Savannah, Georgia, is considered to be one of the most haunted cities in America, and rightfully so. Established in 1733, Savannah’s haunted history includes secrets of sea-weary pirates, romantic tales of forbidden lovers, and prominent inhabitants that simply refuse to leave their gorgeous Georgian mansions. 

Fairly harmless and “Casper-friendly,” right? 

Right. 

Or so I thought.

Within the city’s beautiful backdrop of brick-paved streets, breathtaking architecture, moss-draped oaks, and perfectly polished squares harbor quite an eccentric past. You’d be hard-pressed not to hear a ghostly tale or two of just about every location within the alluring historic district and beyond. 

Now being in such an extraordinary city as Savannah scheduling an evening ghost tour, in my mind, was a no-brainer.

I immediately contacted Ghost City Tours, Savannah’s #1 ghost tour company since 2012, and the most recognized name in paranormal tourism around the world. 

Ghost City offers four unique Savannah tours ranging anywhere from family-friendly to late-night pub crawls for the 21+ crowd. 

I opted for Ghost City’s “Beyond Good and Evil Tour.” 

I chose this particular tour because one of its stops highlights The Hamilton-Turner Inn,  the award-winning Second Empire Historic Inn mansion that I just so happened to be staying at while visiting Savannah. 

I thought it’d be fun.

After making arrangements with Ghost City, I did happen to notice that this particular tour was rated for those over the age of 16. 

It was just a ghost tour, after all, I’d been on several, how bad could it possibly be?  

The Beyond Good & Evil Tour

Shortly after 9 p.m., my husband and I returned to The Hamilton-Turner Inn to enjoy their late-night port and cookies and to kill some time before our Ghost City Tour began. 

The Inn was quiet as most of the guests were already in their rooms for the night, and the Inn’s turn-down service had already taken place. 

We returned to our room to freshen up, and I went to the bathroom to (literally) powder my nose. After doing so, I washed my hands and reached up to grab one of the two clean and folded washcloths from the shelf to dry them. After doing so, I then folded the washcloth and placed it beside the sink in anticipation of using it again when I returned that evening.

 I say all this seemingly irrelevant information for a reason, which I will explain later.

We then exited our room, leaving The Hamilton-Turner and lightheartedly headed down Abercorn Street toward Colonial Park Cemetery, where our “Beyond Good and Evil Tour” was about to begin. I never imagined the disturbed frame of mind to which we would both be returning.

Outside the gates of Colonial Park Cemetery stood Zach Keller, our master tour guide and storyteller for Ghost City’s “Beyond Good and Evil Tour.” 

Once everyone arrived, Zach was upfront with us. He stated that this tour would definitely be different from the one he had just finished up with a bunch of girl scouts earlier in the evening. 

In other words, it wasn’t for the faint of heart- thus the 16+ rating. 

He went on to warn us that there would be no sugar-coating on this tour. We would be hearing, of course, ghost stories, but also some disturbing history, and all sprinkled with some true Savannah crime. 

Nervous laughter could be heard throughout the group.

“Good intro,” I thought, chuckling to myself. 

Many claim that Savannah, Georgia, may even be the most haunted city in America… Why?

For one, there are endless ghost stories surrounding this city; for another, there’s plenty of the deceased to back them up.

According to a representative with the City of Savannah Cemeteries Division, between the five city-owned cemeteries (Colonial Park, Laurel Grove North, Laurel Grove South, Bonaventure, and Greenwich) there are just over 145,000 burials; coincidentally the current living population in Savannah today. 

But that figure just represents the burials we know about, the ones that have been marked and recorded. 

Colonial Park Cemetery

Colonial Park Cemetery is the oldest standing burial ground in the entire state of Georgia. 

Colonial Park began accepting burials in 1750. Savannah was founded in 1733. Back then, the dead were buried at the south end of what is now Wright Square. As the city began to grow, those burials were exhumed and moved into Colonial Park. 

