Savannah is as slow and sweet as honey. Preserved like the finest peaches, historical, tragic, and remarkable. This 18th-century port city has a lot of secrets too and ghosts.
I first noticed something was different downtown because many homes, porches, or windowpanes shared a common color – haint blue.
One of the many of Savannah’s ghost-hunting tour guides told me the word haint means haunt, which is old African-American slang meaning a ghost or hoodoo.
What’s hoodoo? It’s “low country voodoo.” Welcome to Savannah.
Haint blue is believed to trick ghosts away from the home. The idea was that the paint, blue-grey like the sky or water, would trick the ghost into passing through or scare them into not crossing.
Savannah is rife with these fantastic beliefs and dozens of stories to justify them. It has a singularly bloody history too, so it’s not so hard to believe. I was there only a few days and witnessed a vicious ghost attack myself.
Moss
First, a word about Savannah’s Spanish Moss: everywhere you go, it creates an almost mystical blanket as it drapes itself from old, old living Oak trees all around the city.
Other subtropical humid southern locales have this moss, but no place else is it quiet as mysterious as in Savannah, but maybe the ghosts make it feel that way.
Ghosts
My daughter Autumn and I could not pass up the chance to take a ghost tour in America’s most haunted city. I’ll admit, we were smug and doing it more for kicks than the hunt. What children we were then.
We walked with a small group of about 10 around the southern live oak and moss-filled city squares downtown as our guide told us the city’s history from death’s perspective.
We ate at the 250-year-old Pirates House, the city’s most well-known restaurant and haunts. They say men were brutally shanghaied in the underground tunnels in the house’s basement and forced to serve on boats. Shanghaied! Their words, not mine.
People say they’ve seen a lady in white at the top of the staircase and other ghosts drop bottles, play tricks on staff and loom over visitors. We didn’t see any ghosts there, but it’s hard to tell. An eerie gloom permeates all.
We also walked past the Moon River Brewing Co., formally a hospital in the 1800s. Need I say more? Yellow Fever was the sickness of the day, and the basement is said to be a paranormal hot zone. I don’t even want to know what happened down there (psst it was a morgue).
Named one of the most haunted hotels in the USA, the Marshall House has been used as a hospital three times since 1851. You can imagine the ghosts who stay there. Guests have reported children where there are none, faucets turning on of their own volition, and nonexistent people in the hallways. Five stars!
Ghost attack
At some point in our tour, as we walked amid the craggy trees in the looming darkness, we became skittish. You would, too, when literally every single building we passed had another story of death, despair, and the supernatural.
Two women, probably in their 60s, walked in front of us. Suddenly, the woman directly in front of me was shoved so hard that she flew up three sidewalk squares, and her shoes flew off into the bushes. The thing is, nobody actually pushed her.
We all agreed to believe she tripped, even though it was obvious she’d been pushed. People looked at me, and I shook my head vehemently. “I didn’t do it!”
She claimed to be okay after she dusted herself off and we found her shoes. Her right wrist and fingers were hanging at a grotesque angle, though, and her bloody knee was swelling right in front of our eyes. After a few tortured moments, her friend convinced her to take a cab to the hospital, and that was the last we saw of her or the ghost.
Tybee Island
We stayed at a hotel on Tybee Island, just 20 minutes from downtown Savannah. Never heard of it? That’s because it’s been a secret until now.
You take a bridge from the mainland, and before you know it, you’re surrounded by small neighborhoods with colorful beach houses. Keep driving the short loop, and you see five miles of wide sandy white beaches along the entire outer coast.
This small barrier island on the Atlantic Ocean includes a “famous” pier and pavilion. There’s also a functioning 18th-century lighthouse and a water tower. That’s about it. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt and later a movie directed by Clint Eastwood takes place in Savannah and has given the city a lot of acclaim. The book was published in the 90s; afterward, tourism doubled and then doubled again … and again.
The story is about antique dealer Jim Williams on trial for the murder of Danny Hansford, probably a prostitute. Its colorful cast of characters was unforgettable, but none more than Savannah itself.
The title refers to Midnight’s “hoodoo” idea as the best time to perform good magic.
Bird Girl
The book’s cover image became immediately iconic, depicting the now-famous sculpture/birdseed holder of a girl holding a plate in either hand. Sylvia Shaw Judson made Bird Girl, as she came to be known, in the 1930s for a family grave in Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery.
Telfair Academy (Museum)
After they removed Bird Girl from Bonaventure Cemetery, they took her to the Telfair Academy Museum.
You can see the statue there as well as some local work, other sculptures, and period furniture. The museum also has historical information about the city’s architecture. The museum is the former mansion of one of the city’s elite families and it’s worth seeing how the insanely rich once lived. For $22 you gain entry here, the Jepson Center next door and the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters where you can see the largest swarth of haint blue paint in the county, according to guides.
The Telfair Museums are a set of three museums. Find this one at 121 Barnard St., Savannah, GA 31401.
Bonaventure Cemetery
In Bonaventure Cemetery, the moss hangs in blankets from the old oaks and Gothic tombstones.
This former 1846 plantation cemetery, like the statue depicted on the cover of Berendt’s book, became just as famous. Eventually, due to crowds of fans who chipped off pieces of the base for souvenirs, “Bird Girl” was moved. The cemetery is still open for visits.
Another often visited grave is that of “little Gracie Watson.” Her stone chillingly memorializes her in her Easter finery after a mysterious death at just six years old. They say she weeps real tears, but I didn’t see any.
Find it at 330 Bonaventure Road, Savannah.
Forsyth Park
Here you’ll find the famous 1858 cast-iron Forsyth Park Fountain designed to resemble the grand fountain in Paris at the Place de la Concorde.
Moss-covered trees and a one-mile walking trail surround this 30-acre park. You’ll also see several monuments and a very cool “Fragrant Garden for the Blind.”
Fun fact: An exact replica of the Forsyth Park Fountain is in Cuzco, Peru.
Find the park between Gaston, Drayton, Park and Whitaker Streets.
Savannah Squares
Do you remember when Forest Gump sat on the bench, eating a box of chocolates? That was in Savannah’s Chippewa Square. That bench? Just a movie prop, one (of four) is at the Savannah History Museum.
Savannah has 22 squares left. There used to be 24, but two were altered away. The squares, originally used for military training exercises, are the center of residential neighborhoods. They are now the central focus, surrounded by beautifully preserved historic homes.
If you’re brave, adventurous and into history and stunning beauty, I highly recommend Savannah.
Read more stories about Savannah here.
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