for us Savannahians. It seems like everyone in town knew Ron, and he never met a stranger. Which is why it pains me so much to type these words: Ron Higgins passed away in the summer of 2010. He was only 45 years young, and one of my very best friends.

It is possible that Ron’s time here on earth didn’t end with his much-too-soon death. A few weeks after his passing, I had a strange incident. One night while I was leading a tour, a lone woman on the pub crawl approached me. She seemed to have something on her mind, but seemed unsure if she should say it. Finally, she seemed to make up her mind, and placed her arm on my own in a comforting manner. “I have the ability to ‘see’ or ‘hear’ things, sometimes, that others can’t. Do you understand?”

I answered her in the affirmative. I have a few friends who have the gift of ‘second sight,’ and can see, hear, or even interact with spirits. After I reassured her, she said, “Did you have a friend pass away recently?” This conversation occurred about two weeks after Ron had passed away. I told her yes.

“Was he a… big fella?” Again, I answered yes, that my friend who had passed was pretty tall and was a former football player.

“Was his name either ‘Ron’ or ‘John’?” At this, I’m sure I went dreadfully pale. “Well,” she continued, “Ron has been following you around all night.”

“Does he… does he have a message for me?” I asked.

“I asked him that very question, and he said no. He just wanted to mess with you!”

Is this in fact not a passing, but instead a new beginning for a man who was constantly reinventing himself? And more importantly, is it possible the be ‘pranked’ from beyond the grave?

Coda: Or, An Insider’s Advice For Experiencing “Ghost Ground Zero”

I probably get asked the question: Why is Savannah so haunted? about twice a week. I used to provide pithy, easily-digestible answers, ones citing extreme tragedy and connections to water and energy. Lately though, as I stated in the intro, I have become less and less satisfied with those responses. As I’ve delved deeper over the last decade plus, I’ve begun to realize that the truth is much murkier than that, while at the same time being a much too simple idea to express in words. Have you ever been seated next to an obnoxious bore (a.k.a. the Party Killer) who drones on ad nauseum over descriptions of the flavors of a particular dish, or the layers of meaning in a film, or the hidden subtext in a painting? I would be willing to bet that you found the experience incredibly frustrating, as have I, but have you ever stopped to wonder why, exactly? The person that I’m picturing has zero social skills, true, but they’re also attempting to put into words a purely visceral experience, which is a fool’s errand. How is an amateur ‘Foodie’ or kneejerk film/art critic going to succeed in an area where most poets dash themselves to pieces? Whereas the novice doggedly describes the textures and flavors (and how informative is it, really, to call a piece of tuna ‘creamy’?), the truly gifted ones just tell you what the experience made them feel. The obnoxious bore is so frustrating because they have failed to realize their role in the process: they are attempting to interpret the creative process for you, rather than telling you whether or not it is worthwhile to experience it for yourself.

The statue of Corinne Lawton in Bonaventure Cemetery.

The statue of Corinne Lawton in Bonaventure Cemetery.

The question remains, though: why is Savannah so haunted? Come find out for yourself. This book is intended solely as an entry point to give you proper historical and experiential context when you visit. Much as you should never give sashimi right off the bat to someone who has never had sushi, or force a fledgling art historian to immediately confront a Jackson Pollack, one needs a frame of reference to properly appreciate Savannah. I will not be sucked into tilting at windmills by trying to describe Savannah’s haunted reputation by citing ‘evidence’ provided by infrared cameras or ghosts ‘caught on film’ in the form of orb photos. I have never needed a blurry photograph or a fancy piece of equipment to beep me into believing that a location is haunted, because Savannah is entirely a visceral, personal experience. My advice instead is to come sit at the bar at the 17Hundred90 Restaurant, for instance, and pay careful attention to how that place makes you feel, ghosts or otherwise. I feel the experience is entirely worthwhile, and cannot imagine the 17Hundred90 without feeling the tugging of long-departed souls as I enjoy a drink there. Describing that my electrostatic-whatsis-gadget lit up twice as much as normal would do nothing to describe that feeling of noble, unrelenting tragedy that has seeped into the old bricks at that particular location.

