Day 5: Savannah

After the prior day’s late night ghost tour and a night sleeping in the arguably haunted Marshall House hotel, we had a full day to explore the city of Savannah. We had a good breakfast at the hotel and then set off on foot for a tour of the Owens-Thomas House, before continuing on to the Georgia Railroad Museum.

The Owens-Thomas House

The Owens-Thomas House is one of the historic antebellum mansions that you can tour in the city. The house was built by an English architect William Jay and was first owned by the Richardson family. The Richardsons were planters and unfortunately they only lived there three years after enduring the tragic deaths of the wife Francis and two young daughters.

George Owens was a politician and he bought the house in 1830. He was a US Representative and also the mayor of Savannah. He invited the Marquis de Lafayette to stay in the house and the Marquis delivered a speech from the house.

Unfortunately, you won’t hear much about these families and the sad events that marked their lives, and certainly nothing positive will be said of them on the tour. The families were also slaveholders and the tour guide focused all of her time talking about the slaves and providing a provably distorted history of life in Savannah and the history of the people that built and lived in the house to make it appear as though the slaves were the only intelligent and capable people living in the home.

Yes, I think it is great that the Telfair Museum (who owns the house and runs the tours) puts time into telling the storing of the domestic slaves. That story needs to be told. But that story is now overly embellished and completely dominates the tour narrative.

For instance, the tour guide claimed that tabby was an African invention, and implied it was brought to the Americas by the slaves. While it is true that tabby construction appears to have come originally from North Africa (Morocco), tabby was not brought to America by the slaves.

Tabby is a form of concrete made by burning shells to create lime when added to water. The walls of the house are composed of tabby. Tabby was actually brought to the United States by the Spanish in the 1500s, who inherited the knowledge from the Moors. You can look it up if you want. Even the signage above the tabby display at the house says this.

That is just one of many false assertions made by the tour guide for political correctness. As visitors on the tour we had to go out of our way to ask about the portraits of the daughters in the upstairs bedroom to be told that they had died in a yellow fever epidemic and one of the portraits was made after her death. Sad. But the tour guide didn’t even want to discuss it. Their lives were made to seem completely unimportant beyond their existence as slaveholders.

Slavery was undeniably terrible but let’s also keep some perspective. Slavery existed worldwide in every culture and it was only because of the Enlightenment in Europe in the 1700s and the ensuing abolitionist movements that swept the Americas in the 1800s that it was brought to an end.

What you see in the Owens-Thomas house is a window into a past when slavery was a typical part of life. Just as Mount Vernon was also the plantation home of George Washington who was a slaveholder. But no one is attempting to say that the first president was nothing more than a slaveholder who relied entirely on their skills and expertise and survive. We know better than that.

Again, it’s great to see the names of the slaves that have been documented in the carriage house and to see their living and working quarters. However, the narration of the tour (which evidently changed in 2018 to focus on slavery) needs to be rebalanced to be more historically accurate and to discuss life in the house and in 1800s Savannah more accurately.

We were really quite disappointed with this tour and while I wouldn’t say I don’t recommend visiting (because it is a very interesting house and that includes the slave quarters), the tour is a huge disservice to the visitors who just want to learn honest history.

The Georgia State Railroad Museum

I told my 11-year-old that we would be spending the day walking all over the city and to expect to be tired by the end of the day. The walk from the Owens-House to the Georgia State Railroad Museum is a mile and we made our way there next.

Along the way we enjoyed the many park squares, churches, and moss-laden trees lining the boulevards. Even a lizard made an appearance on a brick facade.

It was unseasonably cold (low 60s) and we were dressed a bit lighter than we thought we would need to be, but we arrived there just fine, hopeful that the museum would be fun and interesting for our railroad enthusiast son.

Our first impression was a little dismal. The visitor center ran an introductory film for guests to view before exiting outside to the museum grounds. We quickly realized, however, that the film was of minimal value. It had little to do with the history of the railroads in Georgia and instead it was an overview of general American history.

We stepped outside and went to the roundhouse where there were several trains arrayed in a semi-circle. We quickly realized the only information about the locomotives was on the paper guide map that they gave us in the gift shop and that there was no signage in any of the various buildings or on the trains.

Unlike many railroad museums, the entire 1800s rail complex is part of the museum and following the map you can learn quite a lot about the service and operation of railroads in the mid 1800s.

I actually found the blacksmith shop with the steam-powered hammer and saws to be the most interesting site in the museum. A huge steam powered engine powered every tool in the building through a shaft that ran from an adjacent building. This was the era before electric power tools completely changed the way that we work.

Overall we found the museum to be interesting, but it still felt as though it could have been presented better. Without the paper guide map you had no way of understanding the museum and it simply looks a bit neglected despite the admission price.

Forsythe Park

After the museum we started back toward the hotel with the intention of getting lunch along the way. Truthfully, we weren’t feeling that enthusiastic about Savannah at this point. Both museums were somewhat of a let down and the overall vibe around the city from people we encountered seemed to be lacking in “Southern Hospitality”.

At this point it was also occurring to me that Savannah wasn’t quite like Charleston or really anywhere else. It felt like a mixture of New Orleans (a city that I visited twice the prior decade) and Charleston or Beaufort. New Orleans is a rougher place with historic charm mixed with tawdriness for those looking to let loose. Charleston is a more stately place with well-kept historic homes and parks. Savannah is the mixture of these two places, with a character all its own.

We found the Savannah Smokehouse BBQ and it was exactly what we needed to get ourselves mentally and physically back on track. Great BBQ pulled pork and I loved the friend green tomatoes. I think I ate the majority of them. Savannah has some great BBQ.

Revitalized after lunch we decided to walk the mile south to Forsythe Park. Forsythe Park is one of the largest parks among the dozens of squares in the city and is famous for the fountain in the middle of the park.

We decided to take the free trolley back to the hotel from the park and after about 10 minutes we caught the trolley as it pulled up on the street beside the park. We rode it to near the hotel then made a detour to Byrd’s Famous Cookies across the street.

We filled a couple boxes with Byrd’s little cookies and then returned to our hotel room to take a little break before finding dinner.

The Olde Pink House Speakeasy

We went out for a nice dinner and drinks in the evening. During the ghost tour the previous day I recalled hearing the tour guide mention the speakeasy hidden under the Olde Pink House and decided to see if we could get in.

Sure enough, there was a 30 minute wait, but we could be seated. When we were called to return they had a really cozy spot for us right in front of the fireplace.

Since my birthday was only a couple days away and I wanted to celebrate with some terrific southern food we imbibed on some cocktails, enjoyed a couple appetizers and had some great main courses. The food and service were terrific, but the atmosphere was really the best part.

I really enjoyed our evening dining at the Pink House speakeasy. It was a bit pricy, but you sometimes have to splurge to have a good time.

This was the Savannah I was looking for and found. When the day comes to go back, we’ll look for more of these atmospheric hideaways.