Dave'n'Kathy's Vagabond Blog: Sunday in Savannah

Back on the road again!

We paused our RV travels for two months in October and November to tend to repairs and upgrades for our new house, and to enjoy a very happy Thanksgiving with our daughter and Kathy's family. Come December 1, we started our trip south to Miami to set the stage for a holiday flight to Lithuania to see our son and his family. We're moving faster than we like, but we give ourselves a rest day in between each short leg of our journey. After a few stops, we are in Savannah, Georgia, one of our favorite cities to visit. Despite the predictions of rain, we got lucky with a warm, humid, but rain-free day in the city.

Savannah is known for its many beautiful squares, most graced with grand old live oaks. One of the squares we visited was Ellis Square, with a grand and colorful Christmas decoration -- and a friendly greeting by a statue of the great composer Johnny Mercer, who wrote, "Moon River," among other familiar songs:

The squares in Savannah provide tranquil places of retreat in an otherwise hectic urban world. Johnson Square offers a pleasant fountain and a monument for contemplation:

We found some flowers blooming and stopped to admire them.

Our goal this morning was to visit the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters. The mansion, built in 1819, is perhaps the most significant architecturally in Savannah, and exemplifies the neoclassical styles popular in England during the period. The Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters allows visitors to explore the complicated relationships between the most and least powerful people in the city of Savannah in the early 19th century.

Here is the view we had of the mansion from the reception area between the mansion and the carriage house:

We took the guided tour, which focuses on the art, architecture, and history of the home through the lens of slavery.

During a renovation of the carriage house in the 1990s, the owners of the site discovered one of the oldest and best preserved urban slave quarters in the American South. The carriage house has been stripped down to the original walls, revealing a blue wash paint used by the slaves to protect against evil spirits, and furnished to illustrate how it might have looked during the carriage house's years as slave quarters:

Here is the view the mansion owners would have had of the carriage house and slave quarters over a more modern parterre garden:

Looking back into the mansion from the portico, the owners would have seen this grand hall, decorated as it was when it was occupied by the original family:

The furnishings and decor are either original to the house or are original to its period, down to a painting of George Washington in the study that was painted by Gilbert Stuart's daughter, copied from an original by her father:

While the main and second floors were fascinating, they were furnished typically for historic mansions of the era. One notable feature was indoor plumbing, including an indoor bathroom, one of the first in North America. Water for use indoors was supplied by cisterns build into the house above the living quarters.

We found the ground floor (it would be the basement if it were below grade) more interesting because of their novel features. One room was a wine cellar and beer cooler:

Another room housed an ice vault, which, constructed entirely of tabby within the walls of the house, had a trap door through which large blocks of ice, transported from the Northeast, were stored to provide refrigeration for food and drink. A more remarkable room was the baths, consisting of four separate bathing rooms, supplied by the internal water system, where family members bathed. The pater et mater familias has their own bath in their bedroom suite. Slaves were required to bathe in the courtyard.

Some of the rooms on the ground floor had windows looking into the other rooms. This window looked out into an adjoining room where a model of the house was displayed:

The owners of the house over the years were highly accomplished gentry of the Savannah community, but built their fortune on slaves in two ways. First, they made wealth by transporting slaves. Second they employed slaves to multiply their wealth in domestic service. The tour gave us a lot to think about.

After the tour, we walked down to the river and strolled River Street, deciding to have a lunch of Southern cuisine at The Shrimp Factory. We can never pass up an opportunity for fried green tomatoes when they are on offer --