Haunted Savannah: America's Most Spectral City

by Caskey, James

  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.