After years of leading Savannah Ghost Tours, you pick up a few strange and unusual things about the Hostess City. Here are some of my favorites — each one a little stranger than it first appears.
1 A Cemetery of the Unmarked Dead
There are only 612 grave markers standing in Colonial Park Cemetery — yet an estimated 10,000 people are buried beneath it. In other words, the vast majority of the dead here lie in unmarked ground. Founded in 1750 and closed to burials in 1853, the cemetery lost countless markers over the centuries to weather, neglect, and vandalism, so that today the stones you see represent only a small fraction of the people actually resting there. The cemetery also extends well beyond its current walls; when you walk the Abercorn Street sidewalk along its western edge, you are very likely walking directly over graves.
2 The Grave of Amie Arnold
Here’s a genuine mystery. Colonial Park stopped accepting burials in 1853 — and yet there is a marker in the cemetery for a woman named Amie Arnold, who died in 1872, nearly two decades after the last burial should have taken place. Stranger still, there is no record of her actually being buried here, and no record of her interment in any other Savannah cemetery either. So who was Amie Arnold, and why does her name appear on a stone in a graveyard that had already closed its gates to the dead? To this day, no one has a satisfying answer.
3 Tombs Built Like Beds
Wander Colonial Park and you’ll notice something oddly domestic about many of the crypts: they’re built to resemble beds. There’s a raised “headboard” at one end and a lower “footboard” at the other, echoing the shape of a bed frame — a fitting design for an eternal rest. In earlier days, these bed-shaped tombs were even planted over and draped with creeping vines, so the greenery would drape across the top like a blanket tucked over the sleeping dead. It’s a beautiful, slightly eerie custom you can still see in the cemetery’s older sections.
4 Spanish Moss Isn’t Moss
That silvery gray Spanish moss draping Savannah’s live oaks — the very symbol of the city’s dreamy atmosphere — is not moss at all. It isn’t even Spanish. Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a flowering plant in the Bromeliaceae family, which makes it a close cousin of the pineapple. It’s an epiphyte, meaning it drapes over tree branches for support but takes its water and nutrients from the air and rain rather than from the tree itself. So the next time you admire the moss swaying overhead, remember you’re looking at a relative of the fruit in your fruit salad.
5 Did John Wilkes Booth Perform Here?
Everyone remembers John Wilkes Booth as the man who assassinated President Lincoln — but he came from a famous family of actors. His older brother, the great tragedian Edwin Booth, performed at the Historic Savannah Theatre, and it’s long been said that John Wilkes Booth may have taken the stage there too while visiting his brother. The theatre’s own history treats it as plausible but unconfirmed, which only adds to the intrigue: one of history’s most infamous men may once have trod the boards on Chippewa Square.
6 Jenny’s Address Doesn’t Exist
Forrest Gump famously filmed its bench scenes right here on Chippewa Square in 1994. Fans of the movie sometimes try to track down Jenny’s Savannah address, given in the film as 1947 Henry Street. You’ll never find it, though — it’s a fictional address that doesn’t correspond to any real house. (The bench itself, by the way, was a movie prop; it now lives in a Savannah museum, not on the square.)
7 The Girl Scouts’ Founder in Laurel Grove
Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912, was born right here in Savannah in 1860. Her birthplace on Bull Street is now a National Historic Landmark and a place of pilgrimage for Girl Scouts from across the country. After her death in 1927, she was laid to rest in Savannah’s Laurel Grove Cemetery — and, fittingly, she was reportedly buried in her Girl Scout uniform.
8 The Murder Behind “Delia”
The haunting folk songs “Delia” and “Delia’s Gone” — recorded over the decades by Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash — are based on a real Savannah tragedy. On Christmas Eve of 1900, a 14-year-old girl named Delia Green was shot and killed after an argument at a holiday party in the city’s Yamacraw neighborhood. Her death might have been forgotten entirely if not for the ballads that grew up around it, carrying her name from Savannah all the way to the Bahamas and back through the folk revival of the 1950s and ’60s. Delia herself rests in Laurel Grove Cemetery, and the songs keep her memory alive more than a century later.
Know another strange fact about Savannah? Share it in the comments below — we’re always collecting more.
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Chris Allen is the founder of Destination Ghost Tours, a historian and storyteller with a lifelong fascination for the darker corners of history. He spends his time uncovering the true stories behind haunted legends, guiding guests through historic cities, and chasing down details that refuse to stay buried. When he is not working, he can usually be found with his partner Arissa, their dog Bear, and their two cats, Trouble and Covu, photographing old places, digging through archives, or disappearing into historical rabbit holes. He believes the best history is honest, atmospheric, and just unsettling enough to linger.