When you’re sitting on a wrought iron balcony overlooking
the Savannah River, sipping Malibu rum and pineapple, watching people saunter
along the brick paved river walk and the water ferry shuttle others, blogging
really doesn’t seem very important.
That pretty much sums up our Monday and Tuesday nights.
Tuesday was our second night in Savannah, and the River Walk
beckoned again. After the invention of the cotton gin, Savannah experienced a
financial renaissance, and its port and wealth rivaled Charleston. Cotton prices were set at Savannah’s Cotton
Exchange building, the center of the city’s activity, and stored in the cotton
warehouses on the river. More than two million bales of cotton moved annually
through Savannah, making it the second largest cotton seaport in the world. The
warehouses along the river have been renovated and restored into The River
Walk, a wonderfully colorful and walkable row of restaurants, shops, hotels and
nightlife.
When we arrived on Monday, we settled into our hotel, the
Hampton Inn on Bay Street, directly across from the river and the old cotton
warehouses. There are several trolley tours you can take to acquaint yourself
with the beautiful historic district. We choose the Old Town Trolley, a 90-minute
narrated tour with fifteen stops. Not only did we get a great sense of where
everything was, but we had a terrific history lesson as well. James Oglethorpe and 120 settlers established
the colony of Georgia, named for King George II, in 1733; Savannah became its
first city. Savannah was designed with a series of grids with wide streets and
public squares and parks. Twenty-two of the twenty-four original squares exist
today.
On Tuesday morning, we set out with map in hand to visit
some of the historic homes, cemeteries and squares that make up Savannah’s
historic district. First was Colonial
Park Cemetery, opened in 1750 and the final resting place for many of
Savannah’s early citizens, including Button Gwinett, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence and 700 victims of the 1820 Yellow Fever
epidemic. Like many of Savannah’s
houses, Colonial Park Cemetery is said to be haunted.
The cemetery was closed to burials in 1853, but Sherman
bivouacked his troops there on his march to Atlanta, solders looting and
destroying many of the headstones. I found two things very interesting here –
the above ground brick crypts and the wall of headstones at the back of the
yard. I’d never seen brick crypts before
– each with an embedded limestone headstone, identifying the interred. More interesting is the back wall, where
dozens of headstones are mounted, markers, I assume, that had been broken or
otherwise desecrated. I got an eerie chill as I walked past this silent tribute
to the Savannah’s dead.
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| Colonial Park Cemetery |
We visited the
Mercer-Williams
home, made famous by the book and movie of the same name, “The Garden of
Good and Evil”. John Norris designed the
home for General Hugh Mercer, but the Civil War interrupted construction. The
second owner, John Wilder, finished the magnificent home. Jim Williams, one of
Savannah’s foremost private restorationists, purchased the vacant home in 1969
and brought it back to its original splendor.
The opportunity to see the beautiful detail and impressive artwork is
something not to be missed.
The
Owens-Thomas house,
designed by William Jay for cotton merchant Richard Richardson, is a
distinctive example of Federal architecture, with tremendous symmetry and
balance. It was completed in 1819 and
was the first house in Savannah to boast in door plumbing. The architectural
elements are astounding, including curved walls and doors, Greek revival
columns and a bridge connecting the
landings on the second floor. After
Richardson’s financial losses caused him to sell the home, Mary Maxwell ran it
as an exclusive boarding house for eight years. The Marquis de Lafayette, a
hero of the Revolutionary War, stayed there in 1825.
In 1830, George Welshman Owens purchased the home and it
remained in the Owens family until 1951, when it was bequeathed to the Telefair
Museum of Art.
The
Sorrel-Weed
house has the distinction of being Savannah’s largest (16,000 square feet) and
most haunted home. While paranormal activity draws me like a magnet, I was
totally unaware of the history and mystery of this home. The Greek Revival home was built between
1839-1840 for Francis Sorrel and was the toast of the town. Many famous guests
walked its halls, including William T. Sherman and Robert E. Lee. Like many of
Savannah’s grand homes, it too fell into disrepair. When it was purchased in 1996,
the present owner made an unbelievable discovery while renovating – an
original, hand-written draft of Order Number 9, Robert E. Lee’s surrender of
the Confederate troops at Appomattox.
The home’s hauntings are said to be by two women – Francis
Sorrel’s wife, Matilda and a female slave named Molly. The story goes that Francis was having an
affair (if one can actually have an “affair” with a slave) with Molly, the
18-year old slave who cared for the Sorrel children. Matilda found out about
the liaison and in 1861, jumped to her death from the home’s second floor balcony. Two weeks later, Molly was found dead in her
room in the carriage house, hanging from the rafters. It was said to be a
suicide, but there are tales that her body was badly beaten, which would
indicate the “suicide” was staged.
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| Davenport House |
Finally, we visited the Davenport House, built by Master
carpenter Isaac Davenport, a native of Rhode Island, one of Savannah’s most
prominent and prosperous builders. When Isaac died in 1827, he left a young
widow with seven children to raise. To make money, Sarah Clark Davenport
converted the home into a boarding house. In 1840, the home was sold to the
Bayard family, who kept it for the next 109 years. By the 1930’s, like many of
the other grand homes in Savannah, it too fell into disrepair, and for many
years, was a rundown tenement building.
In 1955, it was scheduled for demolition to make way for a parking lot
for the Kehoe House, but a group of seven Savannah women raised the money to
save the home. This was the first home saved by The Historic Savannah
Foundation and began the preservation movement in town. It was opened as a
museum in 1963.
Savannah was once, and is again, a beautiful historic city. We didn’t experience the often oppressive
humidity, but the impressive architecture by day and a stroll on the river walk at
night will make even the muggiest weather quite tolerable.
See the Savannah Photo Album!
