Dead men tell no tales or do they.......

I usually try to blog a few haunted stories before Halloween but I only had a chance to tackle two since I have been so busy but they are fantastic haunts and both from Georgia.   

Ghostly chuckles, objects shifting about, and pounding footsteps are just part of what goes on at the very haunted Pirates' House in Savannah, Georgia which today is a very popular restaurant and a museum (kind of).

The food is said to be divine but even the best food will not distract from the paranormal activity the house has to share.  Privateers wandering around in the basement, ghosts of pirates hanging around upstairs, drunken calls from Captain Flint asking for more rum, dining chairs being rearranged nightly, a sense that the spirits are watching you, and a general sense of feeling ill while inside the building have all been reported.

The apparitions haunting The Pirates' House are, of course, you guessed it, blood-thirsty pirates.  It is also said to be visited by seadogs, sailors, and privateers.  Arr!

Back in the day, in 1753, the Pirates' House was a gathering spot for degenerate captains, beastly criminals, merchant marines, intoxicated sea rovers, buccaneers, and a few exceedingly villainous inhabitants of Savannah.

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On a side note, the Pirates' House is the oldest standing building in Georgia.  Amazing, I know!

Savannah is also home to many underground tunnels built underneath the city at different times and for different reasons.  There is a tunnel/basement underneath the Pirates' House which is believed to be used for kidnapping, trafficking liquor, and to dump dead bodies during the Yellow Fever.  This tunnel stretched over a block and opened out near the Savannah River.  Now back to the haunted Pirates' House........Wait a minute, another side note, supposedly  The Pirates’ House was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel, “Treasure Island.”

There is no chance you will see me
in this basement!

Okay, now, because sailing was a risky business to be in, not many would voluntarily head out on these voyages but the ships needed crew members.  The Pirates' House was a good place to "recruit" sailors for the openings that had to be filled.

It was fine if no one was eager to volunteer, captains and crew members of ships would provide unfathomable amounts of the finest rum to the able-bodied men at the Pirates' House in an attempt to get them drunk and then just carry them through the underground tunnel beneath the Pirates' House to their ships waiting at the water's edge of the Savannah River. If this tactic failed, these seafaring scoundrels would simply drug the men or flat out knock them unconscious and hog-tie them in order to carry them off to the high seas.  What ever worked.  This practice was outlawed in 1811 by the way.

The men would wake up to find that they had been taken prisoner and forced to work on the ship of the crew who claimed them.

If they did not want to work, that was fine too!  The nefarious buccaneers had no problem to "blow the man down" because there was always plenty of room for them at Davy Jones' Locker-i.e. they were tossed overboard.  One of the most bizarre tales is that of a local police man who came in for a drink after work, he ended up in China for the next two years.

The main evildoers of these behaviors were the French and English Privateers because they felt that they were above the law.

In fact, many had permission from the English government to attack and plunder enemy ships and slaughter the ship's crew members as long as they shared their ill-gotten booty with the English government.


This was referred to as a letter of marque.   This letter of marque was not a 100% guarantee.  The infamous Scottish sailor, Captain William Kidd, had a letter of marque but his government decided to charge him with piracy and executed him anyway.  Blimey!

Another story goes something like this.  While at the Pirates' House, six American sailors were attacked by French Privateers.  Two of the American sailors died and a French privateer was also killed during the brawl.

Another interesting note, it is said that the famous French privateer, Jean Lafitte, stayed at The Pirates’ House many times between dates aboard ship.  You will not be seeing his ghost there as he is off haunting his blacksmith shop in the French Quarter.  

So that is the end of this.  I would not be surprised by the accounts of unearthly activity being reported given the substantial amount of violent acts that took place at the Pirates' House.  Exaggerated folklore or true story?

Another post about Robert Louis Stevenson here.

More about pirates and Jean Lafitte here.