A Brief History Preview

Introduction

Welcome to Savannah. One of the most beautiful cities in the world. Right now, I'm standing in front of one of our most iconic sites, the fountain at Forsyth Park. Hi. My name is Andrew, and I'm here to tell you about Savannah Histoury. The self-guided walking tour you take on your own device, such as a smartphone or tablet. What we've done is crafted a self-guided walking tour which you download. Once you have. then you can see our wonderful city the way you want to see it. You can take the tour at your own pace at the time you want. If you want, you can take the tour several times during your stay here. I've been giving tours and Savannah quite a while. What you're going to see is a version of one of the tours I give most often.This is called a City Stroll, and it's a great way to see Savannah, a great way to learn about it, great introduction. What I'm going to do is start by giving you a history lesson. How Savannah was planned and came out. It takes a few minutes. So you're going to want to take this first part, either your hotel room or maybe at one of the benches, or while you're sitting down to eat.Then I'll meet you at Johnson Square. Johnson Square was the first square laid out in Savannah. It's the oldest square. From that point, we'll take a tour through the Historic District of Savannah. You'll be given directions and navigation along the way to make sure you know where are you going. Take as long as you like to do the tour.If you want to, break it up into parts. The point is this. you now have the ability to see Savannah the way you want, at the time you want, and in the manner and pace you would like to see it. So when you're ready, Savannah, and I will be ready to.

Disclaimer

Before we begin our tour, I need to cover three or four things. The most important one has to do with your safety. Since I won't be with you personally, we need to ask you to understand and agree to a couple of rules. The first one is that you are responsible for your own conduct. When you stop and look at the video, at all times you must be off the street.This means on the sidewalk or inside one of the squares. And if you're on the sidewalk, please don't stand in the middle. Step to one side where others can get past you. The second thing is that you understand that you are responsible for yourself and your party while you're taking the tour. To that end, by going on from here, you agree that if something does happen to you or any member of your party along the way, you will in no way hold Savannah Histoury, Private Walking Tours of Savannah, the City of Savannah, or Chatham County, and any of its employees responsible. We really do appreciate your understanding and agreeing to this. And now, just a couple more things. What you're about to see is me actually giving a tour. Now, I'm by no means an actor, so please keep that in mind while you're watching.Now this tour is a comprehensive tour. The length is about two hours of face time. Some segments, by design, run longer than others. If you need to break it up, watch a some of tour when you feel like it. You don't have to take the whole tour at once. If you decide to take it out in its entirety, it should take you about two and a half to three hours. It really is that in depth. And finally, we are very fortunate to have been assisted by many photos and drawings that you will see throughout the tour to enhance your experience. We want to give credit to those people who gave us permission to use these items. You'll see that next.And then we'll begin our tour.

A Brief History

As I said in the introduction, it would be very beneficial for you to have an understanding of Savannah, how we came about as a colony and how was actually planned. This way, when you walk around the city, not just on this tour, you will have much more of a appreciation of what you see. And you'll be able to see things that, quite frankly, most locals don't even understand.So, give me a few minutes and I'm going to give you about an 8 or 10 minute history lesson to tell you about the city and how it came about. You can take this in your hotel room, sitting in one of the parks on one of the benches, or at a restaurant. But, take a few minutes, and then we'll begin the tour after this.Now, in the early 1700s, there's something going on all over the world. A power struggle between the three big European powers Spain, France and England. Now France is out west in Mobile and New Orleans, and is trying to come this way through the rivers and creeks. But they are not quite part of the picture. If you go north 90 miles, you come to the southern part of the British Empire that was called at the time, Charles Towne, South Carolina. After the Revolutionary War it became known as Charleston.Charleston was King George the Second's biggest money making colony, making the King a lot of money by growing rice. If you go south 200 miles, you come to the northern part of the Spanish Empire. That is called Saint Augustine, Florida. Now, this area right here was contested by both of those two powers. The original South Carolina territory extended from where it is today, south of us, about 70 miles to a large river called the Altamaha.Well. South Carolina's territory was too big for it, so they gave up the area south of the Savannah River. In the late 1720s, a group of men in England wanted to take poor people and bring them to the Americas and give them a second chance in life by setting up a new colony anywhere between Nova Scotia and the Altamaha river.The man who came up with his plan, the initiator of this plan was quite an extraordinary man, and his name was James Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe was an officer in the British Army. And then he was elected to Parliament. Six years into his time in Parliament, he found out that a very good friend of his had got thrown into debtors prison. What is that? Well, basically in England in the early 1700s, if you owed somebody a sum of money, even a small amount, they could throw you in a debtors prison if you couldn't pay. Well, this happened to a good friend of his, a man by the name of Robert Castel, who was an architect. Castel had written a book about architecture, couldn't pay off his debtors, got thrown in a debtors prison.And basically what happened was that once he was there, he couldn't bribe the jailers and get good food or a good room. So he was thrown into, what was basically the black hole. When Oglethorpe found out his friend was there, he was about to die of smallpox. Well, this whole thing shocked Oglethorpe. He was able to get the king to allow him to start a parliamentary and thus David committee into these debtors prisons. He and a group of men formed a committee, and what they found shocked all of England. So the plan was formed about taking poor people and bringing them over here. Well, the original plan was to take people out of debtors prison. The joke about Georgia is we were founded by criminals. Well, nobody actually came from debtors prison. But they were able to put a small group of poor people together. Now, the king liked this idea, King George a second, because he was going to allot them the land that South Carolina abandoned from the Savannah River to the Altamaha River going west. To honor of the King, they named the colony after King George II, they named it Georgia.The reason the king liked the plan, it would be a buffer of poor people, between his big moneymaking colony, Charleston, and the big enemy of Spain to the south. In late 1730, again 113 to 115 people, along with James Oglethorpe, get on the ship Anne, to sail across the Atlantic. In January of 1733, they landed in Charles Towne.The reason they landed in Charles Towne is the Royal Governor was one of his best friends. That man's name was Robert Johnson. We're right now in the first square in Savannah. This is Johnson Square. They stayed there about a week in Charles Towne, then came down south in parked the ship in a little town called Beaufort. If you get a chance, go to Beaufort. It's about 45 minutes up the coast. It is one of the great little towns in America, a lot of history, it's worth seeing.The women stayed on the ship. Oglethorpe and a group of South Carolina scouts had earlier scouted the bluff. So the men come down with Oglethorpe. And in February 12th of 1733, they landed on Yamacraw Bluff. Now, originally Savannah, which is a bluff, was an island. The ocean came past here. It receded, left the bluff, and when Oglethorpe landed on the bluff, he found an Indian Nation called the Yamacraw. The Yamacraw were a mixture Creek and Yemessee Indians on the north part of the river were the Yemessee, on the south part were the Creeks. Large groups from both sides pulled out and formed their own nation.They made what they called their Mico or their king, what we would call their chief, a Creek chief named Tomo Chi Chi. Like Oglethorpe, Tommy Chi Chi was pretty extraordinary. First of all, he was a giant. He was about six foot eight, when most guys were five six. Oglethorpe was about my height, about six foot tall. And he was also an old fella. He was about 90 years old, but very vigorous. And like Oglethorpe, he was a visionary. Well, with the help of an interpreter by the name of Mary Musgrove, a half English, half Creek princess, they were able to communicate and hit it off right off the bat. They signed the Treaty of Friendship. And then Tomo Chi Chi moved his people five miles up river by sacred island. He told Oglethorpe, put your city on his bluff and you're going to have a a nice gentle breeze. Which, when it gets hot in Savannah, we need that breeze.Oglethorpe was very conscious of the fact that once Spain found out we were here, they were going to try to wipe us out. So he set the city up in a way to make it easy to defend. And that's where we're going to pick it up right here in the middle of Johnson Square.I'll meet you there in just a couple of minutes.

