Friday, April 28, 2006

Savannah Haints

This is the Hampton Lillibridge House, at 507 E. St. Julian St., supposedly the most haunted house in Savannah, built in 1796. The house was moved from its previous location in the 1960s. Workers restoring the home and the home's owner experienced unusual things like noises, voices, singing, a woman's scream, and footsteps. It was even exorcised (the ghosts came back anyway, lol.) It is now a private residence.

This is the 17Hundred90 Inn & Restaurant at President & Lincoln Sts. Their resident ghost is a young woman named Anna, who naively fell in love with a sailor who didn't love her back, so she committed suicide by jumping from the 3rd floor.

This is the Kehoe House--now a luxury B&B--on Habersham St. It is supposedly haunted by the ghosts of the Kehoe children who like to run and play in the hallway. It was also once used as a funeral home.

This is The Pirate's House Restaurant (Arr...mateys!) on E. Broad St. made famous in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Built in 1743, there are supposedly tunnels down to the river for smuggling and shanghai-ing folks. Employees and customers have had experiences and have even seen apparitions over the years.

I took one of those ghost tours. Do I hear a sigh or groan out there? LOL. This is the first time I've ever done one, and as a ghosthunter, I feared hokeyness and corny-ness the entire time. I was pleased that it was an easygoing trolley and straight to the facts accounts as we rode through the streets of this historic town with its park squares and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. An interesting thing that was pointed out was many of the house were painted in this pale blue-green color called "haint blue." Acc. to African American/Gullah belief, haint blue was supposed to deter ghosts.

As I've said before, historic buildings + proximity to water = high chance of a haunting, and Savannah isn't an exception to that rule. Supposedly it's one of the most haunted cities in America, but aren't they all?

1 comment:

L. R. Giles said...

L,

What's up? I wanted to drop a line because I didn't realize I'd left the comment feature on my blog entries, I went back, checked, and saw your comments from a few weeks back. My bad . . . I wasn't ignoring you. How are you? Hit me back, sometime. We can trade blog links, or something.