Living in Savannah means that it is impossible to shake that feeling that there are much deeper forces at work. I’ve lived here for over twenty years, and I’ve been a tour guide for well over half of that time. The greatest compliment I can bestow on this city is that it constantly surprises me, both with new stories, and new twists on stories I thought I knew. It is daunting to try to collect all of the best haunted tales into one volume. I’m reminded of a Buddhist parable which details a monarch who gathers a group of blind men, and asks them to describe an elephant by what they could feel. One of the men touched the tail and described it as a brush. Another traced his hand along the tusk and asserted that it was like a plowshare, and a third man, feeling a leg, told them they were all wrong, that they were touching a column. The men began to argue over what they each asserted was a true description of the object they were feeling, much to the monarch’s amusement.

This parable describes precisely how I feel about Savannah’s reputation for hauntings: the subject is too big and my grasp is too limited to ever accurately describe the entire scope of our subject. This book is intended as a preamble only, and what is lacking from our narrative is you, and your take on Savannah. Rather than tediously trying to explain the complexities (the flavor, the eccentricities, and deeper meaning) of your potential paranormal adventure, I will now urge you to sample America’s Most Haunted City for yourself. I promise you, it is an experience is worth having.

Library of Congress Citations

O’Sullivan, Timothy H. Fort Pulaski, Georgia. The Breach. April 1862. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-cwpb-00779.

O’Sullivan, Timothy H. Fort Pulaski, Ga. Interior view of the breach. April 1862. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-cwpb-00777 (digital file from original neg. of left half) LC-DIG-cwpb-00778 (digital file from original neg. of right half).

Selected Bibliography

Caskey, James. 2013. The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter. Savannah, GA: Subtext Publishing, LLC.

Cordingly, David. 1995. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. New York, NY: Random House.

Daiss, Timothy. 2002. Rebels, Saints & Sinners: Savannah’s Rich History and Colorful Personalities. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company.

DeBolt, Margaret Wayt. 1984. Savannah Spectres and Other Strange Tales. 1995 ed. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company.

Diamond, Jared. 1999. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Ltd.

Dick, Susan E. and Mandi D. Johnson. 2001. Savannah 1733 to 2000: Photographs from the Collection of the Georgia Historical Society. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing.

Fraser, Walter J. Jr. 2005. Savannah in the Old South. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Freeman, Ron. 1997. Savannah: People, Places & Events. Savannah, GA: Freeport Publishing.

----. 2002. Savannah Under Siege: The Bloodiest Hour of the Revolution. Savannah, GA: Freeport Publishing.

Gamble, Thomas. 1923. Savannah Duels and Duellists: 1733- 1877. 1997 ed. Savannah, GA: Oglethorpe Press.

Georgia Writer’s Project. 1940. Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes. 1986 ed. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Gordon, Peter. 1963. The Journal of Peter Gordon: 1732- 1735. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Linley, John. 1982. The Georgia Catalog: Historic American Buildings Survey. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

McGriff, Tobias. 2012. Savannah Shadows: Tales From the Midnight Zombie Tour. Savannah, GA: Blue Orb Publishing.

Morrison, Mary, ed. 1979. Historic Savannah: Survey of Significant Buildings if the Historic and Victorian Districts of Savannah Georgia. Savannah, GA: Historic Savannah Foundation.

Piechocinski, Elizabeth Carpenter. 1999. The Old Burying Ground: Colonial Park Cemetery- Savannah Georgia 1750-1853. Savannah, GA: Oglethorpe Press.

Russell, Preston and Barbara Hines. 1992. Savannah: A History of Her People Since 1733. Savannah, GA: Frederic C. Beil, Publisher.

Smith, Derek. 2007. Civil War Savannah. Savannah, GA: Frederic C. Beil, Publisher.

Sorrel, General G. Moxley. 1905. At the Right Hand of Longstreet: Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer. 1999 ed. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Stalcup, Jonathan E. 2008. Savannah Architectural Tours. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing.

Weeks, Carl Solana. 1997. Savannah in the Time of Peter Tondee: A Road to Revolution in Colonial Georgia. Columbia, SC: Summerhouse Press.

