Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. You've read the book or, at least, seen the movie. That book put Savannah tourism back on the map. The mystique around the cemetery and the happenings at Mercer-Williams House peaked everyone's interest, including ours. So we went. What we found is that Savannah is so much more than the book.
Savannah, established in 1733 by James Oglethorpe on the Savannah River, is the oldest city in Georgia. Named for King George II, it was established as a buffer between the Carolinas and their sworn enemy, the Spanish (aka Florida). The city is laid out in a grid with 22 squares. It is very walkable. In fact, a car would be a liability as the traffic is terrible, parking is limited and you have to pay for it (the parking, I mean).
Instead of a hotel, we went with a VRBO and rented a kitchen. Okay, it used to be a kitchen. Now it's a one-bedroom apartment. The building is four stories and I believe the second and third floors are one unit and then the top floor would be another apartment.
Our place was on the ground floor of this building. Back in the 1700- 1800's, the streets were dirt and the transportation was horse. That combination created a lot of dust. So all the homes in the city had the entrance on the second floor to help reduce the amount of dust coming into the home. The first floor entrance was the kitchen. I guess they didn't mind dust in their food.
What would have most probably been one big room was broken into two rooms with a hallway. This is the hallway view from the opposite end of the building.
You can see where the apartment kitchen was added on just beyond that door. At the end of the hall was a small bathroom. It was perfect for us.
The bedroom has the fireplace that would have been used for cooking. Now it's just decorative. I'm really glad we stayed there. It was a pretty cool experience.
Just outside our kitchen door was the entrance to the courtyard that we shared with the other units in the building. .
Our first full day was the city tour. I highly recommend this as a way familiarize yourself with the city. Our driver, Ellis, was awesome. As I mentioned, there are 22 squares in the city and they are named for some General or Governor that has a connection to the city. Several of them have monuments dedicated to those same people, however, they are not in the aforementioned square.
For example, this is a statue of James Oglethorpe, founder of Savannah, and it is in Chippewa Square. Note: the statue faces south, the direction of the enemy, the dreaded Spanish. In Oglethorpe Square, there is no monument. Another little trivia tidbit: Chippewa Square is where Forrest Gump sat on a bench telling his story. The bench he sat on is in a museum. It had to be removed from the park because of...well, people.
In the 1800's cotton is king. Savannah has the 4th busiest port in the country. This red building is the cotton exchange established in 1876 . The cotton would come up the river (behind the building) and then would be sold in this building. The exchange went out of business in 1951.
This is the Second African Baptist Church. Slaves and free people both attended services here. Sherman read field order granting 40 acres and a mule for freed slaves from this location in 1864.
This is Ellis Square. It's the entrance to the City Market, which is a collection of shops and restaurants. The statue is of Johnny Mercer, Savannah's favorite son. He was a lyricist.
The famed Mercer-Williams House. The house was started by Hugh Mercer in 1860. Construction was interrupted by the Civil War. Mercer sold the house to John Wilder who completed the construction in 1868. No Mercer ever lived in this house. Jim Williams purchased this house in 1969. It had been vacant for about 10 years and was in complete disrepair. He painstakingly restored it over a two year period. It was in this house that Jim Williams shot Danny Hansford. It's the center of the aforementioned book. The house currently belongs to Williams' sister and is open as a museum. You can tour the first floor but the second floor is occupied (sometimes) by the family. No photos inside.
This is the Armstrong-Kessler Mansion. Built by George Ferguson Armstrong in 1919, this house has 26,000 SF of living space which includes 10 bedrooms. The house became a junior collect and then housed a law firm. (This is where Jim Williams' attorney officed.) It is, once again, a single family home. That's right, one family lives in this house.
This is the old Warren Candler Hospital. The hospital has moved and this building, like several others across the city, has been taken over by SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design and renamed Ruskin Hall.
This is the Candler Oak and is rumored to have been growing since the 1700's. It's beautiful!
We went out most nights to find dinner or to walk around. This is Chippewa Square a night. The Spanish moss hanging from the trees is everywhere! If you see it on the ground, do not pick it up. It has bugs in it.
The Savannah Theater is the longest running theater with live entertainment.