Johnson Square

We've now moved into the middle of Johnson Square. This is where we're going to start our tour. Johnson Square, as I said, was the first square in Savannah, and it s named after the Royal governor of South Carolina, Robert Johnson, who helped the city get started. The reason we're here is I want to tell you how the city actually got laid out.Oglethorpe, who again was a visionary, was also the first Mason to actually step foot into the American colonies. So that played in the background also his military background. Remember, Spain is down here 200 miles, and he knows when Spain finds out we're here, they're probably going to try to take us out. So, he set the city up in a way to make it east to defend.He put up four identical neighborhoods to start off with. These neighborhoods are big blocks, and they were each called a ward. Each ward, again identical, had eight lots. If you look around me, you'll see two, four, six, eight lots that surround a square. The square was the center of the neighborhood. Now every lot had a purpose. The river is to the north. This is going south. So the east west lots were for public buildings. For instance, to my left, over there was where the first church was built. This is the third version of it. it is called Christ Church one. Next to it, today you see Bank of America. But at the time that was where the public storehouse or the trading post was.All the way across the square, you'll see a white building, which is a Wells Fargo building. That was where the first mill was. And then on either side of me, you're going to see fountains. That was where the public baking ovens were. Now let's talk about the north and south lots. Oglethorpe's original plan was to have a utopian society of small landowners, who were self-governed. It would be a classless society. So the families were each given 50 acres just outside of town to make their living. Inside of town, for their protection, they were given a plot of land to put their houses up. So each of these four north south lots were divided in ten, 60 feet by 90 feet plots. The way they were divided, you had five, 60 by 90 plots that backed up to a neighborhood lane, and then five more that back to the neighborhood lane. Today, when you walk through Savannah and see all these alleys between the buildings, those were originally intended to be the neighborhood lanes. The houses were small. They were about 26ft wide, but 16ft deep, two rooms and a loft. So the family had a plot in town and 50 acres outside of town to make their living. In return for this land, the family had to support the colony's needs for two years. For the man, for the most part, what that meant was to come in to the squares and drill as a militia to prepare for what they knew was coming from Saint Augustine, the inevitable invasion of Spain. Now, the squares weren't real pretty like you see today. It was all sand, remember, it was an old island.Well, the 40 man came in to drill as a militia. In theory, if Spain attacked, the 40 families would all come into the middle of the square, and build a quick, impromptu fort with a stage in the middle. Oglethorpe set the city up geometrically. So, if Spain did attack, the men could jump on a stage and talk to every square around them simultaneously. Savannah was set up like a Roman military camp. With all due respect to William Penn and Philadelphia, Savannah was the first planned city in America. Now, how can I say that, Philadelphia is eighty something years older than Savannah? Well, immediately Philadelphia broke up. William Penn's great plan up there. But down here, they follow the Oglethorpe plan for 120 years.When the first four neighborhoods were laid out at the end the first year, Oglethorpe laid out another one to the west of us. Which day is Reynolds Square. Then in 1740, he laid another one. And those six neighborhoods were what the city was until after the American Revolution. After the Revolution, Oglethorpe's plan was to lay out two rows of five neighborhoods, which they followed.And then we began to go south. Eventually, there were three more rows of neighborhoods, the last row put up in the 1850s. So between 1733 and 1853, 24 neighborhoods were laid out. So there were 24 squares. Now, the cool thing about this is that after the American Revolution, 1783, when we signed the Treaty of Paris, we didn't have to follow that plan. But the city continued to follow the plan. And eventually, again, 24 neighborhoods, so there were 24 squares. In the 1950s, there was something really, really dumb going on America called urban renewal. We lost three squares about eighty years ago. They reclaimed Ellis Square to my right of us. So today there are 22 squares. Now, these were poor people. Oglethorpe didn't want anything to pay their initiative. So four things were banned in Savannah. Number one, hard liquor. Which is ironic because the biggest Saint Patrick's Day celebration in America is not in Chicago. Boston, New York is right here in Savannah. Over a million people come to Savannah every year. Number two, no lawyers. Lawyers were banned in Savannah. If you read a chart in Old English, I swear it says this. We don't want those kind of people in our colony. Number three, no Roman Catholics or Jewish people. Roman Catholics for political reasons. Spain down here is the champion of the Catholic Church. They don't want spies for Spain. Made sense. Jewish people. They've been harassed since Abraham. But here's what happened. When the colony first started, Governor Johnson sent down 20 slaves to clear out the virgin forest so the colonies could lay out the colony. These people were carriers of, but immune to yellow fever. So right off the bat, and I mean right off the bat, the first person in Savannah to catch yellow fever, and the first person to die, was our doctor. Six months, we had no doctor. Six months later, a ship comes up the river. It had 41 Jewish people. Most are from Portugal, or Sephardic. And a handful Germanic or Ashkenazi. Amongst them was a guy named Nunez who wasn't just a doctor. Mr. Nunez was a world class doctor. Oglethorpe said that the Jewish people are cool, they can stay. So the third oldest Jewish community in America, behind Newport and New York, is right here in Savannah.And the fourth thing that was banned in Savannah, it was the only colony where it was banned from the outset, thar was slavery. Oglethorpe was here for ten years. Eight years after he left, the colony is about to go under. Charleston is thriving, growing rice, growing indigo. And we might have one ship a month come up the river. Well, eight years after Oglethorpe left in 1751, the first merchant in Savannah, the first leading citizen, was a man named James Habersham.He got a letter to the trustees that basically said, you got two choices. You can allow slavery in or everybody's going to leave and go to South Carolina. Your colony is going to die. They agreed. And in 1751, they allowed slavery in, and rice plantations begin to pop up everywhere around the coast here. Two years later, the charter is about to run out and the trustees get tired of dealing with it. So, they gave the colony to the crown. Georgia was the only colony owned by the Crown and funded by Parliament. The King sent his first representative, the governor. Well, with governor came laws. And with laws came lawyers. Things been going downhill ever since. But, they did let hard liquor, so I figured that evened everything out.Now, what I want to do is move to my right. You're going to see a sundial. and I want to show you a mosaic, so I'll meet you right there. We move right up to the sundial. Now, there's a great organization in the city of Savannah called the Colonial Dames of Georgia. On the 200 anniversary, in 1933, they put this plaque up here. The sundial right here is to commemorate the person who helped Oglethorpe lay out the city. Now, Oglethorpe wanted a grand boulevard like they have in Europe, that starts at your main building, works around your monuments, and ends with your city park. This originally was an old Indian trail. He put the boulevard on this trail, and he named the street after the surveyor general of South Carolina, Colonel William Bull. This is Bull Street. Bull Street separates east and west. This is East Congress, West Congress, all the way down. So when you're walking around, if you remember the river is north, and Bull Street separates east and west, and the addresses go down to zero on both sides to Bull Street, you'll always kind of figure out where you're at. Originally, a sundial was in the middle of the square. Well, it's not there now. We'll talk about what is there in a minute. The ladies put up the sundial to honor Colonel William Bull. They also put on great plaques around here. We're going to focus on this plaque right here.So come on down with me. Now, this tile mosaic actually is a very good depiction of the original four neighborhoods, with two exceptions. It's facing west when it should be facing south. And number two, it shows the old Indian trail right here, when actually right here where we're standing. So what you have is you have the four original neighborhoods. The first neighborhood, this is Johnson Square, this we're standing. Behind us is the second neighborhood, Wright square where the first government buildings went up. Then you have Ellis Square. And, you have what at the time what was called Saint James Square. Today it is Telfair Square. You've got the river, the island by the river, and then you've got the forty foot bluff.The original ship had about 40 families. So you can see on the first four lots, it filled up the first neighborhood. Six months later, when the Jewish folks get here, they put them in Ellis Square. So you can see a scattering of houses here. Again, you would have one, two, three, four, five houses on a sixty by ninety foot plot. The neighborhood lane, and five moreYou're going to your left, you're going to see this little area right here. Now that signifies something very unique that Oglethorpe did. Oglethorpe planned something for the Colony Georgia that had not been done in any of the other colonies. He put up a ten acre experimental garden, and they sent ships all over the world to bring back seedlings and saplings to see what would grow and prosper in Georgia.Well, really, only three things prospered here because we have such a disparate climate, humidity and things like that. Number one, you had indigo. Indigo was grown on South Carolina and Georgia Coast. It's where they get the indigo dye from. The second thing that prospered here, peach trees. Georgia is the "Peach State". And the third thing that prospered here? It was first planted in America, on the American mainland, here in the garden. It came from the Caribbean, we think Bermuda - that was cotton. Cotton was an irritating crop. It took a person all day long to tear one pound of cotton off the cotton seed. It wasn't until the late 1700s that cotton became a profitable crop. What we're going to do is I'm going to move over here to the monument in the middle, and we're going to finish our time here in Johnson Square.I'm going to tell you about the monument and what happened with cotton. We've stood up and kind of moved to the center side of the square. What you see behind me is the first monument to put up in Savannah. This is to Nathaniel Green. Nathaniel Green was the number two commander in the American Revolution. He was George Washington's favorite. Washington actually told the Continental Congress, if anything happens to me, you better make Nathaniel commander in chief. Toward the end middle, end of the war, what happened was it kind of ground to a stalemate. So the British, to kick things up, send an army south under Cornwallis to use the loyalists, who were much more plentiful in the southern colonies, to join than take over the southern colonies. Then, work their way north. And it was working because we had bad generals. They were all politically appointed by the Continental Congress, and were about to lose the southern colonies. At that point in the war, they finally asked George Washington, who do you want? He said, I want Nathaniel Green. So, Nathaniel, when he became the commander of the southern forces, the battles were fought in South Carolina and North Carolina. Which is why you have Greenville, Greensboro, places like that. Even though he technically never won a battle, he actually won the campaign, and was able to push Cornwallis into Virginia. Yorktown happened, where we won our independence. After the war, Nathaniel and his wife Katie again, both from New England, both from Rhode Island and New England, they were given a plantation 11 miles upriver. Katie loved it here. Nathaniel hated it here. He thought Spanish moss was the nastiest thing he had ever seen. He used to pull out a tree, spitting on it, stamping on it, throwing it at people. Used to complain about the heat. He had a thermometer to whip out and say "look how hot it is. One day the heat is going to be the death of me". Three years later, he caught heatstroke and died.He was buried in the main cemetery, which today is named Colonial Cemetery. But in 1825, the City scrapped enough money together to put up the first. Now remember, Oglethorpe wanted the grand boulevard Bull Street to have the monuments. So they put the first monument in the first square here in Johnson Square.Now at the time, the style that was kind of popular for these kind of monuments we're call Cleopatra's Needle, which is what this kind of resembles. But the truth matter is that this is a Roman sword. It is called a gladus (or, gladius). You can see the handle and the blade going up. A gladus was the short sword that the Roman soldiers carted around. It's where the Romans came with the name Gladiator from. Well, in 1825, the Marquee de Lafayette was staying here in Savannah. He laid the cornerstone for the monument for his good friend, Nathaniel Greene. They finished it a year later, in 1826. But in Savannah we do not get in a hurry about anything. They got around to dedicating it to Nathaniel seventy-five years later, in 1901.The day before the ceremony, they reinterred Nathaniel's remains, and his son remains underneath the monument. The next day they had the ceremony. After the ceremony. A tropical storm slammed into Savannah. I'm sure you're probably guessing what it did, but you're probably wrong. What I want you to do is look up at the trees. It blew all the Spanish moss out of Johnson Square. They've tried to reintroduce it, it will not stay. Johnson Square is a largest square in Savannah. It's the only one that does not have Spanish moss on a permanent basis. It's also the one that has a constant breeze. It is literally two degrees cooler than any place else in Savannah. So Nathaniel's got his son to keep him company, and a nice cool breeze to keep him cool, and no Spanish moss to tick him off. Now, I said all that to say this. Remember, we're talking about cotton. Katie, Nathaniel's widow continued to run the plantation. In 1792, Katy funded a young fellow, who iss teaching the kids on a plantation next to hers, to come up with an idea for processing cotton. That guy's name was Eli Whitney. With Katy's help, in 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. That took the processing of the cotton from one pound a day to fifty pounds a day. At that point, cotton starts to become a prosperous product. It wasn't too long at that, maybe within a couple of years, that somebody in South Carolina modified Eli's invention, and it took cotton production from three pounds per day, to five thousand pounds a day.At that point, cotton became the most valuable product in the world. It is what oil is today, and is what pushed the world economy in the 1800s. Britain is what America is today, the economic and military powerhouse. So cotton would leave New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston and Savannah, go to Liverpool or Manchester, sometimes London to push the British economy which pushed the world economy.At that point, Savannah started to become a very wealthy city. That's when the houses start being built and things like that. So we're going to stop here. What we are going to do next is we're going to cross Whitaker Street by Paula Deen's place, Lady and Son's and then go into Ellis Square and pick it up from there.

