On one occasion I was downstairs in the basement, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. When I turned around to see what it was, I realized that the pull-chains attached to the electric lights were all swaying back and forth, as if someone had batted them all at once. On another, also in the basement, the lights went out on me even though the light switch was at the top of the stairs and the door had not opened. In the absolute dark I made my way back to the top of the stairs and found the light switch in the ‘off’ position. No one else was even staying in the Inn—I was all alone.
The strangeness was not just experienced by humans. One couple who stayed at the inn had a dog that apparently did not like the main hallway one bit. It would cry and whine, wanting either to go into the room they had rented, or back outside. And not just dogs sensed something unusual. We took in two kittens that had been found near the Inn, and on several occasions I noticed that they would both watch something that only they could see. They would both be fixated on the same invisible object, eyes and heads turning in unison.
Another innkeeper, who worked around the same time period, stayed in the upstairs. She was uncomfortable in her room, even with all the lights on. She claims that she often felt the sensation of being watched while she was watching television. “One night I was sitting on the bed, and I kept being distracted from the program by the feeling of a presence in the room… coldness, and an uncomfortable scrutiny. I kept turning my head quickly, to see if I could catch sight of whoever was with me, but I never saw anyone in the room when I tried to catch them that way. But once, rather than turn my head towards the right, which is where I kept feeling the presence, I turned my head instead to the left, toward the mirror. I saw a man in the mirror, and he was standing right next to the bed—and right next to me! I screamed and ran out of the room. That was my last night in the inn. I told the management that they could keep the job, because I had had enough.” She described the man as wearing a uniform that had a military cut, light greenish-tan in color, and a wide-brimmed hat.
Both that former innkeeper and I were in total agreement when asked about the frequency of strange occurrences. “I’d say that things happened almost daily,” she said.
Some activity also centered on a certain candlestick holder attached to the wall in the main front room— occasionally it would be found upside down in the mornings, and it wasn’t loose in its attachment to the wall. It took a degree of force to spin it upside down, and yet it was a common occurrence to find it inverted.
Call From the Other Side?
A mother and daughter who stayed at the inn had what was perhaps a call from the other side late one September night in 2001. Resting peacefully in their room, the phone rang, waking them both. The mother picked up the receiver, and heard a strange static sound, so she hung up. Once they fell asleep, the phone rang again, with the same result. The older woman looked for a ringer on the phone so she could turn it off, but found none. When it rang a third time, the daughter picked up the phone and a strange male voice said, “Tell Emily I’m sorry for waking her up,” and the line went dead. Emily was indeed the name of the mother, so the pair assumed the caller had been one of the other guests staying at the inn that night whom they had met earlier that evening, and they had made a mistake trying to dial out of the building.
The next morning at breakfast, the mother and daughter commented on the ringing phone. The owner of the inn pursed her lips and said, “Someone called your room last night? That’s impossible. It has to be patched through to your room from downstairs, and no one was awake to transfer your call. Also, that phone can’t ring. There’s no ringer inside it—we have to knock on your door for you to know someone is calling.” Not batting an eyelash, the daughter said, “Well, at least the ghost was polite!” This drew a laugh from guests and staff alike.
The current owners are not believers in ghosts. But when asked about unexplained happenings at the inn, one of the owners said, “I don’t believe in this paranormal stuff at all. But my mother, who is a believer, worked here for a short time. She was so uncomfortable in this house she moved back to Atlanta, and she claimed it was because she could feel a presence here.”
What of the identity of the ghost or ghosts? There are several possible explanations. The house, as previously mentioned, was part of the hospital complex. It was also one of the few buildings associated with the fort which had a basement. One of the former owners claims that bodies of men in the fort who died in accidents were stored downstairs. Another possible source would be the twenty-plus years the building served as a nursing home. So there is a possibility that the ghost is a serviceman who died in the hospital portion of the structure, but there is also a possibility that the undeparted spirit could have ties to the period of time when the house became a nursing home. Either way, the house has associations with death. Fortunately, neither the nonliving nor the living seem to mind sharing such a beautiful bed and breakfast.
More Savannah Hauntings
The same ignorance makes me so bold as to deny absolutely the truth of the various ghost stories, and yet with the common, though strange, reservation that while I doubt any one of them, I still have faith in the whole of them taken together.
-Immanuel Kant
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer
Living in Historic downtown Savannah means hearing lots of ghost stories from locals. Naysayers might invoke the old saying: Savannah is bisected by Bull Street, so we Savannahians naturally have a line of ‘Bull’ down our center, but to be a native of Savannah is to accept the strange supernatural flair of this city. You don’t find many atheists in foxholes, to be sure, and you don’t find many skeptics in Savannah. The cynical words of those who would disparage this city’s haunted reputation are crushed under the weight of so many unsolicited stories.
