We walked a lot in Savannah. As I said in my entry on Monday, we stayed at the Hilton DeSoto hotel in the heart of the Savannah Historic District. We could walk for 15 to 20 minutes in either direction from the hotel and traverse a good portion of the Historic District. While the weather was good for us a large portion of the time, there were a couple mornings where we had a little rain and a lot of fog. But that really didn't deter us from taking off and walking around the Historic District. I mean, it's Savannah - it should be muggy!
This one particular morning, we decided to take a walk south of our hotel and look at a number of points of interest. Literally right across the street and down a half-block from the hotel was the famous Sorrell-Weed House. Savannah is big on ghosts, voo-doo and the supernatural. They have tours at night to take people around to some of these places where ghosts have appeared. It's big business, but you wouldn't catch me on one of those tours. Still, the Sorrell-Weed house is sort of the epicenter in Savannah of all things ghosts and the para-normal. The house, which dates back to 1840, has been featured on a number of television programs investigating the super-natural. But to me, the house represented more of an architecture masterpiece than someplace I'd go to see ghosts.
One of the many surprises we found in Savannah was the Savannah College of Art and Design, also known as SCAD. We had seen these "SCAD Security" cars driving through the neighborhoods from time to time, saw some buildings that had "SCAD" on them throughout the Historic District and not far from our hotel was the main offices for SCAD. It turns out that SCAD, which was established in 1978, has a student population of around 8,000 in Savannah. They also have a campus in Atlanta, a campus in LaCoste, France and are soon to open a campus in Hong Kong. The joke we heard more than once about the Savannah School of Art and Design was it was originally called the Savannah School of Art and Music, but parents had a hard time making tuition checks out to SCAM.
SCAD's curriculum is unique and diversified. Not only do they have a world-class art and design program, they have a wonderful architecture and restoration program. In fact, many of the older commercial buildings around the city have been bought and restored by the college and many of them are used for classrooms.
The second weekend we were in Savannah, it was SCAD's graduation and the actress Glenn Close was in town to give the commencement address to the 2009 graduating class of 1500 students. The Savannah School of Art and Design has students from all 50 states and around 35 countries attending school in Savannah. We saw a lot of Asian students in town while we were there.
At the bar in the Hilton DeSoto one evening, we met and talked with a guy by the name of Zig Jackson who was a professor of photography at SCAD. He was a pretty interesting guy. It turns out that he's also somewhat famous. Zig Jackson was born on an Indian reservation in North Dakota and his photography of Native American contemporary scenery is featured in the Library of Congress. In fact, he is the first Native American to have pictures permanently displayed at the Library of Congress. Had we not had dinner reservations, we may have just sat and talked to the guy all night long. He was a wealth of interesting information about Savannah and the school. Click on his name above and it will take you to his web site which has a number of his photographs displayed.
Moving on a little further down the way, we came across the Green-Meldrim mansion. The mansion's claim to historical fame was that it was the local headquarters for Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman during his famous "March to the Sea" during the American Civil War. If you remember your grade school history, Sherman's task was to literally burn and destroy everything in his path on his way to the Atlantic Ocean. When he got to Savannah, he found the city to have such a natural and architectural beauty that he couldn't bring himself to destroy any of the buildings. He promptly went north and burned down Charleston, SC instead. I understand that still sticks in the craw of many people in Charleston who view Savannah as somewhat of a rival.
At the far south end of the Historic District is the famous Forsyth Park. This 20 acre park was laid out by the city of Savannah in 1851. Not only does it have the usual tree lined walk ways and memorials like many of the other small park squares in Savannah, it also boasts two large fields that were used as training grounds for soldiers back in the 1800's. The park is the south border of Savannah's Historic District and is the entry point to the city's Victorian District. Any large outdoor event that is held in Savannah is staged at Forsyth Park.
The most famous icon in the park - well, quite possibly in the city of Savannah - is the Forsyth Park Fountain. This white cast iron fountain was designed and built in the late 1850's and was designed after the fountain at the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The fountain had fallen into disrepair over the years and finally was renovated 20 years ago. We were sort of lucky to get some great pictures of the fountain because the fog was just getting ready to lift and there were hardly any people around the park. The tranquil beauty of the park was very cool. We lingered quite a bit around the fountain just taking in the sight.
At the far south end of the park are the two huge open fields. Right in the middle of the open fields is the Confederate Monument - a rather imposing memorial that rises nearly 40 feet into the air. The story behind the monument is that a group of people from the former Confederate states commissioned a Canadian artist to design and build the memorial to slain Confederate soldiers. The stone was mined in Canada, the full monument was built in Canada, and it was shipped via boat to Savannah because the people putting up the money for the monument didn't want it to touch "Yankee" soil. It was dedicated in 1879. The city of Savannah put a fence around the monument a number of years ago to keep people from climbing the monument and to keep its architectural integrity. In other words, there had been some vandalism to the monument over the years. Actually, it's a pretty impressive monument.