Ellis Square

We've come from Johnson Square. We've come west, crossed over Whittaker Street by Paula Deen's place, Lady and Sons. And now we've entered into the third square in Savannah. This is Ellis Square. Ellis Square was named after the second Royal Governor of Savannah, Henry Ellis from Scotland. Unlike the first governor, Governor Reynolds, Ellis was very popular. He, along with that gentleman mentioned earlier, the first Citizen, James Haversham, the first merchant, laid the foundation for the city economically and politically.Ellis Square was where City Market was. You had a series of wooden stalls and then buildings that were built. The last one was built around the 1850s. Now, cotton did not cease to be the most viable product in the world after the War between the States, it continued to do so. And Georgia, as a matter of fact, became the biggest producer after the war.So Savannah became the biggest exporter of cotton in the United States. So much cotton went through the port of Savannah, they called Factors Walk little Wall Street. And actually, that's when the Cotton Exchange was built, which set the price of cotton here in America. Get to the early 1900s and Savannah is still a somewhat prosperous city. But then things began to change.First, what happened, unfortunately for the South and Savannah, was that a bug came up from Mexico called the Boll Weevil, and it began to eat away the cotton crop. When you get to the late 1910"s, cotton is pretty much eradicated in the South. Then the Great Depression hit, and Savannah and the Southern economy are hit by double whammy.At that point, Savannah went from being a prosperous city to by the 1950s, Savannah was literally a ghost town.The historic district in Savannah is the largest in the country, it's a two mile cube. By the 1950s, nine out of every ten houses were boarded up. Half the businesses were boarded up, and crime had gotten so bad that people who did work in town, came in worked, and got out before dark because it was very dangerous.We also began to lose a great amount of houses from the early 1900s to the 1950s. So many for so many different reasons, along with buildings that by 1955 we had literally lost about sixty percent of our historic buildings. How many was that? About eighteen hundred. Well, two things happened in 1955 to slowly began the restoration of Savannah. Over on Columbia Square, a great house called the Davenport House was going to be bought out by the funeral parlor next to it, which today is the Kehoe House. The people in the funeral parlor were going to tear down the Davenport house, and turn it to a parking lot.Seven ladies from old Savannah families chained themselves to the stairwell, and raised the twenty-two thousand dollars needed to save the Davenport house. And then, they started the Historic Savannah Foundation, which began to be the agent that restored the city.Now that got everybody's attention, but they didn't really act on it until around the same time, the City (and I can't really say it any other way) in their infinite stupidity, tore the one hundred and ten year old Victorian City Market standing right here, and leased Ellis Square to a parking company for 50 years. To describe it all, I like to use the old Joni Mitchell song "Tore Down Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot".That's what got everybody's attention. The city was kind of forced within time to pass two laws.Number one, any building fifty years or older, you cannot tear down or change the facade. Anything new has to blend in with the neighborhood. Unfortunately, they didn't hold fast to that until the 1970s. But, the end result was that we were able to save about forty percent, or twelve hundred of our historic buildings.As one of the historians here in Savannah said, the only thing more impressive than what you see in Savannah, is what got torn down.You get to 1979. And a third thing happens to boost up the restoration. A college started here called Savannah College of Art and design, or SCAD. One building, seventy students.Because you have all these college students running around, they had to increase the police presence downtown. More police, less crime. That was the third act.And then in 1994, a book came out that really changed all that up pretty much forever. That book was called "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". That increased tourism in Savannah by forty-five percent. The end result of that today is that a city of less than 300,000 has over 12 million visitors every year.Now, those ladies, they started a revolving fund back in 1955, of around two hundred thousand dollars. And they started buying up all the board of houses in the city and selling them to people cheap. With the understanding that within eighteen months, you will restore the site to its original and move in. Now that revolving fund today is a couple of million, but that was the engine, along with these four events that turned Savannah from a ghost town in the 1950"s to what today Condé Nast magazine calls one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I'd put us in the top ten.In 2004, the lease ran out for the parking lot. The city tore down the ugly parking deck and dug way, way, way down underground, and built underground parking. Behind you over there, you'll see the exit ramp for the parking lot.Then they laid out a square back on top of the parking lot. So not only is this the third oldest square in Savannah, this is also the newest square. Over the 50 years that the lease was here with the parking deck, City Market gravitated over here behind us where the warehouses used to be.So when you look over here, you're going to see the fountain where the kids play at. Then at the end of the square, you're going to see a great statue to one of Savannah's favorite sons, Johnny Mercer. Moon River, Jeepers Creepers, and all that. Then you cross over to what today is City Market.Now we're going to stop here. And, We're going to go to my right, your left down Barnard Street. We'll cross over Broughton, and then turn left and cross Barnard Street.I'll see you there.

Broughton Street

Okay. We've come down about a half a block down Broughton, and we've crossed Barnard Street. We're at the corner Broughton and Barnard, where the Banana Republic is. The reason I stopped here is that I want to show you something.When cotton kicked in in the early 1800s, the status symbol, the way you showed your wealth is you put a certain item in front of your building, and that was iron. The more iron you put in front of your building or house, the wealthier you were. The more intricate the iron was, even wealthier because they had to make individual molds for each piece. You're going to see iron everywhere. You'll see it over the window eyebrows which they call lentils. The molding, all around. So look at that as we go around the city. Also, as we walk down Broughton Street, I want you to notice the buildings. Again, as I told you Ellis Square, we're in a time-lock. So everything is going to be fifty years or older. Part of the reason along with the great ambiance and the great feel of the city is why we've done over ninety movies. Of course, the most popular one was Forrest Gump. So walk down Broughton, meet me at the corner of Bull and Broughton, and we'll pick it up from there. Okay. We've come all the way down Broughton Street and we stopped at one of the busiest intersections in Savannah Historic District, the corner of Broad Street and Bull Street, kind of down a loop of what we started from.The reason we stopped here is I want you to look over my shoulder. What you're going to see is first the SunTrust Bank. And then two great, back in the day were called high rises. Today, they were called mid-rises.In the early 1900, the city came up with a plan to put these buildings up and down Bull Street to kind of spruce it up a little bit.Well, World War One started, and that put an end to that idea. Four buildings were built here on this area and then one further in. So what you got is the two, and then the Trust Company.Why the SunTrust Bank? Well, very simple. I told you over in Ellis Square, the city passed a law. Any building fifty years or older, you cannot tear down. Unfortunately, like I said, the city didn't hold hard and fast that until the 1970s. There were two great buildings where the SunTrust is today. And then these two that were built. Obviously they saved those. If you look up at the first one, you're going to see the Art Deco. That was a style very, very prominent in the early 1900s. And then the white one other side of Johnson Square. So what we've done is we've looped around from Johnson Square back of the year. Now, what I'm going to do now is take you a half a block this way to the corner of the CVS. We're going to step inside that alley. And I'm going to show you a picture of what the two buildings that were torn down.We've moved up just a half a block up Bull Street. The reason being is I want you to look behind me. You're going to see Johnson Square, and you're going to see the Gold Dome, City Hall. That is the view that you're looking at when you look at this picture, which is behind you in the corner CVS. Let's go to the picture. This is the picture of the four buildings. You can tell by the cars, a model T that his was filmed in the early 1900s. Well the one right here is the one with the Art Deco right here near Broughton Street. And then back on the other side, the white building, which on the other side of Johnson Square.These two were the ones that got torn down. Take a look at this. This is heartbreaking. These are beautiful buildings. If I could have any five buildings back from Savannah that got torn down, these would be two of them. Also the clock. The clock that you see, that's a style of clock that was very prominent in the early 1900. You see, it all over the eastern part of the United States. What we're going to do now is we're going to go this way to the other side of the lot here, past CVS. Along the way, you'll see a picture, a little more modern of the two buildings, a little more detail. Let's go.

Wright Square

We've come down Bull Street and crossed over into Wright Square. Wright Square was the second of the original neighborhoods, and this is named after James Wright. James Wright was the third and last royal governor of Georgia up until the American Revolution, and he was very popular. So they named square after him. This is where they first put up the public buildings.You remember we just passed the CVS. CVS is where the original jail was. Going counterclockwise. If you look down the street before you come in to the square, you're going to see an awning that says Laurie with Debi's slashed down. Debi's was the restaurant that Ginny worked in during the movie, Forrest Gump. It was also where the bar scene was filmed when Forest was up in New York with Lieutenant Dan. Going around, you're going to see the Federal Courthouse built in the late 1800s. The federal government took over the lot on the south side and put up a courthouse and post office. Twenty years go by and they realize they didn't make it big enough, so they extended it to make it look like one building. They took over the street, the next lane. But the dead giveaway has look where the tower is. The tower center of the original building.Now, there are no natural stones in Savannah, but they discovered in the early 1800s when they moved the Cherokee away, that in North Georgia we had the largest deposits of granite and marble in the country. George is still the biggest miner of both. The courthouse was built out of Georgia granite and Georgia marble. When you get to the top, look of the roof line and all those circles you see going down, those are all the different marbles we mine in Georgia. One of those, the pink marble you can only get in Italy and here in Georgia. As we go further round the lot, on the other side of square is where the first cemetery was. Bodies are still buried there. Remember, the first person to die in Georgia was the doctor. Well, Doctor Cox was the first person buried there. Bodies still buried there and all over Savannah because they thought yellow fever came out of the ground and floated up into the air.It wasn't until the early 1900s they realized that it was mosquitoes that communicated yellow fever. So all over Savannah, there are bodies that are built on top of, because they didn't want to let yellow fever back into the air. That was their thinking. There are about 150,000 unaccounted for dead bodies all over the city of Savannah. You can't go fifteen feet without walking over a dead body. That's why we call the city built on the dead. Or also the most haunted city in America. As you go further around on this lot over here, you're going to see a kind of a yellowish brick building. That is the third courthouse that was built, the original courthouse was first put there. Again, the third version of it. And then next to it you're going to see the Lutheran Church.Now King George the second, his family were called the Hanover Dynasty. They were German. So what they did is they encouraged Protestant Germans to come over to Savannah. You had a lot of people, Salzburg's Moravians and so forth. So this is the Lutheran Church, one of the great churches that was put up around the 1740. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to go into the square, and I'll meet you in the middle. We've now moved into the middle of right square. Behind me is a monument to a man named William Gordon. But long before this was put up, what really could be considered the first monument Savannah was put up eight years after Founder Colony and 1741. The big chief, Tomo Chi Chi, died at the age of 90. He wanted to be buried inside town, number one. This was an old Indian burial ground before the colonists got here. And number two to be buried amongst his English friends. So Oglethorpe buried him right here in the middle of the square, and then put ballast stones over the Indian mound for a monument to Tomo Chi Chi. Years go by and you get the 1870s. Most of the ballast stones have been taken, people would take them as keepsakes, and it just kind of a lump of ground there. And they're not really sure if Tomo Chi Chi was actually buried there. Now, who is William Gordon? William Gordon was the founder of the Central Georgia Canal and Railroad. He built the longest railroad in America at the time, from here to Atlanta, Georgia.Which brought all that cotton in and made Savannah very wealthy. So not long after he died, the board of directors wanted to put up a monument to him. So the city took down the mound that was here, and this is where they're going to put the monument. But as they dug down to lay the foundation, they found that somebody beat him to the punch. They found the lost bones of a six foot eight Indian. They found the lost grave of Tomo Chi Chi. If you look just past me, you'll see the marker to denote Tomo Chi Chi's grave. By the way, the dates you see are off. He was actually ninety-eight when he died. Well, they laid the foundation and put the monument over Tomo Chi Chi.However, his daughter in law, married to William Junior by the name of Eleanor Kinsey Gordon, wanted to make sure that there was no bad mojo or bad blood between Savannah and the Indians, but really between the Gordon family, and the Indians. So she did something to make sure that Toma Chichi was honored. What we're going to do is walk to the other side over there by big Rock. Meet me over there.We move over in front of a big rock. But not just any rock. Like I told you a minute ago, Georgia is the largest miner of marble and granite in the country. All this is in North Georgia. Well, then, in the north of Georgia, in north Atlanta, that granite literally comes out of the ground and the size of a small mountain. It is the largest mass exposed granite in the country, it is called Stone Mountain. I also told you, when we first started at Johnson Square, there was a great organization called the Colonial Dames of Georgia. Well, it was William Gordon's daughter in law, Willy Jr's wife, Eleanor Kinsey Gordon, who actually founded the Colonial Dames of Georgia, even though she was from Chicago. One of the great ladies in SavannaEleanor, or Nellie didn't want any bad mojo like I said, between the Gordon family and the Indians. She and the Colonial Dames contracted with Stone Mountain. And they had chipped a piece off the mountain, a little Rock. And they set it down here as a monument, or kind of a headstone for Tomo Chi Chi, which you can see the plaque on there.Nellie kept waiting for the bill, but didn't get it. She wrote Stone mountain "how about the bill?". They wrote back, no charge, because they had literally done tons of tons of granite business with their father in law, the Central Georgia Railroad. Now, Nellie, being a strong willed woman, my kind of girl, she was going to take that for the answer. So she wrote back to them "I really do want the bill". They decided to shut her up by trying to get snarky with her. They sent an invoice for One Dollar, that was to be paid on Judgment Day. And they figured that they had her. They didn't. They got a letter from Nellie not too long after that. They opened it up, and inside the letter was the invoice, a dollar, and a note. The note said, "I choose to pay today. I'm quite sure on Judgment Day I'm going to be preoccupied with my own affairs". This is going to end us in Wright square. We're going to continue south on Bull Street. We're going to go across, and we're going to stop at the intersection in the middle intersection.There's a reason why. Let's go.