Unfortunately, Colonial’s 7-acre plot soon became more than full with the masses of deaths occurring at that time, many due to yellow fever. 

Caskets were stacked on top of each other while numerous mass graves were dug as people were dying so rapidly. 

According to one doctor’s account recorded in 1820, a large pit was dug at Colonial Park and left open for about a month as bodies were added daily, filling the city with a putrid stench. 

Colonial Park was eventually condemned for burials even before The Civil War. Poor record-keeping, along with the many fires that ravaged the city, made tallying the dead in Savannah nearly impossible. 

“I cannot stress to you just how full this graveyard is.” 

According to Zach, a historical survey was performed in 1999 to get a rough estimate of how many bodies were buried in Colonial Park.

Finding the 600 marked graves was the easy part. The unmarked graves, not so much. 

Thanks to modern-day technology and surveyors constantly working in10 hour shifts for 21 days straight, some astonishing results were produced.

There was evidence of 8,678 unmarked graves. Adding in at least 2 additional mass graves that were found, their total estimate ranged somewhere between 9,000 to 11,000 people buried just within Colonial’s tiny plot of land.

Savannah’s soft soil also contributes to the difficulty in accurately assessing the number of the dead as buried bodies tend to shift and move over time. 

Because of this, and unknowing to the city, many streets were paved, sidewalks poured, and squares built over some of these past colonial citizens that were buried without record. 

“The thing is, you’ve been walking on the dead all day long without even realizing it.”

Finding remains of these long-forgotten citizens are still occurring today. In 2016 after Hurricane Matthew, the receding floodwaters uncovered more bones of past residents.

Zach went on to describe different hauntings and paranormal activity within the walls of Colonial Park as well as all over the city. And just in case you should show the slightest sign of disbelief, Zach can produce some pretty mind-blowing evidence to convince you otherwise.

We moved onto Lafayette Square while carefully walking among the uneven bricks and sidewalks, wondering what, or who, we might be treading upon…

And then, there it was. The enchanting Hamilton-Turner House.

Zach told of the two more popular Hamilton-Turner haunts, both of which died right on the property.

First, there was the rough and rowdy police sentry Dennis Edwards who was hired to guard the Victorian mansion; next, that of the little girl who tragically plummeted down the steps while playfully rolling billiard balls from the second floor.

Both of these were, luckily, reasonably lighthearted stories.  Zach entwined rumors of the smell of Dennis’s cheap cigars and his habit of displacing things within the rooms, combined with the sights and sounds of the little girl and her giggles and billiard balls rolling down the steps.

As I stood with the group in the center of Lafayette Square, I gazed up to our third-floor bay window in the Mary Telfair Suite. I anticipated, almost knew, that within seconds, I would see the movement of the heavy drapes sway to reveal the face of either Dennis Edwards or the little girl staring back at me. Of course, neither appeared. 

 As we traveled on past The Hamilton-Turner House, the “Casper-friendly” atmosphere slowly started to evolve into a darker tone as Zach’s next few tales grew grimmer.

Towards the end of the evening, Zach informed us that we were headed to the most notoriously haunted building in the city. 

“Bingo! Double-bonus!” I thought.

 As we trailed down Abercorn Street, the “Haunted Haunts” wheel in my mind started churning. “Why not highlight an entire article on this one particular building?” 

I’d hit my October jackpot! 

As we approached this particular building, Zach semi-jokingly referred to it as an “occupational hazard” for him.  He then explained that he would remain with his back to this building as he told us its story. 

And here’s why:

You see, this building is attached to some pretty bad juju. So bad, that construction companies have refused, even after being offered top dollar, to go into this house to do renovations. In fact, the building has remained unoccupied for the last 38 years. It was just recently sold to a new owner.

I motioned for my husband to take a picture. Zach quickly interrupted to explain that he’s had people on this tour become sick, dizzy, nauseous, and even literally pass-out after merely looking at this house. 

