The Sorrel-Weed House

Savannah, Georgia, may be the most haunted city in America. That’s not my claim; it’s the city’s own boast, and it has the tour companies to prove it. On any given night, you can see groups of tourists wandering beneath the Spanish moss with guides holding lanterns, stopping in front of old houses and listening to stories of yellow fever, duels, pirates and Civil War dead.

Savannah was laid out in 1733 around a grid of public squares, each one a small green park surrounded by grand houses and churches. Many of those squares were built near or over burial grounds, and the city has suffered fires, epidemics, hurricanes and war. It’s a city full of the dead.

One of the most frequently visited houses on the ghost tours sits on Madison Square: a grand, coral-colored Greek Revival mansion with tall columns and a wide portico. It is known as the Sorrel-Weed House.

The Merchant

The house was built in 1840 for Francis Sorrel, a wealthy merchant and shipping agent who had been born in the Caribbean, in what is now Haiti, and who made his fortune in Savannah’s busy cotton trade. It was designed by the architect Charles Cluskey, and it was one of the finest homes in the city: an elegant blend of Greek Revival and Regency styles, with a grand double parlor, high ceilings, marble mantels and an enclosed courtyard with a carriage house in back.

Like most wealthy households in antebellum Savannah, the Sorrels’ home was run by enslaved people, who lived in quarters above the carriage house.

Francis Sorrel was married twice. His first wife died in 1822. He then married her younger sister, Matilda. They had several children. One of his sons, Gilbert Moxley Sorrel, would become a Confederate general.

According to family history, General Robert E. Lee visited the Sorrel family in the early years of the Civil War, when he was in Savannah overseeing coastal defenses.

Matilda

What happened next became the foundation of the house’s legend.

Matilda Sorrel died in 1860, after a fall from an upper floor. Accounts differ on whether it happened in this house or in a neighboring house the family moved into after selling this one to Henry Weed in 1859. The circumstances have been debated ever since.

According to the story told on Savannah’s ghost tours, Matilda had discovered that her husband was involved with one of the enslaved women in the household, a young woman often called Molly. Devastated, Matilda threw herself from the balcony into the courtyard below. Not long after, the legend says, Molly was found hanged in her quarters above the carriage house. Some versions say she took her own life; others suggest she was killed.

I want to be careful here. I’ve found no historical evidence for the existence of Molly, or for the affair, or for a second death in the carriage house. The story may be entirely invented, or built from rumors that grew up long after the fact. What we do know is that Matilda Sorrel died after a fall, and that her death was a tragedy for her family.

But it’s worth noting, as with other legends in this book, how often haunted-house stories place an enslaved woman at the center of a scandal and give her a terrible death. Those stories say more, perhaps, about the people who tell them than about the people who lived there.

Ghost Hunters

The Sorrel-Weed House became nationally famous in the 2000s, when it was investigated on the paranormal television series Ghost Hunters. During the investigation, the team recorded what they said was a woman’s voice and the sound of a scuffle in the carriage house, along with what sounded like a woman’s screams. The episode was one of the most talked-about in the series.

Since then, the house has become one of the most popular stops on Savannah’s ghost tours. Visitors report a wide range of experiences.

In the main house, people describe the sound of a party: glasses clinking, music playing, voices laughing and talking in the empty parlors, as if one of the Sorrels’ grand antebellum gatherings were still going on. In the carriage house, they report a heavy, oppressive feeling, cold spots, and sometimes a sense of terrible sadness. Some say they feel a hand on their shoulder, or hear a woman crying. Some visitors have reported seeing a woman’s figure at an upper window.

A House Divided

The Sorrel-Weed House was later owned by Henry D. Weed, a businessman who gave the house the second half of its name. It passed through other owners in the twentieth century, and was at one point used for businesses, including shops on the ground floor. It was eventually restored and opened to the public as a museum.

It’s a beautiful house, and its tours tell its full history: the architecture, the Sorrel family, the Civil War, and the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked there.