This is Forsyth Park which was about a block from our place. It's the "Central Park" of Savannah. This is a monument to the confederate soldiers. This park was originally a parade ground.
Also in Forsyth Park, named for Georgia governor John Forsyth, is the Forsyth Park Fountain. The park was originally 10 acres. It's now covers 30 acres and is a beautiful place to walk or have a picnic. We walked through here many times and there were always people in the park reading, playing frisbee, running, etc.
The weather was amazing! Most nights we had dinner out on a patio or balcony. This is our first night in Savannh.
Back to the city tour. Our guide referred to this house as two-sisters. Apparently a man had two daughters that fought about everything. So he built them each a house. Then they fought over who got what side.
On the riverfront. Behind us is the Savannah River, which is the fourth busiest port in the United States. They have large container ships that carry up to 8,000 containers (that you see on the back of a semi or on a train) and distribute them from here. Also behind us is the Talmadge Memorial Bridge. This is the bridge to South Carolina.
This is the Green-Meldrim House. When Sherman was on his famous march to the sea, burning everything is his path, the people of Savannah saw the writing on the wall and they surrendered, thus saving the city and all the historical buildings. This house is where Sherman made his headquarters. At Christmas, he offered the city of Savannah to President Lincoln as a gift.
The Green-Meldrim House was later sold to St. John's Episcopal Church (which was right next door) for their use. I believe you can still tour the house. We didn't go into the church.
This beautiful structure is the St. John the Baptist Cathedral. It was built in 1876 and the spires were added in 1896. In 1898, the church caught fire and the whole structured burned except for the spires and the outer walls. Catholics were originally banned from Savannah. Oglethorpe was concerned that the Catholics would have more allegiance to Spain (the sworn enemy of the colonists). He eventually gave in.
This is the "Olde Pink House". According to our guide, this was Habersham House, home to one of the old families of Savannah. Habersham was one of the cotton factors that set prices, etc. The story is that the house was painted red but when it rained, the house turned pink. They tried paining it white but when it rained, the house turned pink again so they gave up. The house was restored by Jim Williams (remember him?). It's now a restaurant and bar. You'll need reservations as that place is always busy.
Speaking of food, there were a few places that we wanted to try. This is Clary's. It was mentioned in "the book". This was the place where the main character (John Cusak) got to know the characters of the story. The restaurant was opened in 1903 as a drug store.
This is the main room of the café where, what I think, the soda fountain would be. The food was excellent!
The other place on our must list was Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room. People line up starting at about 10 am to eat here and they don't even open until 11! When we walked by on Monday, the line was around the corner by 10:15. When it gets that long, it's about a 2-hour wait.
We had good timing. This was our line on Wednesday. Mrs. Wilkes ran a boarding house (in this building) but it was her cooking that really shined. She made the best fried chicken and word got around (hence the lines). They are only open from 11 - 2, Monday - Friday. The food is served family style, which means, you and 9 other people in line with you are now tablemates.
When you come in, there are bowls and bowls of food along with two heaping plates of fried chicken. Because it was Wednesday, we also got a special treat of meatloaf. I tried to get a little bite of everything. There were collard greens (which were delicious!), fried okra, mashed potatoes, rice with sausage, fried chicken, meatloaf, biscuits, cornbread, cornbread stuffing, yams, mac & cheese, cucumber salad, stew, cabbage and chicken gravy and sweet tea to drink. For dessert (because that wasn't enough food), there was banana pudding and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.
This was the main dining room. Our table was back by the kitchen. We got to meet Mrs. Wilkes grand daughter. We were told they fry 300 pounds of chicken a day. It's all you can eat of everything for $30. It's cash only but they do have an ATM if you forget. The restaurant is still run by family members.
On another of our nocturnal wanderings, we came across this monument. It's the Gordon monument named for the Gordon family. William Washington Gordon started the Central of Georgia Railway. He is also the grandfather of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts. The monument is in Wright Square, named for James Wright, one of the many royal governors of Georgia.
This is the Pulaski monument, named for Casmir Pulaski who fought in the Revolutionary War. The monument is on Monterrey Square (which is also the location of Mercer-Williams House). There is a Pulaski Square as well but there are no monuments in that square. Only beautiful oak trees.