These ghost stories are sometimes related to me in passing, but I feel that when taken all together, these begin to paint an accurate portrait of why Savannah is considered to be a truly unique place to live. I have culled the best from these separate tales into one chapter.
Ghosts at Garibaldi’s?
315 West Congress Street
A former server at the upscale restaurant Garibaldi’s, located on West Congress Street, related the following story:
She worked at the restaurant for a number of months while the building was being renovated. The eatery was being expanded into the upstairs, and was getting a facelift downstairs as well. When she started the job, the servers described often hearing footsteps above them on the still-in-progress second floor renovation. When they would investigate, the upper floor would be deserted. She didn’t particularly believe her fellow workers, suspecting them of having a laugh at her expense.
One early one evening, she heard footsteps above her on the second floor. Thinking it might be one of the managers and needing a question answered, she stepped into the upstairs before she began her shift. But she found herself in a deserted room. Hearing disembodied footsteps turned into a common occurrence for her during her employment as a waitress at Garibaldi’s.
Another blustery January evening, she and a friend were having a drink at the Rail Pub, which is a bar a block away on Congress Street. On their way home they decided to walk over to Garibaldi’s to see if their co-worker was finished with her shift. Peering through the glass, they glimpsed a woman from behind walking down the downstairs hallway. Thinking this was their friend, they tapped loudly on the glass to catch her attention, but she continued walking away from them without looking back, and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway. Thinking that their friend has simply not heard them, they decided to call her cell phone. The friend answered immediately—and informed them that she was already home. The restaurant had been slow and they had closed early. Garibaldi’s was deserted—at least by the living.
The Planters Inn Apparition
29 Abercorn Street
The Planters Inn on Reynolds Square is also reputed to be haunted. The ghost apparently has a bit of an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, because this female spirit is said to straighten picture frames that are off-kilter. This picture-straightening phantasm has been seen in the rooms, in the hallways, and was even seen one night in the lobby by several eyewitnesses simultaneously. She has been reported to appear, level the offending picture, and then disappear.
No one knows the identity of this apparition, but the Empire-waisted nightgown she is said to wear gives a few clues as to her profession. The Planters Inn used to be called the John Wesley Hotel, and for a time in Savannah had the reputation of being the most upscale brothel in town. Indeed, historian Rebecca Clark related a story involving a beauty salon located in the lobby. Her mother forbade her to visit the Wesley Hotel, and the owner of the salon, Mr. Davis, had to visit the Clark home to do Rebecca’s hair, instead. “Nice girls did not frequent that hotel,” Becky said with a smile.
The Olde Harbour Inn
508 East Factors Walk
Situated on the east end of River Street, the Olde Harbor Inn overlooks the Savannah River, its exterior largely unchanged from the 19th century. The stone foundation of Olde Harbour Inn was laid nearly 200 years ago, but in 1892, a swift blaze caused nearly complete destruction of the original building. The current structure was rebuilt on the ballast stone foundation. The building was the former home to Standard Oil Company until 1907. In 1930, it was occupied by Alexander Brothers Company, a blue jeans and overall factory. The entire building was renovated in 1985, and was opened as the Olde Harbour Inn in 1987.
It has been said that during this 1892 fire that a surly worker named Hank lost his life. Many suspect Hank of setting the blaze himself, because the flames began around his office, and he was in an argument with management at the time of the suspicious incident. If he did indeed set the blaze, then Hank’s revenge backfired, because he lost his life in the inferno. He was the fire’s only fatality.
Hank still has a reputation of being surly. He knocks on doors, twists door knobs, and even more disturbingly, he has been known to stretch out across the bed with unsuspecting guests. One woman awakened one night to feel the mattress compressing next to her. Thinking it was her husband, she rolled away and attempted to go back to sleep. Only then did she see her husband sleepily walk out of the bathroom doorway, heading back to bed. The ‘someone’ on the bed with her was not her husband! She screamed and rolled out of bed.
Apparently (and unfortunately for that couple), being the grouchiest ghost in Savannah can sometimes get pretty lonely.
Spirit at Ft. Jackson
1 Fort Jackson Road
According to the Travel Channel program ‘America’s Most Haunted Places-Savannah’, old Fort Jackson, situated just east of Savannah on the river, has some surprising supernatural stories.
Begun in 1808 because of worsening relations with Britain, the brick stronghold was still in use during the time of the Civil War. It became a Confederate fortification, protecting Savannah from a sea-borne Union invasion. It was during this time that a Rebel soldier set in motion an event which still has psychic repercussions at the fort: he attempted to murder his superior officer.