He’s had others that have felt being pushed, grabbed at, and had their hair pulled. Some even having physical marks left on their bodies as proof. Others have gone home to experience a sense of doom and severe depression that lasted for days on end, all happening after having contact with this house.

Zach admits he was once physically scratched while at this location, thus refusing to even lay eyes upon it. 

He went on to say that another guide that has been with Ghost City for 8 years now, absolutely refuses to come to this house as he was getting scratched on a regular basis.

My husband put down his camera as one of the girls in the bridal party within our tour group was almost in tears. 

The apparition that many have claimed to have seen at this spot is that of a little girl sitting in a top floor window. Zach went on to say that often times, darker entities tend to use something innocent at first as a decoy. He then shared some very distressing stories associated with this house.

As Zach bid us all farewell, our group dispersed as we all went our separate ways down the dark, deserted, and silenced streets of Savannah. 

For us, it was back to The Hamilton-Turner House. 

My husband and I returned to our room, unsettled. Not being able to exit our minds of the tales we had just heard, about the most infamously haunted house in Savannah that stood in the dark just a few blocks away. 

As disturbed as we both were, we continued to talk about it; think about it. It was as if the place and its legend had taken hold of our thoughts, making it impossible to escape. 

It was very late. We both agreed we needed to just go to bed and forget about it.

My husband turned on the television, and I retreated back to the bathroom to change and get ready for bed.

I splashed my face with cold water in an attempt to exit the racing and troubling thoughts. I reached for the washcloth I had folded by the sink earlier. 

It wasn’t there. 

I looked on the floor. 

It wasn’t there either.

I looked back at the bare sink counter and then onto the shelf, almost second-guessing what I knew I had done earlier. As I presumed, only one of the folded set remained. 

Where was it?

I went out into the room and began searching on the nightstand, the dresser, the table. 

In desperation, I even began tearing up my suitcase, knowing full well, I did not exit the bathroom with it. 

But where was it? It had to be in the room.

 My husband asked what I was looking for. Seeing how frantic I was in my quest to find the missing washcloth, he began to help me look for it. 

Nowhere. 

I then turned around to look back in the bathroom to double-check, just one more time, that it had not fallen on the floor unnoticed. 

Nothing. 

Instead, my eyes locked on the bathroom counter. There beside the sink was a folded white washcloth.

Fear washed over me. 

I walked out of the bathroom, and my face apparently displayed the shock I felt as my husband looked at me in panic.

I stood there frozen. But just for a second.

I then realized that in the middle of my frenzied state to locate the missing washcloth, I must have grabbed the other one from the shelf, drying off my face in the process.

The mind is a powerful thing. And subconsciously, it can seriously mess with you, if you let it- given the circumstances are right.

Combine that with tales told by a master storyteller, it can downright terrify you. I know this, because the circumstances were right for me that night, and I let it.

I know what you’re thinking, “Haha. The joke’s on you, Val.”

But that still doesn’t explain what happened to the original washcloth, now does it? 

I never found it. And believe me, I tore up everything looking, even continuing the search long after I got home!

Could Dennis have been messing with me? 

Possibly. But I sure hope it “reappeared” before the staff at the Hamilton-Turner did a washcloth count after the Archual’s stay in The Mary Telfair Suite.

While writing this article, especially when coming to the part of the disturbing house in question, I had many unexplained and down-right eerie circumstances occur- and they were a far stretch from missing washcloths. 

And so, I decided not to research this particular building.

I decided not to post a picture, not to reveal the address, and I most certainly would not dedicate a whole blog to it. 

I decided not to give it any extra attention.

No way. 

“Let sleeping dogs lie,” I say.

But if you, my reader, are curious, Ghost City Tours and Zach would be happy to tell you all about it. With caution, of course.

Ghost City offers year-round tours to some of the most haunted destinations in the world.

Click here to get information or to schedule your tour today.

Happy Hauntings!