Weeks, Carla Ramsay. 2012. The Sorrels of Savannah: Life on Madison Square and Beyond. Denver, CO: Outskirts Publishing.

Wilson, Amie Marie and Mandi Dale Johnson. 1998. Historic Bonaventure Cemetery: Photographs from the Collection of the Georgia Historical Society. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing.

Other Titles from Subtext Publishing

The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter
by James Caskey

New Orleans: is it the most haunted city in America? This book chronicles one writer’s journey to New Orleans, LA, and his quest to find the most haunted locations in the French Quarter. Uncover the arcane and chilling aspects of ghosts and Voodoo in the Necropolis of the South. Tag along as he interviews eyewitnesses, historians, tour guides, and even a particularly spot-on fortune-teller in one of the most haunted cities in North America. Discover how he experienced the wrath of a long-dead Voodoo Queen, had an amazing revelation about one of New Orleans’ most famous haunted spots, and even got to experience his very own haunting, right in the middle of an interview.

Lavishly illustrated with over 35 pen and ink drawings and photos!

This Side of the River by Brayton Price

How do you discover yourself, much less life or love, in an increasingly digital age? This is one of the many questions posed by Brayton Price in this collection of over 35 original poems. This Side of the River explores nature, modernization, and imagination, and their effects on the human experience.

If Your Dream Doesn’t Scare You, It Isn’t Big Enough
by Kristine K. Stevens

In honor of her 40th birthday, Kristine K. Stevens sold her house, quit her job and traveled solo around the world. Carrying a backpack and the naïve belief that the trip was nothing more than a six-month long vacation, she hit the road.She braved monsoons in Zanzibar, a safari in Kenya, trekking in Nepal, kayaking in Thailand, caves in Laos, red plaid fish and lava in Hawaii, and grizzly bears in Alaska. Little did Kristine know that she was completing a pilgrimage that would change her life forever.

About the Author

James Caskey is a tour owner, licensed guide, historian, and author. In 2001, he founded Cobblestone Tours, a walking ghost tour based in Savannah, Georgia, where he currently resides. His tour company has always been devoted to telling the true history and real stories of Savannah. This search for accuracy naturally led Caskey to the world of writing: his first two books about the paranormal (including his second effort, 2013’s The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter) have been received with strong sales and positive reviews.

He and his work in the paranormal field have been featured on the top-rated Savannah episode of Ghost Adventures, as well as the Travel Channel, the New York Daily News, New York Magazine, CNN, PBS, FSN, Inflight Magazine, the Savannah Morning News, WSOK Radio, and local weekly Connect Savannah.

Table of Contents

- 0000_Beginning
- 00_Map
- 01_Preface
- 02_WhySoHaunted
- 03_HamptonLillibridge
- 04_OldePinkHouse
- 05_LittleGracie
- 06_MoonRiver
- 07_Birthplace
- 08_CottonExchangeTavern
- 09_PourLarrys
- 10_441Barnard
- 11_WillinkHouse
- 12_ReneRondolia
- 13_DavenportHouse
- 14_KehoeHouse
- 15_17Hundred90
- 16_OwensThomasHouse
- 17_12WOglethorpe
- 18_MarshallHouse
- 19_AliceRiley
- 20_ColonialParkCemetery
- 21_ConradAiken
- 22_LucasTheater
- 23_RiverStreetInn
- 24_BMatthewsEatery
- 25_SavannahHarleyDavidson
- 26_AnonymousBar
- 27_ScarboroughHouse
- 28_FoleyHouse
- 29_SavannahTheater
- 30_McDonoughs
- 31_PiratesHouse
- 32_AndrewLowHouse
- 32_MulberryInn
- 33_HamiltonTurnerInn
- 34_215Charlton
- 35_432Abercorn
- 36_VoodooAfterMidnight
- 37_SlaveandGeecheeCulture
- 38_SorrelWeedHouse
- 39_FortPulaski
- 40_TybeeIslandBandB
- 41_MoreSavannahHauntings
- 42_Coda
- 43_LibraryofCongressCitations
- 44_SelectedBibliography