Haunted Savannah: America's Most Spectral City

by Caskey, James

  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 en
ergy 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.