Chippewa Square

We move south and now we're at Chippewa Square. Chippewa square is in the middle of the third row of squares, and also the middle going east and west, North and south. So this is the central square in Savannah right here, named after the battle Chippewa fought in the War of 1812. You'll notice every time you see streets and names from this point south, they're going to reflect something that just happened in American history. For instance, on the other side is Perry Street, named after Commodore Perry, who won the great battle, our first great naval battle in the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. What we're going to do is move in, and I'm gonna point around counterclockwise what you're looking at. So let's head and just inside the square, we'll step just inside the square.Normally, I wouldn't suggest you get down by this like I am for a reason. Savannah is a very canine friendly city. You're going to see bowls for dogs, drink water all over the city and so forth. And you also see these things everywhere along the squares and so forth. This is for people to bag up their dog poop. Drop it down right in here. This, literally, is historic dog poop. Now let's step inside the square. We step just inside Chippewa Square. What I'm going to do is point out the buildings counterclockwise so you can see what you're looking at. To my left, to your right, you're going to see the oldest surviving church in downtown Savannah. By that I mean the building. This is First Baptist Church. It was put up in 1835 and survived the last of the four major fires, the last couple of fires anyway. You'll also notice that the entrance is up off the ground. All these houses you see in Savannah have from a certain time point, the entrance is up off the ground because, depending on which historian you read, it was very dirty and sandy or because they thought yellow fever came out of the ground. I personally believe it was probably both. But you'll notice that the church is a great example.Next to it is a great mansion and you can see the style. One of the builders who came in from Savannah was named Charles Cluskey. He was an Irish guy and he built this house. You'll see the style looks very similar to the White House because, about the same time that he put this up, he submitted plans to refurbish the White House.The next building over here we're going to look at I'm going to skip because We'll go in front of that building. As you go around the square directly to my right, you're going to see what looks like just an everyday theater. But that is Savannah Theater, the is the oldest continuous playhouse in America. Started showing plays in the early 1800s, built again by that guy from bath, England, William Jay.So let's go in the middle square and we're going to talk about the statue in the middle of the Square, who is my favorite person in Savannah, possibly in history. Here we go. Behind me you're going to see a statue. This is not Captain Morgan. This is not Jack Sparrow. This is one of my favorite people in all of history. This is James Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of Savannah.Now, Oglethorpe was very fair and very even in his treatment of both the Indians and the colonists. So everybody, colonist and Indians alike, began to call him Father Oglethorpe. He was the de facto governor of Georgia, even though he did not have that title. And he was what I would call benevolent autocrat, choosing laws, colonial laws that best fit the growth of the colony itself.After a couple of years, things began to get a little strained between Oglethorpe here in Georgia and the trustees and London. So Oglethorpe knew he had to go over and kind of smooth things out. In a brilliant PR move, what he did is he took Toma, Chi Chi, his wife Sanauka, his little eleven year old nephew to Toonahowi, along with some of the other great chiefs over to England. Brilliant move, so much so that all of England fell in love with the Indians. As a matter of fact, King George II treated Toma Chi Chi as if he was an equal, such as the King of France or the King of Spain. And, little Toonahawi began to run around with the little eleven year old Duke of Cumberland. All the British newspapers wrote about the two little princes running around London. When they got back Toonahowi actually asked Oglethorpe to name one of the islands after his friend, the Duke of Cumberland. That's why today we have Cumberland Island on the coast of Georgia. While he was in England. Oglethorpe was approached by a group of Scottish retired soldiers who were looking to move and build a village somewhere in the Americas. Well, Oglethorpe recruited them to come here to Georgia. His plan was to put them on the Altamaha river, the boundary, as a first line of defense. They put a town up there called Darién. Darién is where the Altamaha River goes into the Atlantic Ocean. At the mouth of the Altamaha river. You have an island, one of several islands on a Georgia coast called Saint Simons. This is where Oglethorpe put up his fort on the north end of Saint Simons. It was called Fort Frederica. On the south of the island was a small fort called for Saint Simons. Oglethorpe's main goal once he got Savannah established, was to wipe out Saint Augustine. He took all the Creek Indians. The locals here picked up militia on Saint Simons and the Scottish sharpshooters and went down to lay siege to Saint Augustine. He was able to force the Spanish into the fort in Saint Augustine called Castillo de San Marcos. But, when he tried to knock the walls down with the cannonballs, because of the material it was built out of called coquina. Which is a shell rock, very spongy when it comes out of the ground, dries to kind of a very hard rubber. Well, because of the coquina, the cannonballs bounced off the wall or sunk into it. To this day, if you go to Saint Augustine, you can see some of Oglethorpe's cannonballs in the wall there. Well, the Spanish fleet came up and pushed Oglethorpe back. A couple of years after that, Spain finally had enough of the British interlopers on this land that they claimed. So, they were going to come and try to wipe out Savannah. First they had to wipe out Frederica. A Spanish fleet comes up with 4000 soldiers. Now, today that is just a regiment. But back in the early 1700s, that was a huge, huge army. They landed on the south end of Saint Simons. Oglethorpe drew everybody in to the north at Frederica. There was a battle fought early in the day that Oglethorpe won called the Gulley Hole Creek. Then the Spanish sent up a probing force up to the island, and about halfway through the day they stopped in the middle by a large marsh. Those Scottish sharpshooters wiped out those three to four hundred men. The battle is called the Battle of Bloody Marsh. Oglethorpe also had planted spies in the Spanish camp to make them believe that the British fleet was coming down from Charleston to wipe out the Spanish fleet. Well, the British fleet wasn't coming, but some ships did indeed come down, and Oglethorpe had them sail around the island to add to the ruse. Well, the Spanish bought the ruse, and in a panic they retreated back into Florida, back to Saint Augustine. They agreed never to come north of the Saint Mary's River. If you look at a map of Georgia and Florida, there's a straight line. Then at the ocean, it goes around like this. That's the Saint Mary's River. It is considered one of the twenty most influential battles in world history. Why? Because it allowed thirteen little English colonies to grow and become what today is America. Oglethorpe want to finish a job. Remember when I started I said this struggle is going on all over the world. Because he had neutralized the Spanish in Florida, the British Parliament quit funding his efforts. That frustrated him, so at the age of forty -six, James Oglethorpe went back to England. Parliament reimbursed the one hundred thousand pounds, plus that he had spent on the colony. (No telling what that is worth today). He got reelected back into Parliament and spent his last 43 years back in England. Never came back to Georgia. Died at the age of eighty-nine. Never had any kids. One of my favorite people in all of history, James Edward Oglethorpe. Now I want to go to this corner right here. When we first came into Chippewa Square, we skipped past one house that I told you I was going to come back to. That's this house behind me, at the corner of Perry and Bull Street. I like using this house on my tours to tell people what exactly happened in Savannah in the 1800s. First of all, you're going to see again that it's up off the ground, because the sand and the dirt and or because of the threat of yellow fever was supposed to came out of the ground. You'll see two stairwells. Although the popular saying is that the ladies walked up the right so as not to show their ankles. Unfortunately, that's not true. It's just for symmetric reasons, but it makes for a great story. Below that, we're going to show you a close up of the opening. They dug down about 3 to 5ft and put what they called a half basement.The half basement was where the servants stayed, the kitchen, and the laundry. To the right of the house, to my left, you're going to see a wall. The ladies of class and culture could not be seen, as we say in the South, glistening or glowing, or sweating due to any kind of work. And the only kind of work that these ladies of class did was gardening. So the gardens are back behind the walls so the ladies can glisten in peace. We're going to walk up to the house and get a couple of close ups. We moved to the corner to get a close up of the building and to talk about a couple things I want to point out. First of all, when the city started moving this way in the early 1820s, they actually passed an ordinance for cows to walk around the city to keep the grass down. also horses walked around. Now, you'll remember I told you the lower level was a half basement, amongst other things. This is where the kitchen was. They use wood burning stoves when they would fire the wood burning stoves, it got very hot down there. So they lifted the windows to let the heat out. Well, what this also allowed was for those cows and horses, the livestock to stick their hand through the windows to try to get at the food. Today you'll see grates on all these windows on a lower level around the city of Savannah. Today they are for security, but back in the day, this was to keep the livestock from sticking their head inside. Now let's back up just a little bit. The name of the slave culture on the South Carolina Georgia coast was known as the Gullah - spelled G U L L A H. They got their name from the Gola tribe, which was in the western part of Africa. Think about the nation of Angola. The Gullah thought there were spirits that roamed all over the world that would grab your soul at night while you were asleep. But these spirits were afraid of the ocean and anything out of it. So the Gullah would make a paint by digging a hole in the ground, filling with milk. Then they would put in lime i to solidifying it, and then put in something blue to make the paint the color of the ocean. Here they used indigo. The paint they made they wanted to call haunt blue, but couldn't pronounce haunt. It came out as Haint blue, and they are painted at places around the house, like the shutters, the doors or things like that. Also, anything out of the ocean, like I said, they would put outside the house to scare away the spirit. Remember I told you iron was a way you showed your wealth. And this is also something out of the ocean. Probably a combination of two. But, you can see these all over Savannah. Two styles, this style, which is more ornate, and then one that is a little more subtle. Once again, to scare away the spirits. Also, you're going to see things like, seashells or tritons or mermaids in front of the houses. Again, to scare away the spirits. Now, step to the side of the house. You can see the little gargoyle dolphin right here. And now we're looking down south on Wall Street. What I want to point out is one last thing on this house.0As you look down the side of the house, you'll see these iron pieces. Again, just a way to show your wealth. Now we're going to move south on Bull Street, headed this way. And we're going to stop in front of the little restaurant just on the other side over here.