No one is quite sure the exact circumstances involved in the incident between Private Patrick Garrity and Lieutenant George Dickerson. What we do know is that Private Garrity was on guard duty near the drawbridge, and was approached by Lt. Dickerson. Garrity, for reasons unknown, bludgeoned his superior with his musket, breaking both his musket and the officer’s skull in four places. Private Garrity then attempted to evade his pursuers by jumping into the moat, where he then drowned. The Lieutenant survived his beating, but never fully recovered. He was unable remember the incident, much less give a reason for the attack.
An apparition has been seen at the spot of the attack, and most assume it is the ghost of Garrity. One night the site manager was closing the fort, and saw a silhouette of a Confederate soldier walking alone in a long grey frock coat on the parade ground of the fort. The apparition was only visible from the waist up. The site manager calmly recorded the incident in the daily log book, and then left for the evening.
Another silhouette of a soldier has been reported standing on the casement walls above the parade ground by both the site manager and several other eyewitnesses.
There has also been an incident involving an award given out every year to reenactors stationed at Ft. Jackson. On numerous occasions, the award has broken or has parts turn up missing right in the area that Garrity attacked his superior. Is this a case of Garrity still taking out his aggressions on fellow soldiers? Or is his frustration that his side of the story is yet untold? For Private Garrity to finally rest in the afterlife, perhaps these questions must be answered, so he can find the peace that eluded him in life.
The Earl Grey Ghost
210 East State Street
In a 1924 yellow brick condominium-style apartment building, there are reports of a ghost with some baggage: tea bags, to be precise.
It seems a young couple moved into their new apartment, located at the corner of Abercorn and State Streets on Oglethorpe Square, and they loved everything about their new place except for one thing: a strange recurrence in the kitchen. Often times, upon awaking, they would find teacups sitting out, as if they had just missed someone sitting at their kitchen counter. “Sometimes, it would be just the empty cup sitting on an empty saucer, but on occasion we would find the actual remains of a cup of tea, with teabag, in the bottom of the cup,” the young lady related. “Now, neither my boyfriend nor I drink hot tea, which is the funny part. I’m from the South, so for me it’s sweet iced tea or nothing. He’s even English, and that’s sort of our joke, the fact that I fell in love with the one Englishman who doesn’t like hot tea!”
The young lady began to get nervous, because someone was obviously using their kitchen without their consent. “I was hoping that there was an innocent explanation, like a neighbor who had a key or something. But of course your mind starts to envision the ‘Tea-Drinking Slasher,’ that sort of thing. We even changed the locks in the apartment, but it continued—I’d say once a week or so, we’d find a teacup.” Finally, exasperated, they called the former owner, a young man named Rodney. His answers to their queries surprised the couple, because he related the following story:
Rodney had been forced to sell his former apartment because his girlfriend wouldn’t come anywhere near the place after an incident in the kitchen. She had stayed over the previous night, and got up early the next morning for a bit of coffee. It was there that she unexpectedly ran face-to face with Rodney’s mother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of hot tea and wearing a yellow bathrobe. She was mortified, because she hadn’t even known Rodney’s mother was in town visiting—the two had never even met, and the setting for their first meeting were less than ideal, you might say. After exchanging pleasantries, she slipped back to the bedroom and woke Rodney up, and began to chastise him for not warning her that his mother was in town. Rodney looked at her very strangely, and then calmly informed her that his mother had died two years before. She was visiting Rodney in the apartment shortly after he had moved in, and she suffered a massive stroke, and expired. When Rodney’s mother died, she had been sitting at the kitchen table, wearing that yellow bathrobe and drinking her customary cup of hot tea.
The new young couple was faced with a terrible choice: sell their lovely new apartment, or live with the knowledge that they were in a supernatural time-share situation with Rodney’s dead mother. They wound up compromising. “We left Rodney’s dead mom a note,” the young lady explained, “We wrote her a nice letter in the kitchen, explaining that Rodney had moved. After that evening it was the last time we had a problem with the teacups, so apparently she got the message.”
With a mischievous wink, the girl added, “We even gave her Rodney’s
new address, in case she wanted to visit.”
Oglethorpe House
201 West Oglethorpe Avenue
One of Savannah College of Art and Design’s main downtown dormitories is Oglethorpe House, which is affectionately called ‘O-House’ by the students housed there. Built in the late 1950’s, this six-story modern-style building was originally a hotel, called the Downtowner Motor Lodge. It became a Ramada Inn during its history, and was eventually sold to Savannah College of Art and Design for use as a dorm. So now the dorm is ‘haunted,’ if you’ll pardon the expression, by a group of pierced and tattooed SCAD students.
Haunted Savannah: America's Most Spectral City Page 27