Our next tour was to Bonaventure Cemetery. That's the only place we didn't walk to. I'll be honest, I thought it would be all about "the book". It was not. Bonaventure cemetery started out as a plantation that was owned by the Tattnall family. The original Tattnall was a loyalist and when the Americans won the Revolutionary War, the loyalists were booted out. The son bought the plantation back. They were having a party when the roof of the house caught fire. The fire spread so fast they couldn't save the house so they moved the party outside and watched it burn. True story!
In 1846, the plantation was sold to a gentleman that converted it to a cemetery.
The statues and monuments in the cemetery are just beautiful. This is a neo-gothic monument for Edward and Elizabeth Padelford. He founded St. John's Episcopal Church. (That's the church that bought the house where Sherman had his HQ!). The guy was one of the wealthiest merchants in the south when he died. The sculptor was named Struthers.
This is the Taliaferro Angel over the grave of Marie Taliaferro who died in 1893. This is one of my favorite statues in the cemetery. Her wing is broken and her hands are missing a few fingers but she's over 100 years old.
Behind the fence is Gracie Watson. Gracie died in April 1889 of pneumonia. She was only 6. Her father commissioned John Walz, a sculptor, to create this likeness of Gracie. Her parents eventually left the area. She is one of the more popular graves visited in the cemetery, so much so, that they had to put a fence to keep people from trampling the site. John Walz did several of the statues in the cemetery. They are all marked with his name. He's also buried at Bonaventure Cemetery.
This is the Johnny Mercer family plot. Johnny is the stone on the right. One of the things I thought was interesting about the monuments is that some were meant to be planters. Look at the grave in the center. You can see some kind of weeds or grass. Back in the day, the families were responsible for tending the graves. They would plant flowers in that part of the grave.
This bench is in the plot as well. Along the sides are the names of songs that Johnny Mercer wrote. Moon River, Accentuate the positive...I like that one the best. You can't see it well but on the seat part of the bench is a drawing of Johnny. More like a caricature.
This is a lovely view down one of the paths. The trees are beautiful. The photo doesn't really do them justice.
This is the grave of Corrine Lawton. 1846 - 1877. Benedetto Civiletti, a sculptor from Sicily, was commissioned to create the statue of her. While the rumor is that she threw herself into the river because she was forbidden to marry the man she loved, in actuality, she died of some kind of sickness. Probably either pneumonia or yellow fever. The Lawton plot is on the bluff over the Wilmington River.
This is the plot of Conrad Aiken, another of Savannah's favorite sons. He was a poet and author. While living in Savannah, his father killed his mother and then himself leaving Conrad an orphan. This grave was mentioned in "the book". It was something about sitting there and drinking martinis. There were no martinis on our tour.
There were so many other cool statues out here. I hope to go back on my own someday and just walk around. I know what you're thinking though. Where is "it"? The Bird Girl statue on the cover of "the book".
Apparently, there were so many visitors to that grave that the family had to move the statue. It now sits in the Telfair Academy museum. There's a whole exhibit around her.
This is the Telfair Academy. The mansion was built in 1818 for the Telfair family. In 1846, it was converted into a museum. This is the museum that houses the Bird Girl statue.
This is the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters. The house was completed in 1819. The interesting thing about this house was the indoor plumbing. Between the first and second floors there was a cistern where water was kept and used for bathing and a flushing water closet. Of course, the slaves that lived in this house would have used an outdoor privy. This house is the part of the Telfair Museum.
The last museum that is part of the Telfair is the Jepson Center for the Arts. This is an electronic exhibit that includes John!
Juliette Gordon Low birthplace. It's currently owned by the Girl Scouts of America.
There are so many historic homes in Savannah and most of them are available to tour. This is the one that started it all. This is the Davenport House. Isaiah Davenport was a carpenter that was trying to build a business. He built this house in 1820 for his family (10 kids!). Some of the children did not survive infancy. There were also several slaves that lived here as well. When Isaiah died at age 43, Mrs. Davenport was left with a ton of debt. So she opened the house as a boarding house. Eventually, the place become a tenement. In 1955 it was slated for demolition when a group of women got together and formed the Historic Savannah Foundation. They bought the house and had it restored.
We really enjoyed our trip to Savannah. I feel like we left a lot on the table and that we need to go back and check out all that we missed!