Bull Street

We'll continue to move south on BUll Street. We've come about a half a block just before Six Pence Pub, and have stopped and stepped off Bull Street for just a second, because I want to show you something that's very unique to the southern coast. When Savannah was founded, they quickly found out there were no natural stones. So everything was either made or imported.0One of the first thing that was made in Savannah was brought over with the Gullah. It was a technology they learned, actually from the Romans when the Romans were in North Africa. Being master builders or master engineers, the Romans had nothing in North Africa to build their buildings out of. So they quickly figured out to use the few things that were there. Those things were sand, lime, water, and oyster shells. They figured out if you mix those in equal parts, it made a concrete. We're going to ease down and look at this. This is an example of that. It is called tabby like a tabby cat. This is actually neo-tabby, a newer version of tabby. If you want to see the original tabby, there's two places I know that you can see it.One, you ride out to Wormslow Plantation. The original house there was made out of tabby. If you want to see something closer, on Oglethorpe Square, which will be at a little bit later on, is a great house tour house called the Owens-Thomas House. They've taken off a little slice of one of the outside walls where you can see both coquina, which I referenced over here at Chippewa Square, and Tabby.Now we're going to walk a half block over and talk about a Six Penc Pub. As I said, we've come over a little less than a half a block to stand in front of one of the cool places in Savannah. This is the Six Pence Pub. Now, the reason I've stopped here is to point out something that I mentioned earlier.In Savannah, we've literally done ninety something movies, and TV shows, and things like that. One of the famous which ones was done starring Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid, Robert Duvall, Kyra Sedgwick. It was called "Something to Talk About:. For those of you who saw the movie, you'll remember at the start, Julia Roberts ride around with her little girl in the car trying to find her husband, Dennis Quaid. She hits the brakes, jumps out of the car in her nightgown, and sees him inside with a blond inside the pub. She's looking through this window right here. This is Six Pence Pub. Now we're going to continue to go south on Bull Street another half a block, and we'll go take a right, right here. We came a half a block up, south on Bull Street. Took a right just to, I don't know, maybe 20 yards or so on Oglethorpe Street (actually, Liberty Street). I want to show you something again, very cool Savannah. You'll see different shapes and sizes of blocks all over the city on the curb. This is the help the ladies get up onto the carriage without showing their ankles, which was very taboo at the time. So look at this. One of the things you'll see as you walk around Savannah. Also a couple other things while we're here. First of all, behind me is a great house. Again you'll see the iron and so forth. This style of house was very popular in the 1850s and is called Second French Empire. And then across the street you can see a white building. Well, that is the Hibernian Society. They are the Irish society, which, amongst other things, puts on the Saint Patrick's Day parade. Now we're going to continue down Bull Street, and we're going to go to Madison Square. We've come further down Bull Street. We've actually crossed Oglethorpe Avenue (actually, Liberty Street), and stopped in front of another great building in Savannah. However, this building to be quite frankly, looks out of place. It does have a great history. Up until the War Between the States, America did not have a large standing army, because all the states had these things called militias, several militias.One of the first militias in Georgia was a calvary militia, and it was named after the famous Polish Hussars, who were the world class cavalry. So they named themselves the Georgia Hussars. The Georgia Hussars had a lot of Arabian stallions, so they built their stable house and a manor where they felt the stallions would feel at home. Now let's fast forward to the very early 1900s.Just south of us is a town called Richmond Hill. There was a man by the name of Henry Ford who had one of his plantations in Richmond Hill. To this day, the Ford Plantation is one of the beautiful places just outside Savannah. Henry Ford came up with the idea to mass produce a car, which we today know as the model T. To mass sale the mass produced car, he had to have a mass sales plan. Well, today we know those as dealerships. Back in the day, those were called showrooms. He fell in love with the building, bought it and it became the first model T showroom definitely in the South, and we believe in the country. Now, what I'm going to do is move right here to the alley.Way back in the day, a neighborhood like. The reason being that is that I wanted to point out something again, you're going to see all over Savannah. Oglethorpe Avenue (actually, Liberty Street) over here, Madison Square over here. This is typical on the main street the people would put up their houses, then behind the houses going toward the alley, they would have courtyards and gardens, and then right along the alley, they would put up their carriage houses. This is a row of carriage houses. You had the carriages and horses underneath, and then the servants would stay above it. So this is a good example. Sometimes you'll see alleys with rows of it, and other times you'll see 1 or 2. Again, another thing to look at while you're walking around Savannah. Now I want to go to the end of the corner here and take it from there.

