Haunted Savannah: America's Most Spectral City

by Caskey, James

  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 av
ailable 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.