As I said, the large fields on the south end of the park were used as staging and training areas for both Federal and Confederate soldiers in the 1800's and early 1900's. There were two mock forts that were built on the north end of the large field just after the turn of the 20th century that were used to train soldiers on attacking and holding their positions. This is the east side fort undergoing an extensive restoration. Word is that it is going to be turned into a restaurant, but I couldn't get a confirmation on that.
The west fort was renovated in the early 60's and now houses a beautiful garden called "The Garden of Fragrance." Inside the walls of the old fort is a large garden full of roses and other fragrant flowers. Originally built as a garden for the blind, it, too, had fallen into disrepair and was renovated about six or seven years ago. The only problem was that it was gated shut and we couldn't walk around inside. But being the rose and flower people that we are, Cindy and I were both amazed at how wonderful the garden was. We had made a promise to ourselves to come back later on when the gates were open, but we never did make it back.
Just across the street from Forsyth Park stands another icon in Savannah, the Candler Oak. This live oak tree is said to be close to 275 years old. The trunk is 16 feet around, the crown of the tree is about 110 feet across and it stands about 50 feet tall. Live oak wood was used by shipbuilders in the 1700's and 1800's because of the strength and resilience of the wood. The Candler Oak was part of a five acre area set aside a number of years ago to keep some of the older live oak trees from being cut down to be used in ships and boats.
Walking back toward the hotel, we went through Monterey Square to take in the Pulaski Monument, a memorial to Polish General Casimir Pulaski who fought on the side of the American patriots during the Revolutionary War. One peculiar thing I found about the 21 original squares in Savannah was that while nearly each of them had a monument or a memorial fountain in the middle of the park, sometimes the monument didn't match up with the park's name. Example, there is a Pulaski Square, but the monument to Pulaski is in Monterey Square. There is an Oglethorpe Square, named after the founder of Savannah, James Oglethorpe, but the Oglethorpe monument is in Chippewa Square. I found it to be rather peculiar they did it that way. We took dozens of pictures of the fountains and monuments in many of the squares. We could have easily spent just one day going around to all the squares and reading about the monuments and memorials.
I could go on and on talking about Savannah, about how it has one of the largest per capita Scottish and Irish populations in the nation; how the Savannah St. Patrick's Day Parade is second in size to only the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City; and how they live life in a laid-back, easy going pace that may people refer to as the "Slow-vannah Way". Savannah was truly a mystical, magical and enchanting place. We were smitten with the city so much that we canceled a proposed trip to Charleston, SC and went back to Savannah to spend the rest of our vacation after a couple three days on Hilton Head Island. If you ever get the chance to go to Savannah, do it!
i posted on trip advisor about my ghost sighting experience on the 11th floor in our room of the desoto hilton hotel in 2009.. i believe it was in March or April that year but i posted it, like the next day or two while the experience was fresh.. lol
she woke me up with two taps on my right shoulder!!
i thought it was my husband, and as i turned to see what he wanted i saw a young ghostly girl about 8? hovering above me, i was so shocked i shut my eyes for a few seconds to get the courage up to open my eyes again, thinking she would be gone when i opened my eyes again.. i peeked my eyes open and she smiled and took her fingers and moved my bangs to the side of my face.. she was grayish blue, but solid from the end of her turn of the century dress or gown up.. but clearer down to her feet while floating directly above me.. i closed my eyes, again, quickly after i felt her touch my hair and face with her fingers..
and just lie there for a second to make sure that when i opened my eyes again, she would be gone.. She was! the whole room was lit up like the light was on.. I saw my glasses, my husband's wallet, keys, all by the tv in front of the bed.. i am near sighted so i am legally blind, but could see in 20/20 vision every detail of the room for a couple of minutes.. i looked at my husband turned toward the door to the right still, snd thought, should i wake him??? lol. He had to be at work at 7am the next day, so i let him sleep.. He is like me, used to seeing or hearing things like this..
Spirits are good and bad all around us..
that not my only experience that night, but maybe you can find my old remarks and read the rest of what happened leading up to the visitor in my room at around 1:00am.. lol
best night ever
oh, definitely take the walking tour at 9:30pm
some times you see or feel things, and sometimes you do not..
its up to the spirits.. we can not predict, just keep an open mind.. because without that, your chances are less of seeing something..
Posted by: Rhonda Klees | December 18, 2020 at 09:52 PM