Madison Square

As we continue down south on Bull Street. We stop now on what is the fourth row of squares in Savannah. This particular square is Madison Square. Madison Square was laid out in 1837. So we're a little over 100 years into the founding of Savannah. A lot of things going on here at Madison Square. So we're going to step just inside the square and again, go counterclockwise and talk about them all.But before I do, I want to show you something right here. There are many great tour companies in Savannah. And one of the things you're going to see a lot of going around are the horse carriage tours. People are always concerned. Are these horses taken care of? And I would be too. I can answer, having done horse carriage tours in the past, absolutely. This is a water bucket where the horses on every tour they take will stop halfway along to get their drink of water. Also, during the summertime, they're given baths before and afterwards, and so forth. So yes, these horses are always taken care of. Now we're going to step into the square. We step just inside Madison Square.Again, a lot of things on the square to talk about. But before we begin, I'm going to talk about what happened when the square wasn't even here in the American Revolution, when the British took the city. They knew we were going to try to take it back. They set up their different defenses along here. Fourteen little mini forts called redoubts.If you want to see the main one, it has been remade, I should say. And it's just across the street from the visitor center on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The name of the battle was named after that particular redoubt. Spring Hill Redoubt, also called the Siege of Savannah. It should have been a very, very, very easy victory for the colonials, but we had bad generals. I'm just going to point out this guy right here, Compte d'Estaing, and he kept vacillating on whether or not to attack or what to do and so forth. The end result was what should have been a very easy victory for the colonists, turned out to be the second bloodiest battle in the American Revolution. That was because it was the bloodiest hour. We lost almost a thousand men and one hour. Now, this along here would have been where the defenses were. So we're out at where the battle was being fought all along the west side of Savannah. People don't realize that the British were very, very, very cruel to the Americans in the revolution. They thought we were traitors. So in their mind, they were right about it. Well, the Siege of Savannah, or the battle Spring Hill Redoubt was no different. The British gave us one day to get our dead and wounded removed. There's no way you're going to get almost a thousand men at that time. So after one day, they took the dead and the wounded and buried them in a mass grave. This area right here, especially the house that I'm about to talk about, sits on top of the mass grave. Now, let's talk about this house right here on the corner. Just inside Madison Square on the north end of the square. We're going to start going counterclockwise. The first building we're going to see is before you actually get to Madison Square is on the corner here. This is called the Sorrel-Weed House. Way back when we started, I told you South Carolina was making a lot of money. One of the reasons they were making money, they were trading with the northern colonies in Europe. The only market that left for Savannah to trade with was south of us, the Caribbean. So you will see Caribbean influence throughout Savannah. This style of house is one of those houses. I also mentioned early on when I looked at one of the houses that Clusky did, the Moses-Eastman House. It looked like the White House. Then I told you he did different styles of houses. Well, this is one of the houses that is attributed to Charles Clusky. You can see the Caribbean influence on it, especially on the side where the balcony is and so forth. Now, again, this house sits on top of the mass grave. One of the reasons this house, and I mean just one of the reasons this house is considered to be one of the most haunted houses in America. They give architectural tours during the day, and at night, they actually give ghost tours. This is the only house you can actually tour for that purpose. Now I'm going to go just on the other side of this sign right here, and talk about one of the famous houses in Savannah. In the early 1800s, there was a man who came over from England who was pretty much penniless, and his name was Charles Green.Charles Green ended up becoming one of the wealthiest cotton traders in Savannah. Made a great deal of money and didn't mind spending. It in the 1850's Charles Green built, what was considered to be the most beautiful house in Savannah. This is the side view of it. The house goes all the way across and takes up the whole block, and we'll show you a front view of it.Mr. Green spent $93,000 to build this house in 1850, when three to four cents would buy you a gourmet meal. Again, one the most beautiful house in Savannah. Today we call it the Green-Meldrum House. By the way, anytime you see a house with more than one name, that's the name of the different families that had it for a period of time, twenty years, or longer. Hence, the green Meldrum House. This is the side view and it goes all the way down. Today, it's a parish house for the church I'm going to talk about in a minute. Now, during the War between the States, when Sherman occupied Savannah in late 1864, it was his policy to always stay in a public building, to not set up headquarters and a family's house, or a citizens house, because he didn't want any accusations. Savannah was no different. He wanted to stay in the hotel. That was on Johnson Square, the great hotel called the Pulaski Hotel. Unfortunately, no longer there. Well, there was a big to do about restitution. So Mr. Green offered Sherman to stay in his house. The reason being, there were 38,000 bales of cotton that were captured down on the railroad over here. A lot of that was his, and he was hoping to get some of that back. It didn't work, by the way. This is where Sherman set up his headquarters. And this is where Sherman, amongst other things, came up with Special Field Order 15. Part of Special Field Order 15 said this, "Starting in Charleston, going 30 miles inland all the way down to the Saint Johns River, which is Jacksonville, Florida, we're going to break up every plantation and island along the way and give the slaves 40 acres and the use of a mule". Well, here's what happened. Congress said you overstepped your bounds on that. But the Gullah along the South Carolina Georgia coast immediately went into the islands, the barrier islands, and the Gullah culture flourished. Remains to this day.00:06:48:05 - 00:06:58:14UnknownPlaces like the Dafauski Islands, Sapolo Island, Saint Helena Island, things like that. Next to the building, the Green Myrtle House is a church. This church was where Sherman went on the first Sunday to worship. Well Sherman being Sherman, and the ladies in Savannah being Southern, they all got up and walked out. They didn't bother Sherman, but the ladies found out Sherman was an insomniac, and they had the best set of bells in the city. You can hear them today. They played those bells every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day to keep Sherman away. He said, take them now or I will take them down and melt them down. Well, they took the bells down. One of the ladies going to the church was good friends with Abraham Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and she got a letter saying your general made us take our bells down. Well, what I'm going to say here, every man in America knows. I don't care if you're the President of the United States, when your lady starts giving you a hard time, it's usually a good idea just to do what she says. Sherman got the order. Put those bells back up. Well, the bells went back up, upside down, without the clappers. Sherman said if the Confederate army is as passionate for their cause as these women here are Savannah, I do believe we shall be fighting for another thirty years.We're going to work our way around, continuing to walk away around Madison Square. I've actually stepped just outside into the street here on the south in the square. Don't do that, okay? But what you're going to see is what is my favorite building in Savannah? This was one of those five buildings that was built in the early 1900s. You can see when you look up the beauty of this building, it was the Scottish Rite temple. Today it's masonic from the second floor up. The blue stone you see on the roof line is lapis lazuli, or blue lapis. More blue lapis on this building than anyplace else in America. Absolutely beautiful. Today again, it is Masonic, but the bottom level you'll see two restaurants. One is the Gryphon Tea Room. The other is just kind of a sandwich shop, and that is run by Savannah College of Art and Design. In the movie Forrest Gump, when the feather starts floating around the city of Savannah during the opening credits, it starts in front of the steeple with the bells, goes in front of the great, beautiful building here, all the way down to the big steeple of Independent Presbyterian Church, down to a guy's shoulder, and down to the bench. So look for that the next time you watch the movie. Now I'm going to go about five feet and talk about this building right here. I've only come maybe five feet this way and across from one of my favorite buildings, the Scottish Rite Temple is another one of my favorite buildings. This is the Savannah Volunteer Guard Armory. In 1979, this building was the site where Savannah College of Art and design started, with 70 students in this one building. Today they have 80 something buildings all over the city. But this is their (kind of) administrative building. People ask me all the time, where is the SCAD shop at? It's right here in the corner of the building,A couple things I want you to notice about this building. Number one, look at the top. You can see it's built in an armory style building. Number two, you'll see the cannons up right by the doorway, which is very cool. And then look at the flagpole. That's an old ship's mast. Now, we're going to move around this way and talk about the building right, actually a part of that building. We'll continue to move around Madison Square. I want you to look at the building. Not so much the building, but actually the balcony. What you're going to see on the balcony are windows that go all the way down to the floor, and no doors. That's because there was a door, hinge tax in Savannah in the 1800s. Taxed by the number of hinges both inside and outside. So all over Savannah you're going to see balconies of all sizes with big windows but no doors. Now, ladies, I'm going to tell you the scariest thing you're probably going to hear. On the inside, no doors, no closets. That's where armoires and chifforobes and things like that became popular. In the 1950s, one of those great buildings that was torn down was the old DeSoto resort right here. If there were five buildings of those eighteen hundred that were torn down that I could bring back, this would definitely be number one. Absolutely beautiful building right here. Now, just back across the street, you're going to see a bookstore called E. Shavers, and E. Shavers is one of my favorite bookstore in Savannah. If you want to get a book about Savannah, this is where you want to go.Now we're going to go back into the middle square and talk about the great fellow who's statue we're looking at. We've complete our loop around Madison Square. Now we're in the middle. I want to talk about this person right here. This was one of the first war heroes in the American Revolution. Unfortunately, he died very early in the American Revolution. We were not originally one country. We were thirteen little different countries banded together to fight for independence. A person was more loyal to their colony or today's state then they were to America. There really wasn't an America at the time. A good example is William Jasper. William Jasper was already a war hero in South Carolina when he came down and fought in the Battle of Spring Hill Redoubt, or The Siege Savannah. As a matter of fact, if you look at the monument, below him, you're going to see depictions of different scenes of things that he participated in and earned his reputation in the battle Spring Hill Redoubt, or the Siege of Savannah. William Jasper was shot trying to save the South Carolina flag, which is what he's holding right there. Again, one of the first war heroes in Savannah. When you cross into South Carolina from Georgia, the first county you're going to go into is Jasper County. Now we're going to move south and go to Monterey Square, making a stop or two along the way. We'll continue to go south on our journey down Bull Street.We've just left Madison Square and come a couple blocks down, and we've stopped at the corner of one of the great streets in Savannah. In the 1840's, this was one of the first streets paved in Savannah. They paved it with red brick. And then in 1847, the first house that was built on my street is over my right shoulder. It's called the Eliza Thompson House, finished in 1847. At that point, this street became the most desirable place to live in Savannah, and it's still pretty much is today. It is called Jones Street. It's where we think the same comes from keeping up with the Joneses. Southern living magazine calls this the most beautiful street in the South. Now we're going to continue to move south and head toward Monterey Square.We've crossed Jones Street and come not even a half a block, because I want to show you a house real quick. Look over my right shoulder, and you're going to see what is called the Comer House. A couple of things I want you to notice. First, look all the way up to this corner of the house with the very roof line, and you're going to see another great example of the iron that's placed to show wealth, and the intricacy of the iron. Remember, they had to make individual molds for each piece. Also the style of the house if you look along the roofline. This style was very popular in the mid 1800s. It is called Italianate Villa. Which is what are you going to see more when you get to the newer part of the historic district? That and more Victorian. The third thing I want you to look at the carriage house. When people had money, they would build their houses and they would build a carriage house, the same style as the main house. So this is a great example of that.

Monterey Square

As we continue down Bull Street, we come to our end our journey as far as going south. And this is Monterey Square. Monterey Square is in the last row is squares, the fifth row. After you get past this row of squares, you get into the Victorian district, highlighted by Forsyth Park. Monterey Square, named after the Battle of Monterey fought in the Mexican-American War. This square was put up around 1853 or so. So let's step inside a square. As we normally do, we'll go counterclockwise and talk about some of the buildings as we move around Monterey Square. I've actually stepped down the street again. I don't recommend you doing that. I want you to look at the house behind me. This is a very popular thing that happened throughout the history of Savannah. People would build double houses, which is what we're looking at right here. This is one of the most beautiful ones right here. A second thing about this. I'm sure quite a few of you have read the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". In the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", the protagonist, Jim Williams, had a rival big rival named Leo Adler. This half was Leo Adler's house. I stepped off onto the curb now, and the reason I want to do this is give you another example of what they did to help the ladies in the carriage. As we go down, you'll see each of these houses have their own flight to come out again to help the ladies in the carriage.We've come around a little bit, and behind me you're going to see one of the most sought after houses by tourists and Savannah. This is the Mercer House. In the American Revolution, there was a general for the colonials by the name of Mercer who looked so much like George Washington that, when he got shot up in Princeton, the British actually thought they killed George Washington.His grandson was a planter and a general in the Confederate Army. His name was Hugh Mercer, and Hugh Mercer is the one who had the house built. The architect that they had come down to do it, actually very prominent architect in Savannah, but was from New York named John Norris. John Norris again did that style, the Italianate villa. Norris wasn't able to finish the house before the war Between the Stars, and went back north. After the war, he sent one of his apprentices down, who finished the house. Hugh never actually moved into the house. He lost everything during the war. After the war, the house went through several owners until all the late 1960s or so, when Jim Williams bought the house. So again, this is the house that is in the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". Now, we're going to go right over here. To my left, to your right, on the corner here, we've come around the corner from the Mercer house. I'm standing in front of again, one of my favorite house in Savannah. Now, this house is owned by a gentleman who runs an antique store. As the story goes, he's let it stay the shape it's in, because one day he thinks somebody is going to buy it and wants to have the joy restore it, which I think is very cool. Now, if you look at the house, it's one stairwell, one door. But this was originally supposed to be a double house. So if you go in, you're going to see two ante rooms. If you go into the antique store, which are about the original, it looks like the original, so it's worth seeing just that. In the movie "Something to Talk About", that I mentioned earlier, there's a scene where Julia Roberts stands up and kind of disrupts the meeting the ladies are having. Then they all walk down the stairs talking to each other. This is the stairwell right here. Also, if you look at the windows, the great iron around the windows on the ironwork, again, a sign of wealth. Now we're going to move around back into the square, and around the corner. We've walked around, still on the outside of the square. Behind me is one of the most important buildings in Savannah. This is Temple Mikve, the synagogue for Mikve Israel. Mickve Israel is the third oldest Jewish community in America, behind Newport in New York. Something very unique about this particular synagogue. Temple mikvah is a reformist Jewish sect. So while maintaining their uniqueness, they also kind of try to blend in a little bit with society. So what you're going to see is a neo-Gothic synagogue, the only one built in America, with a cupola on top.Again, the third oldest Jewish community in America, also, when the first Jewish people came over, they brought with them a very, very old Torah. That Torah today is the oldest Torah in America. You can see it inside. We're checking out Temple Mikvah.We've now moved into the middle of Monterey Square. We're standing in front of one of the great monuments in Savannah. This is the Pulaski Monument. Casimir Pulaski was a Polish count who rebelled against the Polish king in the late 1700s. He got exiled and made his way through Europe. When he got to Paris, he met a fellow named Benjamin Franklin. Well, the American Revolution is just about to start here, and we have no cavalry. The Polish Hussars are the world class cavalry of which Casimir was a part of. So, Franklin was able to convince Casimir to come to America and start the American cavalry, which he did at his own expense. Unfortunately, Casimir Pulaski died in the Siege of Savannah, the Battle Spring Hill Redoubt. He was the highest ranking European nobility to die in the American Revolution. That's why today you have Pulaski Skyway, Pulaski this, Pulaski that all over America.If you look at the bottom of the monument, you will see a grave that is supposedly where Casimir Pulaski is buried. He's actually buried about 30 other places as well. We finally figured out he was probably buried at sea, but there's no doubt he died here in Savannah. Up around by Forsyth Park is the Georgia Historic Society. They've actually got the musket ball they took out of his body, which killed him here.Now, for those of you who saw the movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", Monterey Square was very prominent in the movie. You will see a statue here in Monterey Square, which is not Casimir Pulaski, because at the time the monument was being cleaned. What you'll see is a faux monument that was put up by the production company of a guy riding a horse. And the funny thing is, the guy looks almost as big as the horse. Kind of a little joke. Here we have in Savannah this statue, or this monument, is the last along Bull Street. We're going to go from here, back north, and we're going to take a right on Jones Street. So meet me the corner Bull and Jones.

