Haunted Sites
Summoning the spirits…
Photo: Seasider53 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Columbia Square
A square ringed by the Kehoe House and Davenport House, named by Ghost City Tours among Savannah's most haunted public spaces.
- Address
- Habersham St between E State St & E President St, Savannah, GA 31401
- Hours
- Check the official website or call ahead for current hours.
- Admission
- Free (public square).
- Access
- open to public (city square)
The real history
About the place
Columbia Square was laid out in 1799 on Habersham Street and named for Columbia, the poetic personification of the United States. The fountain at its center once stood at Wormsloe, the estate of Noble Jones, one of Georgia's first settlers. It was moved here in 1970 to honor his descendants Augusta and Wymberly De Renne, and it is known as the 'rustic fountain' for its carved vines, leaves and flowers.
This square is where Savannah's preservation movement began. In the 1950s the Isaiah Davenport House (c. 1820) on the square had decayed into a rooming house and was slated for demolition. In 1955 seven women bought it to save it, which led to the founding of the Historic Savannah Foundation. The foundation has since saved hundreds of buildings and still has its office on the square. A plan in the 1940s to turn the Habersham Street squares into a through road was defeated, and a monument to the seven founders was commissioned in 2024.
The square is also home to the 17Hundred90 Inn, its oldest building, and to both of William Kehoe's houses: 130 Habersham (1885) and the larger Kehoe House (1892), now an inn. It is a public square, open at all hours.
Local legend
The Ghost Story
Told here as local lore, the way guides, books and visitors tell it. These are legends, not established fact.
Ghost City Tours says the square itself is ghost-free as far as anyone knows. It's the houses around it that make Columbia Square one of the most storied corners of haunted Savannah. To the east once lay the Eastern Commons, a district of boarding houses, taverns, grog shops and bordellos for much of the 19th century. Guides say the area's rough past and its many near-demolitions left plenty of restless spirits behind.
On a single walk around the fountain, guides can point to three famous stories. At the Kehoe House, guests describe children laughing and running in the halls, and a phantom touch in the night. At the 17Hundred90 Inn, 'Anne' is said to sob in Room 204 and tug at guests' sheets. At the Davenport House, tour lore says Irish families who crowded into it in the famine years left their echoes behind.
What to see
- Isaiah Davenport House
- Kehoe House
- Frederick Heineman House
- Abraham Sheftall House
- Thomas Morgan House
- Jerome H. Wilson Property
- Joseph Gammon Property
- Francis M. Stone House
Named in the Wikipedia article cited below.
Tips
- Savannah's squares are public spaces you can walk through at any time.
- Featured on 2 ghost tours; see the links below.
