IGWRT's - Hallow's Edge "432 Calhoun Street, & Friday Flash 55

432 Calhoun, Savannah, GA:  Creepy even during the daylight

432 Calhoun Street

Built upon its dead

is Savannah's prestigious

Calhoun Square,

where, four feet below,

1,000 slave bodies overlap.

432 Calhoun,

built in 1868, a little girl sat

behind windowpane,

tied, punished for playing

with Maussie's "lower-class".

General Wilson, unforgiving,

for days remained angry;

100 degrees, she died.

Her wishes for freedom, heard,

understood by those below.

by Margaret Bednar, 10-31-2012

During a Ghost Walk at Night

This is a retelling of a horrible story that was told to me while I was on a ghost walk in Savannah, GA.  Seriously, I go to these for "fun", but 432 Calhoun Street.... well, I have never been able to forget it.

Savannah had a number of epidemics, and they would put the dead from these and dead slaves on the outskirts of town in mass burials.  The slaves in Calhoun Square are not necessarily under this house, but in the square... probably under the whole area.

Maussie (or Massey? - I've seen both spellings) was a public school built in 1856.  It is open today as a museum for local history and architecture.

What I like about the first video is you get a glimpse of the square (the green park) across the road where the school children would play.  Forward to the end of the video bar if you are interested in that.  The second video is much shorter and does an OK job showcasing the exterior of the mansion.



(neither video was shot by me or anyone I know).



This is linked to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads "Hallow's Edge" AND will be linked with Friday Flash 55 (after 8pm Thursday).  My story is 55 words if you conisider the hyphenated word to be one, not two words :)

HERE is another link to some photos and interesting information about the house.

The very window behind which the little girl died.

432 Calhoun Street -  a bit of the square is visible where the children played.

Do you see a man's face and torso below in the window on the right? (Benjamin Wilson was a General in the Civil War) & perhaps a golden image of a little girl partially turned towards him in the left window (the girls is a stretch of the imagination, for sure)?

I can imagine he stood there, telling his daughter how she should not play with the school children in the square's park as she was from a superior white family...  and then left her to the heat of the Savannah sun beating through the windowpane and a horrible death as she watched her friends playing across the street.  This photo of mine always creeps me out....  Of course, I'm sure it is a reflection... ?  I was also told he hung himself on the floor above when he found out she died.  (His wife had died years earlier from Yellow Fever)

All photos in this post are mine