Jones Street

Now we've turned around and we're going north on Bull Street at this point. We've come back away from Monterey Square. And as you can see, we're at Jones and Bull. Also notice this is East Jones across Bull Street, it's West Jones. I want you to remember Bull Street separates east and west. So we're going to head down East Jones.Take the time to see it's a beautiful street. Also notice the half basements as you walk along that you'll see along there. We'll make a couple of stops along the way. Here we go. We moved down Jones Street about forty feet, or so. Behind me is a house I want to use to illustrate a couple of points. First of all, look at the roof.There were four major fires in Savannah. They finally figured out after the last one in the late 1800s, that the fires were spreading by jumping from route to roof. So many, many houses in Savannah have what you see above it. That is a tin roof. Also in the 1800s, the banks owned the mortgages. They went door to door to collect the mortgages. When you paid your house off, they painted your door red. You'll see these around Savannah as well. Now we're going to continue down. Oh, about another twenty feet, or so.We moved down East John Street. One block to my left is Drayton Street, a one way busy street. Two houses over is the house I'm going to talk about. Now, before I do, I want you to realize this is a private residence, so please respect that. But this house right here has a carriage house behind it. That carriage house was the house that John Barendt, who wrote 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" stayed at. And chapter three, when the book starts, his is where he's at. This is ground zero for "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". This is where he met everybody that would eventually make it into the book. About two houses down, you're going to see a house on the ground floor with a glass awning. In chapter three, it's also where we're introduced to Joe Odom and his girlfriend, Mandy. This was Joe's first place right here. So we've crossed Drayton Street, and we came down to the end of the block behind me. You're going to see Clary's restaurant made famous from the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good". At the time, it was Clary's drug store. Being so close to where John Berendt lived, this is where he met a lot of people who would eventually make their way into the book. Now, what we're going to do is go this way away from Clary's, oh, about a half a block into Lafayette Square.

Lafayette Square

We've turned left on Abercorn and now we're going north back towards the river. So we're back on the fourth row of squares. This square is Lafayette Square, of course. named for the Marquis de Lafayette. What we're going to do is step just inside the square and talk about some of the buildings around us.We moved inside them about 20ft from the sign.reWe just inside Lafayette Square. Now, before you come in to Lafayette Square, before you cross the street, if you take a right on Charlton Street, three houses down, you'll see what is called a shotgun house. There was an expanse tax on the width of the houses on the street. So to get around that, they built narrow, long, thin houses, again called shotgun houses. That particular house has a marker in front of it. That house was the childhood home of the famous short story writer Flannery O'Connor.Behind me is one of the prettiest houses in Savannah. Today it's a bed and breakfast. It is called the Hamilton-Turner House.Samuel Hamilton was very prominent in Savannah. He was a jeweler. He was mayor. He was the first president of electric company. So prominent they called him the Marquis of Lafayette Square.Now I mentioned the fact that he was the President Electric Company. This house was the first house in Savannah to get electricity. It got it 14 years before the white House did. The night he had the party to show it off, all the well-to-do were inside the house to see it. All the less to do, We're here in the square. As soon as he turned the lights on or the electricity and flipped a switch, all everybody saw inside was an explosion of light. They thought the dang thing was blowing up, so they all came screaming out into the square, fearing for their lives. That kind of made Samuel mad. So all night long that night, he had the servants go around, turn on and off the lights to show them everything was okay.Now, what I'm going to do is turn around and I want you to face me. This way. So I've turned around behind me. You're going to see one of the great houses in Savannah. This is the Andrew Low house.In the early 1800s, Andrew Low was about 15 years old, living in the North Highlands of Scotland. He received a letter from his uncle down in Liverpool, England, that said "I do not have an heir. Come down to Liverpool, and I will teach you the Cotton Trade, and you will inherit my business. Well, Andrew Low ended up being the largest cotton trader in Savannah, one of the largest in the world, who had vast holdings in Liverpool and here in Savannah. This is his house.It was his son, William, or Willie Lowe, who married Juliette Gordon and gave her the name Juliette Gordon Low. Juliette and Willie got separated in 1911. In 1912, Juliette comes back to America and starts the Girl Scouts of America. She moved in to her father in law's house, and started the Girl Scouts in the carriage house, back behind the house.Again, this is one of the great tour houses in Savannah.Now follow me this way. A couple steps across the street, you're going to see an oak tree. Oak trees are all over Savannah. When Sherman occupied the city, because we had been under a blockade for two and a half years, and there was no coal, the Union soldier stayed at all 24 squares and Forsyth Park. They chopped down all the trees for firewood. So no tree you see in Savannah, with the exception of the Candler Oak just on the other side of Forsyth Park, is older than the late 1860s. The city went on a tree planting campaign. And that's why you see these live oaks.On that live oak is a great amount of Spanish moss. Spanish moss is neither Spanish, nor a moss. It is from the pineapple family. It is an airborne flowering plant that flows from tree to tree. It loves the southern coast, loves the humidity and the heat.To my left, your right, you're going to see a fountain. I mentioned the Colonial Dames of Georgia more than once. This is another great thing they erected. They put this fountain up to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of Savannah.We're going to walk past the fountain outside the square, to the corner there, in front of a little white church.

Abercorn Street

Maybe not a little white church. This is Saint John's, the Baptist Cathedral, second or third largest Catholic church in the country, and it is absolutely beautiful. One of the two public buildings that are not on the public lots, along with the Presbyterian Church. As I told you, to start off with, the Catholics were banned in Savannah and 1763 Spain, France and England signed a treaty ending in Europe what was called in Europe the Seven Years War, here in America, we call it the French and Indian War. Part of that treaty gave Florida to England, doing away with the threat of Saint Augustine. And the Catholics started coming in. They started building this in the 1880s and finished it in the mid 1890s. Then immediately it caught on fire. They restored it in 1898. And what you see is one of the most beautiful churches in Savannah.Like the Presbyterian Church, this is one of the public building that is not on he trustee lot it is on the old colonial lot. Saint John's the Baptist Catholic Church, a great church to visit. Now we're going to go down, we're going to cross Liberty Street as we go north, and we're going to stop just on the other side of there.So we've left Saint John's the Baptist Cathedral. We've come north on Abercorn. We've crossed Liberty Street and come about a half a block. In the Historic District of Savannah, there were five cemeteries, four been completely paved over. Three have been lost. This one has been partially paved over. This is a third of the original size. Today this is known as Colonial Cemetery.If you remember way back when we started, we were on Broughton Street looking at an awning that showed the burial ground. This is what it's referring to. Oglethorpe actually planned this. This opened in 1750, one hundred and three years later, in 1853, it was full and they just filled up and shut it down. Again, it extended all way over the street, and back this way. You're probably standing on dead bodies right now. Of all those bodies buried here, you've got everything from five governors all the way to at least one, maybe two mass grave of yellow fever victims. What we're going to do is we're going to walk down halfway down and stop by a vault, which is right next to the fence. So here we go. Even though there were over 10,000 bodies that were buried here, you won't count more than 700 markers, flat graves and vaults, but still that many people buried here. Now, the flat graves that you see are called tabletop graves. That's where people would have picnic on their ancestors grave to honor their ancestors. Still done in some of the parts of the world. The vaults, and here's an example of one. Some of the vaults you see are shaped like this. But a lot of them, one side is taller than the other. That's because they're shaped like beds. The idea was your family spent eternity in bed together, whether you liked them or not. In 1853, it filled up, went into kind of a custodial, you know, just kind of a caretaker status. Eleven years later, Sherman shows up in Savannah with 62,000 of his closest friends. Again, they stayed in all 24 squares in the park. But behind the big brick wall here, he put six thousand horses inside the big brick enclosure. You can see some of the areas, for example, where the horses may have knocked over some of the tombstones, or this one right here, it looks like the horse kicked it. Now, the rumor that was spread around the Northern Army was that the Southern people were hiding valuables in the tombs, and in the vaults. So as the Union army marched through different parts of the south, they would go by a graveyard. They would break in to see if they could find anything. Well, Savannah was no different. What they did is they would break into the vaults. And here's a good example of where they repaired that. The left brick being different than the brick right here. They didn't find anything down there, but they did find something out at the time. It was the coldest winter in the history of Savannah. It was much warmer down in the ground twelve feet than it was up on the ground.So they began to camp out, even put potbelly stoves down here to stay warm. Now, this was toward the end of the war, and they were getting kind of bored. They were in Savannah about six weeks. Well, they began to amuse themselves by taking their bayonets and carving on the tombstones inside the cemetery, changing names and dates of facts. One person in here died at fourteen hundred years old. Another person died before they were born. Things like that. It was the first known act of graffiti in America. They left a little bit later on, and it went back into neglect until the late 1800s. And that's what I'm going to talk about when we get to the end of the block here, and we'll take it up from there.In the late 1800s, the city takes over the old Brickyard cemetery. In the early 1900s, the Daughters of American Revolution (you can see they are above the gate), they cleaned it up, took down three of the walls and turn it to a park. Today, one of the most visited places in Savannah. So if you get a chance, walk on site. Spend some time there. When you come back out, go across Oglethorpe Avenue, then take a left on Abercorn and I'll meet you on that corner right over there. We've left the gate in front of Colonial Cemetery. We crossed over Oglethorpe Avenue and then when, we got the other side, we took a left on Abercorn. What I want you to do, if you haven't done so, is walk about thirty yards up Oglethorpe Avenue and stop next where you see the bell right here.What I want to talk about is over my right shoulder. In the 1750s, when they put up Colonial Cemetery, it was out in the boondocks. There was a man named Christian Camphor living in Savannah who want to put his cottage up. And he wanted to get away from everybody else. So he put it up not too far from Colonial Cemetery.It was a single structure, wooden cottage. And because there are no houses around, no fire should jump from the roof to his. It survived. Now, let's fast forward about 110 years later, in the 1870s. What happened was the person who owned the house needed more room, and there are buildings all around. The only way to go is to go up. He jacked up the original wooden cottage and put a brick level on the street. Now this brick level is old, it dates back to the 1870s, but the wooden structure is the oldest surviving house in Savannah. It dates back again to the late 1750s. If you look at the roofline, what you're going to see is a bevel roof. This was a style of house that was very popular in the eastern part of the United States, of the colonies, which came up from London in the sixteen to seventeen hundreds. However, the original cabins which look like this would not have gone past that second window. That second window probably would have been there, but the roof line would continue to go down as a covering for the wagons and livestock and things like that. So take a second look at this. Maybe look at the front and you can envision what the first houses look like, when Savannah was first founded in the 1730s. Now we're going to stop and look to my left and I'll take it from there. We're going to talk about the bell that's in the middle of the median. And you'll notice on the other side is the fire department. This bell is named Big Duke. There was an Alderman who was kind of a champion of the fire department named Marmaduke something or the other. When the bell was cast, they named it after him, Big Duke. In Savannah, what you had all the different squares had cisterns in them. And, every house was required to carry a fire bucket. So if a fire broke out, Big Duke would ring in such a way, don't ask me how, but would ring in such a way to let the colonist know where to take their fire bucket, to what square to go to, to put out the fire. You'll remember, Henry Ford has this place in down in Richmond Hill. When he saw the Savannah fire system and Big Duke, he thought, that's not a very good idea. So he had manufactured and given a Savannah the first motorized fire engine in America, and Big Duke went into retirement. Today, it only rings on special occasions. Now, what we're going to do is go back down Oglethorpe, across Abercorn, then take a left on Abercorn, going north to Oglethorpe Square. I'll see you there.

