America's Most Haunted City: Evening Ghost Tours, 1750 Colonial Park Cemetery & The Pirates' House

Savannah is widely known as the Most Haunted City in the United States, rooted in documented history rather than folklore. Across its first 150 years, the port endured devastating 1820 and 1876 Yellow Fever epidemics, the bloody 1779 Revolutionary War Siege of Savannah, and 19th-century expansion that paved streets directly over colonial burial grounds, earning Savannah the nickname 'The City Built on Its Dead'.

1. Walk Through Colonial Park Cemetery by Day (Oglethorpe Ave & Abercorn St)

Located in the middle of the Historic District, 6-acre Colonial Park Cemetery served as the city's primary public burial ground from 1750 until 1853:

• Why Are There Only 1,000 Gravestones When Over 9,000 People Are Buried Here? Walk inside during daylight hours to see two striking details: first, hundreds of broken marble headstones are cemented vertically along the eastern brick wall, placed there in the 1890s after Union soldiers camped in the graveyard in 1864 and storms knocked stones loose (several dates were altered as a camp prank to claim people lived to be 150 years old); second, when the city widened Abercorn Street and Lincoln Street in 1896, crews laid the road and pavement directly over the outer edges of the cemetery without moving the graves beneath.
• The Mass Grave of the 1820 Yellow Fever Victims & Button Gwinnett: near the back wall lies a grass mound marking the mass grave of nearly 700 residents who perished during the Yellow Fever epidemic of autumn 1820, while near the centre stands the monument to Button Gwinnett, signer of the 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence, who died after a 1777 pistol duel.

2. Dine at The Pirates' House (1753) & Pick an Evening Ghost Tour

• The Pirates' House (20 E Broad St): incorporating the 1753 Herb House and expanded into a 15-room labyrinth of low-beamed tavern rooms where 18th-century sailors drank (and where Robert Louis Stevenson set scenes of Treasure Island), it serves signature Pecan-Fried Chicken and Honey-Pecan Cornbread.
• Choosing an Evening Ghost Tour: for historical research on foot after dark, book Genteel & Bard's Dark History Walking Tour, Sixth Sense World or a Haunted Pub Crawl; for theatrical fun, board Old Town Trolley's Ghosts & Gravestones or Hearse Ghost Tours.