Haunted Sites
Summoning the spirits…
Photo: Bubba73 (Jud McCranie) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Telfair Square
Meeting point for Afterlife Tours and a stop on the Ghosts & Gravestones route, next to the William Jay-designed Telfair Academy.
- Address
- Barnard St between W State St & W 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
Telfair Square was laid out in 1733 as one of Savannah's first four squares. It was first called St. James Square, after the London green space, and was one of early Savannah's most fashionable addresses. In 1883 it was renamed for the Telfair family, and it is the only square named for a family rather than a person or an event. The family included Governor Edward Telfair, his son Congressman Thomas Telfair, and his daughter Mary Telfair (1791–1875), who left the family mansion and her fortune to create what is now Telfair Museums.
The oldest building on the square is the Telfair Academy, built in 1818–1820 to a design by the English architect William Jay. It opened as a museum in the 1880s and is considered the oldest public art museum in the South. The square also has tributes to the Girl Scouts and to the chambered nautilus. Liberty Square, which once stood to the west, was paved over long ago. Telfair Square is public and open at all hours, and the Academy is a museum with regular visiting 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.
Telfair Square is where several evening ghost tours meet, including Afterlife Tours' walks, and it is a stop on the Ghosts & Gravestones trolley. Its best-known legend belongs to the mansion on its west side. According to local lore, Mary Telfair, who left her home to become a museum, still keeps an eye on it. Tour accounts and visitors describe quick footsteps when someone sits on furniture that's meant to be off-limits, sudden cold spots and drafts, and the feeling of being watched in the galleries. Some lore holds that Miss Telfair disapproves of parties in her house, and one story says a fundraiser was rained out by a sudden storm.
Other stories told on the square draw on the paved-over squares and cemeteries of the old west side, a theme Afterlife Tours returns to on its walks.
What to see
- Trinity Methodist Church
- Telfair Academy
- Robert Walker Row House
- Henry Hayme Building
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.