Oglethorpe Square

So we've move north on Abercorn, and we've stopped at Oglethorpe Square. This square was the center of the second new neighborhood, the sixth one overall. This was the last neighborhood that Oglethorpe laid out in 1740. Today it is called Oglethorpe Square. On Bull Street, there are three monuments or statues to Nathaniel Greene, James Oglethorpe, and Casimir Pulaski. Each of these men has squares named for them elsewhere. So don't let this confusion. What we're going to do is step in the middle square, and I'll point out a couple of things. So let's step this way about 10 or 15 feet. We've stepped just inside Oglethorpe Square. I'm going to show you two or three buildings here. One is over my right shoulder. This building right here today belongs to Savannah College of Art and design. But way back in the day, this originally was the Mariners Hospital. People came in, they were sick, they put them all on the bottom level. One they diagnosed them and they needed a little "R & R", they put them on a second level, and opened the windows, kind of like a sanatorium. If they were on their deathbed, they put them on the top floor. One of the supposed ghost stories in Savannah is that this building is very haunted right here. Now, we're going to turn around. You're going to face me this way, and I'll point out another building. We've actually moved into square a little bit. We're a little bit on the east side. And what you see over my shoulder is another one of the really great tour houses. This is called the Owens-Thomas House. I told you earlier in the tour that there was the great builders who came from Bath, England. His name was William Jay. This is the first house that William Jay built. Originally he sent the plans over from Bath, England, and then came and finished this house when he was twenty years old. I like to make a joke that hen I was 20, I dropped out of West Georgia college trying to figure out what to do with my life. This guy's building mansions. Again, one of the great tour houses, probably the first in Savannah, and possibly in the country, to have indoor plumbing. A house you definitely want to check out. Along the wall there is where they opened it up, where you can see the actual true coquina and the true tabby to its left.To my left and to your right, you're going to see another, well, basically what is an inn. It's called the Presidents Quarters Inn. But, this is where the original Royal governor's house was right here before that was there. This is where the Moravians had their church, and they had the only musical instruments. When they decided to move out of Savannah, Oglethorpe bought the instruments from them because it was the only entertainment they had. They were one of the great first groups of foreign people to come here who were not English. Over here, to my right, you'll see a plaque commemorating the Moravians. Now all the way across. You're going to see another house with two red doors. That house was built by Mary Marshall, who also built the Marshall House. The reason I point that out is the shutters on the window. That is a version of Haint blue, again created by the Gullah. What we're gonna do now is go this way, go across the street and go to the other end of the block over here, and stop there on Broughton Street. As we continue north, away from Oglethorpe Square, we've come one block up. We're at the corner of Broughton and Abercorn. And, what you see here is a large department store that SCAD converted into a very, very large library, one of the largest in the world. What I want to talk about, though, it's what's above it. Like every college SCAD has a mascot. When Savannah College of Art design started, Savannah locals said an art college will never fly in Savannah. So they made their mascot the only insect that should not be able to fly, because its body is too big for its wings. Their mascot is, (Savannah College of Art and Design), "Art" the Bumblebee. Now I'm going to spin around and look at something right over here across the street. What I've done is come around the corner. Over my shoulder is a place you're going to want to check out in Savannah, especially during the summertime. It is considered the third best in the country, 10th best in the world, over 90 something years old. It is Leopold's Ice Creamery. Yes, it's that good. What we're going to do now is go across the street, across Broad Street and go down about half a block, and I'll meet you in front of a great theater.

Reynolds Square

We've come all the way north on Abercorn and we finally gotten to Reynolds Square. Reynolds Square is the last square we're going to go to. This is where we're going to end things up at. Reynolds Square was the center of the first new neighborhood that was put up at the end of the first year, 1733. They called this, new North Ward. We've gone to nine out of 22 squares, which is pretty good. About half the squares in Savannah. A great introduction for you. We're going to go into the middle square and look at the statue there. But before we do that, right over here, over your shoulder, you're going to see the great Lucas Theater, built in 1921. This was the first public building to have air conditioning in Savannah. So, you know, on a hot day, it was packed with people. It showed its last show in 1976, and then got boarded up. By the way, that last show, The Exorcist, nobody came. Well, they restored it in the late 1990s, and today it's used for different reasons. One of the great places in Savannah. Now let's walk into the middle square and let me talk about the man, and the statue. We moved into the middle of Reynolds Square. Reynolds Square was named after John Reynolds, the first royal governor of Georgia. I told you early in the tour he wasn't very popular. He was a naval guy and just made everybody mad, let's put it that way. They say that the only celebration that rivaled the day he got here, was the one that they had the day he left. However, he did get a square named after him in Savannah. Now, all the monuments and statues are up and down the squares on Bull Street. That was by design. However, there is one square that is not on Bull Street that has a statue. Obviously, it's here in Reynolds Square and the statue behind me. This statue is to a man named John Wesley. John Wesley was the second, or third presbyter to come over for the Anglican Church to Savannah. He was very dogmatic. It wasn't a very, very good time here for either John, or the city of Savannah. He would end up leaving it. After a couple years, he would go back to England. And then, while in England, he and his brother Charles would have an epiphany about the grace of Christ, and they would end up starting what today we call in America, the Methodist Church. As a matter of fact, they First Methodist Church in America is there in Savannah.What we're going to do is kind of move around a square and go at certain things. We're going to kind of go over past here to a marker on the far side. We've stopped at what to me is one of the coolest, and most unique markers you're going to see in Savannah and in Georgia. This talks about the purpose for the founding of the colony of Georgia.Now, we know that the idea was to bring poor people over here. But once they got here, the main goal was to have Georgia become a silk producing colony. At the time, England's big enemy France controlled the silk trade. So, they were jacking up the prices to their enemy. The idea was to make Georgia a silk producing colony, so we would no longer be beholden, or to say the British would no longer be beholden to the French.The Seal you see right here is the very first Seal for the colony of Georgia. The words in Latin mean "not for us, but for others". That was the motto of the trustees. Then you're going to see a mulberry leave with a with a silkworm and a cocoon on it. Over my shoulder here is a building. But way back in the day, they built the Filature house that was to store the cocoons. At one time, there were over 15,000 cocoons in that building. More silk cocoons there than anyplace else in the world. Well, because of the humidity and different reasons, the cocoons could not mature. So the silk trade never took off. But they continued use the Filature building. It was the site of many meetings in the colonial days. And the first government building once we won independence, and things like that. Unfortunately, that building burned down in the 1800s. Now, over here to my right, you'll see kind of a unique building. They did grow tobacco a little bit inland in Georgia. This was a tobacco warehouse. Now, what we're going to do is go all the way down this walkway to the other side and see one of the most popular buildings in Savannah.We've now moved on the other side of the square. Behind me is one of the most visited house in Savannah, because it's one of the most popular restaurants in Savannah. Used to be called the Old Habersham House. Today it has another name, and I'll get you to that. James Habersham, as I mentioned more than once, was the first merchant, the leading citizen of Savannah. He was a loyalist, like all the guys his age. All their sons, were part of the Sons of Liberty, including his three sons. The oldest, was James Habersham, Jr. James Jr. started to build this house before the war, the Revolutionary War, and finish it afterwards. Now, being from money, James probably could have showed his wealth by building this house out of limestone blocks which would have been sent up from Bermuda. But James, for whatever reason, built his house out of red Georgia brick, put stucco over the brick, and then has servants draw lines in the stucco to make it look like limestone blocks. Well, the bricks are not yet dry. When it got hot, they began to bleed through to the stucco and turn it pink. James kept whitewashing the stucco. It kept turning pink. In the early 1900s, there was a lady who was one of the first preservationists, by the name of Alida Harper Fowlkes. She bought the house, turned it into a tea room, just painted it pink, and renamed it the Olde Pink House. Today, the Olde Pink House is one of the most visited restaurants in Savannah.Next to the Olde Pink House, across the lane, you're going to see a couple of buildings adjoining each other. At one time, this was a double house. In the early 1900s, some people came in, tore down the house on this side and built a large hotel. Today, that hotel is the Planters Inn, there is a house that is still to the right.You can see a couple of things. First of all, if you look closely, you can see they added the third floor. It's not a part of the original building. And, you'll see a sign in front of it that tells us this is the Oliver Sturgis house. Oliver Sturgis was the principal owner of the company that built the first steamship that went across the Atlantic. The engine was very small. It was still mostly propelled by wind and sails. But when they got to where there were no wind, they would fire up the engine and it would take off until they got to wind again. It doesn't seem like a very big deal today. But back in the day, that was a huge technological leap, so big that President Monroe came down from Washington to see the bon voyage. The Oliver Sturgis house. Now we're going to go back into the middle of square, and we're going to end all this up. I've moved in back to the middle of Reynolds Square. For a point of reference. If you were to go west past the Olde Pink House and the Sturgis house, go across Drayton Street, that will take you back into Johnson Square, where we started.And this brings us to the end of our tour. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've had making it for you. Our main goal was to give you a great introduction to Savannah, and I believe we've done that. I'm going to end by telling you what a good friend of mine, another tour guide, once told a group of us as I was following along. Take your time. Slow down. Enjoy, Savannah. It truly is one of the most wonderful settings in the world, and we want you to have a great time while you're here. Thanks very much. Have a great day.