Ghost City Tours calls Wright Square the place 'where Savannah's story began and never ended,' and its ghost stories are among the oldest in Georgia. Guides point to the southwest corner, where they say the town's first burial ground for white settlers lies partly beneath the buildings. They also tell how Tomochichi's grave was disturbed for the Gordon monument, which some say is why his spirit lingers. Tour lore holds that if you circle his boulder three times saying his name, he may appear.

The square's best-known ghost is Alice Riley. In December 1733 she and Richard White arrived among some 40 starving Irish indentured servants and were bound to William Wise, a cattle farmer on Hutchinson Island whom tour accounts describe as a harsh master. On March 1, 1734, Wise was found drowned, his head in a bucket of water and a neckerchief tied around his neck. Alice and Richard were gone. They were caught and tried in May 1734 and sentenced to death. Alice was pregnant, so her execution was delayed until after the birth. Tour accounts say Wise had raped her. She was hanged on January 19, 1735, still denying the murder, and Richard was hanged the next day. Her baby son, James, died within weeks. Guides note that the magistrate, Thomas Causton, had a reputation for steering juries, and that anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice ran high.

According to local lore, Alice still wanders the square in colonial dress, crying out for her son, and vanishes when anyone tries to help. A story often repeated on tours says visitors have called the police about a distraught woman searching for her child, and veteran officers send rookies who never find her. Some say she has appeared to more people than any other ghost in Savannah. One legend says the Spanish moss that drapes nearly every oak in the city won't grow in Wright Square, because 'Spanish moss will never grow where innocent blood has been spilled.' Others blame a curse she supposedly laid from the gallows.